NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Reporting from Kathmandu, I wanted to update our readers on events and resources in the Asia region. What follows is a list with links and more to help you navigate the latest in Asia.

Goldman Sachs recently released a paper about women as the next emerging market. Much of the growing middle class of women are in Asia, in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and India. Goldman puts forth an interesting take on emerging market demographics, cutting through geographic lines. The report discusses the gradual transition of women who are now low-income but will become “middle class” by 2015 and 2020.

The Busines Civic Leadership Center and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report titled, Partnering for Global Development: The Evolving Links Between Business and International Development Agencies. The report highlights emerging partnerships across sectors, with special attention given to partnerships serving the BOP in China.

Similarly, iBoP Asia just released a casebook titled Nurturing the Enterprising BoP: Cases from the PBSP Business Advisory Program, which can be downloded here. The casebook highlights the Philippine Business for Social Progress’ Business Advisory Program, which is the “largest corporate-led, non-profit social development foundation in the Philippines” according to the PBSP website. iBoP Asia also announced the launch of an innovative new program, iTalk: Innovation Talk, that aims to bring together grantees, partners, academics, and students to discuss BoP issues and ideas in SouthEast Asia.

Curious about CSR activities and rankings in Asia? CSR Asia recently launched the Asian Sustainability Rating, a website and initiative that rates countries in Asia according to their CSR activities. So far, China and India are in the top five.

Lastly, the UK-based VC firm, Impax, is looking for clean energy, water, and waste companies to invest in in Asia. They raised funds with the view that Asia’s environmental policies will become increasingly strict; see here for more details.

That’s it for now. Feel free to add more to the list in the comments section below.