World Bicycle Relief, a not for profit organization created by bike industry leader SRAM Corporation to aid victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka recently distributed its 100,000th bicycle to people living in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Milford Bateman has made a cogent case for community-based financial institutions that prioritise sustainable local solutions. Milford Bateman is perhaps best known for his strident attacks on microfinance as an anti-poverty strategy, including his sometimes acrimonious debates with David Roodman, another microfinance analyst. Bateman claims that, by diverting resources away from more productive investments and indebting poor people with no significant return, the microfinance "fad" has been anti-developmental, benefiting lenders most.

Western Union's (WU) business model remains sound. With market fears on this issue driving a low valuation on the stock, investors have a good opportunity to invest in a fundamentally attractive business.

Social enterpreneurship grows in area where neither innovation nor social and environmental problems are in short supply

The conventional path to economic development is through the use of fossil fuels and the associated negative environmental impact. One alternative to encourage actual sustainable development is green microfinance, using small loans for environmentally beneficial or neutral business enterprises. Unlike traditional micro loans, conditions or incentives placed are placed on the loan condition to encourage the sustainable use of resources.

Some 15,400 kilometers away from Vancouver, B.C., farmers in the southern African nation of Zambia have seen their crop yields improve thanks in part to a small group of Canadian engineers. Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Engineering+students+encouraged+think+globally/6232493/story.html#ixzz1oSpxEsW4