Fighting poverty

Poverty-alleviating solutions in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda

Six social entrepreneurs who are addressing pressing poverty challenges through market-based approaches have been selected for this year’s MIT D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellowship, which is open to both MIT graduates and alumni of the D-Lab-affiliated International Development Design Summit (IDDS).

The 2017 fellows include Tunde Alawode PhD ’17, Honey Bajaj SM ’17, and Rebecca Hui MCP ’17,

2017-08-27T09:56:51-05:00Tags: |

The million dollar incentive to change the world

How would you improve the lives of those living in crowded urban spaces if you had $US1 million? UNSW students will have the chance to answer to this question at the Hult Prize competition, hosted for the first time at UNSW.

The Hult Prize is the world’s largest student social enterprise competition, with a prize of

2017-08-21T04:58:01-05:00Tags: |

J-PAL North America partners with local governments to tackle homelessness and reduce incarceration

J-PAL North America, a research center at MIT, announced today that it will partner with three city and county governments to evaluate promising solutions to homelessness and other important policy challenges facing state and local governments in the U.S. The City of Baltimore, Maryland; King County, Washington; and Santa Clara County, California, will work with

2017-07-03T17:21:16-05:00Tags: |

Underprivileged teenagers more likely to give up their university ambitions

Early intervention to maintain and raise expectations could increase the number of teenagers from less privileged backgrounds entering higher education, a new study published in the Oxford Review of Education suggests.

The research, which analysed how young people’s expectations of applying to university change between the ages of 14 and 17, found that those from less

2017-06-27T08:42:33-05:00Tags: |

Energy security key to eliminating poverty in Africa

GANDHINAGAR: Union minister for new and renewable energy, Piyush Goyal, launched the third ‘Scaling Up Minigrids and Microgrids’ programme, under International Solar Alliance (ISA) at the ongoing annual meetings of African Development Bank in Gandhinagar, on Wednesday.

Goyal urged African nations to participate more actively in the international solar alliance

2017-06-08T11:13:51-05:00Tags: , , |

How poverty makes people less likely to vote

When the polling stations open next month, it is likely that many of the poorest people will stay away. Britain’s democracy is a divided one. At the 2010 general election, there was a gaping 23 percentage points gap between the turnout of the richest and poorest income groups. Why? Because those living in poverty who

2017-05-18T07:21:47-05:00Tags: |

Getting Kinky with Chickens

“Chickens versus cash” might be the “best investment” for a very narrow question, but I argue it probably isn’t in the top 100 value for money research questions in development economics.

In a recent article in Vox discussing Bill Gates’ commitment to chickens as a high impact poverty intervention Chris Blattman made the following statement

10-cent DryCard to Help Farmers Keep Harvest Safe From Mold

Molds that contaminate dry foods, especially ground nuts and maize cause significant postharvest losses in the developing world.  Mold contamination results in poor flavor, loss of dry matter, and most importantly, is a health hazard.  Aflatoxin, produced by several fungi, contaminates up to one quarter of the world’s food crops and is a particular problem

2017-03-10T08:53:51-06:00Tags: |

India: High-tech sensors to monitor low-tech cook stoves

High-tech wireless sensors that measure cook stove usage can make cleaner cooking technologies more affordable for the global poor, a study finds.

The study, jointly conducted by researchers from the US-based Nexleaf Analytics and the University of California San Diego and the India-based The Energy and Resources Institute, supports climate financing efforts to encourage the use

2022-07-05T09:44:29-05:00Tags: , |

Could Handing Out Money End Poverty?

Finland is the latest country in the news for test-driving an elegantly simple anti-poverty plan. Starting in 2017, it will hand out money to 2,000 randomly selected Finns who are out of work. The government will spend two years studying whether recipients use the windfall for breathing

2017-02-23T09:47:44-06:00Tags: |

Why the war on poverty failed — and what to do now

Last summer, Black Lives Matter presented an extensive platform of remedies for the crisis in black America. A time traveler from 1964, if given a printed-out copy of this platform, could have mistaken it as an archival document from the Johnson administration’s “war on poverty” — that is, jobs programs, educational reform, mental health services,

2017-02-23T09:52:10-06:00Tags: , |

Why Mental Bandwidth Could Explain the Psychology Behind Poverty

In her recent paper, “The Psychological Lives of the Poor,” Schofield, a professor in the department of medical ethics and health policy at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and a operations, information, and decisions professor at Wharton, and her co-authors — economists Frank Schilbach of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sendhil Mullainathan of

2017-02-23T09:53:24-06:00Tags: , |

How You Can Help End Energy Poverty Now

One of the greatest gifts we can give is to help end poverty around the world: a challenge of overwhelming dimensions. But a crucial step is access to energy. I’ve provided links below to 25 organizations which are working to end energy poverty now. They can all benefit from your help and generosity.

Imagine life without

2017-02-23T10:01:49-06:00Tags: , |
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