Innovation
Shared Innovation
Can artificial intelligence help achieve sustainable development?

Opinion
Coronavirus promotes collective e-learning
Digital platforms are not only sources of knowledge, they can also help construct sustainable development trajectories through learning, in keeping with the terms of the Paris Agreement.
Other news

Opinion
Social Impact Bonds: A new development finance tool?
A Social Impact Bond is a new financial tool that can be set up in an emerging or developing country in order to finance public policy of general interest. Julien Sciau, AFD account officer, explains this tool and its potentialities.

Opinion
How Fablabs contribute to the digital challenges in Africa?
Fablabs serve at the same time as production, creation and prototyping workshops, hands-on training spaces and facilitators of social ties. They contribute to reducing the traditional head-on opposition between “knowing” and “doing”.

Interview
Rebecca Enonchong: “The main obstacle to the digital revolution in Africa is the reluctance of political leaders”
Rebecca Enonchong, founder of AppsTech, is one of the main voices for digital technologies in Africa. She believes that less bureaucracy and more support confidence by politics are the prerequisites for speeding up the digital revolution in Africa.

Interview
Creating a start-up in Cameroon: three entrepreneurs’ stories
Creating a start-up can be a real obstacle course for young people in Cameroon. Administrative and banking procedures, fundraising, etc. three Cameroon entrepreneurs go back to the creation of their innovative business.

Interview
Digital technology and development: new tools for NGOs and donors
Thierry Barbaut is an expert in digital strategy, communication and new technologies. At the Micro-Projects Agency, a program of the NGO La Guilde, he focuses on the link between digital technology and development.

Development news
Universal access to the internet: what role for tech giants?
Facebook and Google are eager promoters of universal access to the internet. Each of them is devising new ways to close the digital divide. Doing so, they position themselves as development players. But these new ambitions are raising concerns.

Interview
Digital payments: a growth and development driver?
The Better Than Cash Alliance, a global coalition housed by the United Nations Capital Development Fund, promotes broader access to the banking system and digital payments, to support the economic growth of the developing world.

Interview
“Strong demand from people for access to broadband Internet”
In Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, over three users in four still have to go to Internet cafés to surf, with services that are slow and expensive. Yet new technologies have brought about pioneering progress in Africa, including for electronic purses, which allow financial transactions to be...

Interview
“Industrial property must not remain the privy of the Northern countries”
The respect of intellectual property promotes both technology transfers and local innovation – and, eventually, sustainable development. These are the findings of the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), in a study “IP and Sustainable Development”, published at the time of the Paris...

Opinion
Can social business rescue development?
Donors are currently showing a very keen interest in social business and are adopting specific strategies and tools (Asian Development Bank, USAID, DFID, KFW and, just recently, AFD). Indeed, social business could be seen as a miracle solution in this context of fiscal austerity. But let there be...

Interview
Can Big Data serve the poorest?
We produce data every second of the day. From Paris to Dakar, from Jakarta to New York, our daily activities (consume, communicate, travel…) generate data, “digital crumbs” that we leave behind us. This information is potentially useful for development. How? An interview with Thomas Roca...

Opinion
Can regulators keep up with innovation in microfinance?
As bankrupcies are more and more frequent, the microfinance sector needs to be regulated in order to protect its clients’ interests. Laurent Lhériau gives a few recommendations for an efficient regulation in microfinance.

Opinion
Frugal innovation, a revolution pioneered in emerging economies
Entrepreneurs from emerging economies are pioneering a new model of “frugal innovation”. This approach aims at creating greater social value while minimizing the use of scarce financial and natural resources.