Digital Archive....

10 Business Blogs in East Africa Bankelele There are quite a few business blogs in East Africa, worthy of reading. In fact, there are way more, than 10, but that's a catchy title for the search engines. Here's a list of some business blogs found in over 10 categories , but feel free to add more in the comments section. Architecture/Infrastructure :  - Architecture Kenya   is about architecture in Kenya and tracks large projects.  - East African Energy is about energy issues. - new   Tom Makau on telecoomunications and the Power industry - Thika Road Blog is all about Kenya's new Highway from Nairobi to Thika.  - Ujenzi Bora is about real estate & building best practices.

Many Americans Die with 'Virtually No Financial Assets' Economist's View The importance of Social Security: Study: Many Americans die with 'virtually no financial assets', by Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office : It is a central worry of many Americans: not having enough money to live comfortably in old age. Now an innovative paper co-authored by an MIT economist shows that a large portion of America's older population has very little savings in bank accounts, stocks and bonds, and dies "with virtually no financial assets" to their names. Indeed, about 46 percent of senior citizens in the United States have less than $10,000 in financial assets when they die. Most of these people rely almost totally on Social Security payments as their only formal means of support, according to the newly published study , co-authored by James Poterba of MIT, Steven Venti of Dartmouth College, and David A. Wise of Harvard University. That mean...

Social Investment: A Review of the Literature Financial Access Initiative Blog The concept of social investment has received growing attention over the last decade. The core idea is simple: investing in organizations that produce a substantial positive soc​ial outcome -- and at least some financial return. Advocates for social investment frequently use the phrase "doing well while doing good." While there has been much discussion of social investment, there has been relatively little actual investment. The one area where substantial flows of capital have emerged under the social investment umbrella is microfinance. Thus, there are important lessons and insights for social investment as a whole to be gained by examining the experience of the microfinance industry in trying to marry profit and social returns. Over the last two decades, microfinance has grown from a promising experiment to a burgeoning industry that serves over 200 million people worldwide . ...

Cochrane's Incomplete and Misleading Summary of the Evidence on Deworming Innovations for Poverty Action Blog Summary: The Cochrane Collaboration's recent summary of the evidence on treating school-age children for soil-transmitted intestinal worms (or STH) is incomplete and misleading. While we do not comment on the evidence of the health and cognitive outcomes reviewed, we continue to find that the educational benefits alone justify mass school-based deworming. We strongly endorse the WHO and Copenhagen Consensus's recommendation to mass treat children for STH.   The Cochrane Collaboration recently updated their review of the evidence on treating school-age children for soil-transmitted helminths (intestinal worms which infect nearly a quarter of the world's population). While many of the methodological flaws in the 2007 review have been addressed, the new review is still incomplete and provides a misleading summary...

Losing the Courage of Your Convictions SSIR Opinion & Analysis There's an old saying, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." Unfortunately, it's probably got things exactly backward. The more you stand for and the more beliefs you strongly hold, the more likely you are to fall for anything—anything that confirms your existing beliefs. There's only one way to fight back, to not fall for anything: skepticism. Skepticism about everything—what you "know," what you believe, even your own motives—is one of the most critical habits of mind to cultivate (I believe, but take that with a grain of salt).

Development Controversy a Sign of Sophistication SSIR Opinion & Analysis The international development world is currently hosting rows about whether two poverty-alleviation programs actually work. The Millennium Villages Project, founded by economist Jeffrey Sachs and supported by Angelina Jolie and others, aims to help nearly 500,000 out of extreme poverty. A paper published in June in The Lancet, a leading health journal, was scrutinized and roundly criticized for the logic and analysis it used to argue that observed changes were due to the Millennium Villages rather than changes already taking place in society. The second row concerns treating children in less developed countries for intestinal worms, which are endemic in many countries. Because the worms share a child's food, they are thought to contribute to malnutrition, reduced physical and cognitive development, and lethargy. Deworming children has been found by randomized con...

We're Talking. Who's Listening? The CEP Blog In a perfect world, our ideal audiences would read every one of our tweets, consume every blog post, and make sure not a day goes by they don't check Facebook for our latest updates. But we know it's not a perfect world, and for proof we have the results of a Center for Effective Philanthropy survey that examined grantees' engagement with foundations' social media. For any tweeting, blogging, or Facebook-using foundation that presumes their grantees are paying routine attention to what they're writing, posting, and featuring through social media channels, this study may surprise, but I don't think it should disappoint. Even though the results show that social media is not the favored means for learning about the work of their funders, there's much to be comforted by in what the survey identified as information sources grantees do rely on to stay current about the work of ...

Big Banks Fall Back On Three Myths The Baseline Scenario By Simon Johnson Global megabanks have had a tough summer.  Jamie Dimon, vociferous opponent of restrictions on reckless risk-taking by big banks, presided over large losses due to exactly such behavior in the London office of JP Morgan Chase.  HSBC, which prided itself on running a uniquely decentralized management model, was found to have violated – massively, over many years, and in a uniquely decentralized manner – US money laundering and other laws; the head of global compliance resigned while on the witness stand during a Senate hearing in July.  And Barclays – which had bulked up on the strength of its capital market activities – conceded that traders from that part of the company had conspired to rig Libor, a key benchmark for global interest rates; in the ensuing public outcry, the top two executives were forced out. And last week Sandy Weill, who amassed a vast fortune building Citigrou...

The tree versus the shadow The Official Google Blog Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. —Abraham Lincoln When I was looking for investors for my startup in 1997, I was a lot more interested in the values and character of my potential investors than in the name of the firm on the door. My first investors were not from Sand Hill Road or Palo Alto, but were people I knew would support my company (and me) in the ways we most needed help. As an entrepreneur, you want to know if your investors will be there for you, help you do the right things, and encourage you to persist and evolve when things seem dark. Perhaps most of all, you want to know they've been there before, and that they'll be calm and confident when things go wrong—when giving up sounds like a pretty good option. At Google Ventures, we try to be the kind of hands-on investors that quietly h...