After teaming up with Grameen Group in March 2006 for a social business enterprise joint venture in Bangladesh, French food behemoth Groupe Danone has again joined hands with the Bangladesh-based group. But this time, it's about non-profit microfinance to the poor in China.
The Chinese government has taken positive steps in an attempt to mitigate the effects of widespread unemployment brought on by global economic downturn.
The job scenario in cities for migrant workers is far less bleak than originally forecast, the government said yesterday, citing an extensive nationwide survey.
A cash reserve that has been boosted by the lull of China's housing market will go toward affordable new homes for low-income families, it was revealed this week.
A new government survey in China suggests that the number of unemployed migrant workers in the country is far higher than the 20 million previously estimated.
OneWorld US, International Food Policy Research Institute, IRIN, SciDev.Net
March 23, 2009
WASHINGTON, Mar 23 (OneWorld.net) - China has launched a behemoth new initiative to improve water quality that government officials say is the country's largest expenditure on environmental protection since 1949.
Microfinance is helping people escape poverty across the developing world. Are China’s would-be entrepreneurs getting the same help?
By JONATHAN HWANG
Thirteen cows and counting. Yes, Siqinggaowa’s dairy business has really taken off – just buying enough feed to sustain her labor force is now top priority. Back in 1998, she took out a modest loan, only 1,000 RMB (US$150), to start a small dairy company in Inner Mongolia. Now Siqinggaowa wants another 4,000 RMB to bolster production.
PlaNet Finance
Tian Si Wan may not be the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from there. Surrounded by an ever-encroaching desert, the small village in rural Ningxia has an economy based almost entirely on lamb herding – an occupation that aggravates the already critical problem of desertification. A great number of those living in Tian Si Wan today are recent arrivals, forced to move by the government after their own homes had been swallowed up.
Jacques Attali, the founding president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, is president of PlaNet Finance, a global microcredit agency.
PARIS –Microfinance ought to be high on the agenda of policymakers looking for an imaginative response to the global financial crisis. As an ethical, responsible financial system that serves productive businesses through intimate knowledge of the client, it is founded upon principles that are diametrically opposed to those practiced by the conventional bankers that sparked the crisis.
