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An innovative model for basic education in Peru

Delivering quality in basic education remains a challenge for Peru. Innova Schools is tackling this through a fast growing programme that will, by 2020, cater for up to 70,000 students. This requires...

Rural electrification in Africa: An economic development opportunity?

Electricity is expensive and difficult to access in Sub-Saharan Africa. Improving infrastructures would accelerate the electrification of rural areas but requires a high level of funding. Decentralise...

Decentralised Services Companies: innovative partnerships for rural electrification in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest electrification rates of all developing regions, and its rural areas are the most poorly provisioned of all. To meet this specific challenge, EDF and its partners hav...

The Philippines: a public-private partnership for educational development

In 2016, the Philippines will bring its educational system in line with other Southeast Asian countries, adding two years of senior high school. Building on the experience of a public-private partners...

Adding value at source in West Africa – a win-win-win scenario

Anthony Pile sets out to show that business opportunities abound in developing Africa, and not just because the cost of labour is relatively low. Indeed, he argues that, despite some local difficultie...

Growing a Business in a Growing Industry

Sub-Saharan Africa contains 11 % of the world's population but bears 24 % of the global disease burden¹ (World Bank). A recent the International Finance Corporation (IFC) study, with McKinsey, estimat...

Housing public-private partnerships in Latin America: lessons from Mexico and elsewhere

The complex challenge of building a home loans market in Ghana

Inadequate real-estate supply and the absence of a deep capital market have hampered the development of the home loans market in Ghana. The rapid success of Ghana Home Loans, which now provides nearly...

Regulated rental sector can meet the urban housing challenge

Governments in developing countries have rightly promoted homeownership as a way of alleviating poverty. But, faced with rapid population growth and the prospect of millions ending up in slums, they m...

A new generation of real-estate developers focusing on low-income housing

Developers who want to enter India's affordable housing market face many obstacles. But with an estimated market value of USD 245 billion, the sector is attracting growing interest. Tata Housing, one...

Housing the world: leveraging private-sector resources for the public good

By 2030, around 3 billion people in the developing world will need housing. That means 565 million new units, adding to the current gap of more than 400 million homes. Building these will provide much...

Developing renewable energies in Africa: a public-private partnership

Likewise mobile phone for telecommunication, is sub-Saharan Africa on the verge to leapfrog conventional energy and move straight to renewable energy (RE)1 to address requirements for capacity additio...

Mining, the key to unlocking Africa's independent power producer markets

The size of power needs in most African countries and the investment required limits the number of projects that can realistically be funded in-country. The private sector could help, particularly whe...

European Union support for the private sector

European Union technical assistance is implemented at micro-, meso- and macroeconomic level to encourage growth and benefit different sectors of the population, including the poorest. Programmes aim t...

Accelerating the expansion of microinsurance

Technical assistance provided by LeapFrog Labs enables microinsurance companies to grow stronger and innovate. This article highlights LeapFrog's investment strategy for microinsurance, describes the...

Private equity and TA, a winning combination for SMEs

Is it still possible to envisage SME development in Africa without providing technical assistance as well as financial investment? After all, it is thanks to technical assistance programmes that priva...

Achieving impact through technical assistance

Economic development can be directed into emerging markets by promoting private sector engagement. By providing technical assistance to companies, industries, and governments, development finance inst...

Combining funding and technical assistance

Development finance institutions sometimes provide their clients with technical assistance to strengthen their capacity in governance, management and financial administration. While the use of public...

Curb carbon footprint and promote development: a tricky balance

The cement industry is both a driver for economic expansion in developing countries and a large CO2 emitter. What approach should development finance institutions adopt in order to curb the carbon foo...

The positive impacts of a responsible cement industry

Growing urbanization creates ever-increasing needs for cement. The cement industry holds some advantages that can allow it to meet this demand, limit its carbon footprint and participate in the develo...