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Friday, September 28, 2007 — No Region Specified

PC Designed for China's Peasant Farmers

Source: Seattle Times
Visitors to the annual agricultural fair here this week were treated to something more than the corn harvesters and feedstuff pulverizers that usually grace such events. LANGFANG, China ? Visitors to the annual agricultural fair here this week were treated to something more than the corn harvesters and feedstuff pulverizers that usually grace such events. They got to gawk at an item that its makers hope will become the Chinese peasant's next must-have piece of agricultural m...
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Friday, September 28, 2007 — No Region Specified

Is Intel Better Than OLPC In Teaching Kids At The Bottom Of The Pyramid?

Source: Business Week
One of the hottest controversies around is that between Intel and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation over the best approach to educate poor children in rural villages in India, Africa, China, Latin America and the Middle East and the best article written on the subject recently is by Bruce Einhorn out of HongKong. ?The battle pits giant Intel, a private corporation dominant in its field and searching for new markets, against non-pofit OLPC using open-source linux, a group of highly t...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 — No Region Specified

Kenya: State Seeks Private Sector Help for Vision 2030

Source: All Africa
High cost of investment poses the biggest threat to private sector's participation in implementation of Vision 2030 -the Government-driven development strategy whose aim is to turn Kenya into a newly industrialised country, stakeholders said. Yesterday, it emerged that the government has finalised work on the document, and has embarked on an aggressive campaign to rope in the private sector in its execution. Wahome Gakuru, the director of the National Economic and Socia...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 — No Region Specified

New Direction Urged for Pharma Industry

Source: Financial Times
The pharmaceuticals industry?s future success will require a new generation of executives who can find a fresh way to look at the world?s health challenges and its neediest countries, said Tachi Yamada, global health chief of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Pharma was an industry in which it was almost too easy to be successful. It was a licence to print money. In a way, that is how it lost its way. It lost contact with the people it was supposed to serve...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 — No Region Specified

Telecom Services Poor in India: Crisil

Source: India Economic Times
India may be adding a record number of mobile subscribers every month but telecom service providers have to go a long way in providing good quality of service, according to a report. NEW DELHI: India may be adding a record number of mobile subscribers every month but telecom service providers have to go a long way in providing good quality of service, according to a report. Even as wireless service providers make huge investments to keep pace with the rapid growth in subsc...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 — No Region Specified

Industry Group Brings Bikes to World's Poor

Source: Bicycle Retailer and Industry News
Not everyone was searching out the latest and greatest bicycle products as the doors to the Sands Expo Halls opened yesterday. More than 70 people spent the first 90 minutes of the first show day hearing from six organizations that promote bikes as a way to increase access to healthcare, education and jobs for the world?s poor. LAS VEGAS, NV (BRAIN)?Not everyone was searching out the latest and greatest bicycle products as the doors to the Sands Expo Halls opened yesterday. More than 70 people s...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 — No Region Specified

New Business?NGO Partnerships Help the World?s Poorest

Source: WBCSD
Innovative approaches to reduce poverty through trade are bringing business, NGOs, government and aid agencies together in new ways. New Business?NGO Partnerships Help the World?s Poorest International Trade Forum, 26 September 2007 - Innovative approaches to reduce poverty through trade are bringing business, NGOs, government and aid agencies together in new ways. ?We believe that the leading global companies of 2020 will be those that provide goods and services and reac...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007 — No Region Specified

Engineer of the Year Finalist: Martin Fisher

Source: TMCnet
With a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Stanford University and expertise in the acoustic elasticity of aluminum alloys, Martin Fisher seemed destined for a career in the aerospace industry. Instead, he decided to use his engineering skills to help Africa's poor. Or more precisely, help the poor help themselves. (Design News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) With a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Stanford University and expertise in the acoustic elasticity of alu...
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007 — No Region Specified

In India, Rural Poor Are Key To Cellular Firm's Expansion

Source: Wall Street Journal
Heat, High Costs Pose Problems for Towers; Mr. Price's Innovations GURGAON, India -- Don Price got his start in the cellphone industry in the 1980s installing clunky phones in luxury cars in Orlando, Fla. Today, most of his millions of prospective customers don't have cars, regular electricity or even running water. The 44-year-old former Navy technician is the director of networks for India's largest cellular company, Bharti Airtel Ltd., which is trying to blanket this ho...
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007 — No Region Specified

The Global Water Crisis: Innovations to Watch For

Source: Wall Street Journal
In the debate over how to manage the world's finite natural resources, one issue that has stood out is water. Water pervades all sectors of society and is critical for short-term survival and human health as well as long-term economic development and environmental sustainability. Environmental problems, especially human-induced climate change, add to these pressures. Since water is a critical resource that is essential for sustaining life, the provision, supply and management of w...
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007 — No Region Specified

Africa: Engage the Poor in Business

Source: Afrika Nieuws
AfricaNews - I look at micro-financing as building entrepreneurs and funding small business in a community that belongs to a category which are living far less than $2 a day and that includes most parts of Africa. A lot of organizations, including the private sector, send assistance to nations belonging to this category, but still, poverty is not resolved. As an artist and a banker, my view is that poverty can be alleviated, if not completely abolished by micro-financing, or partnering wit...
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007 — No Region Specified

Connecting Rural Nepal to the Global Village

Source: Nepal Monitor
MAHABIR PUN , a 2007 Magsaysay awardee, explains the strategies and lessons learned in his wireless communication projects in remote, rural Nepal. Over the past few years a great deal of attention has been placed on issues of information and communication technology access and the ?digital divide? by development organizations and governments throughout the world. The wireless project that we have started in Nepal has taken a serious look at the same issues, but it approached the ...
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007 — No Region Specified

SMEs Key to Poverty Reduction, Socam Says

Source: The Daily Times (Malawi)
Entrepreneurship, establishment and promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME?s) is the only way through which the majority of the population could be lifted from the jaws of poverty, delegates at the just ended annual conference for Society of Accountants in Malawi (Socam) held in Mangochi said. In his presentation entitled ?Saving for investment: Strategies for wealth creation?, market analyst and Chief Executive of Alliance Capital Limited Godfrey Jowah said although it was al...
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Monday, September 24, 2007 — No Region Specified

Mobile Phones Widen Market, Raise Incomes for Rural Poor

Source: Cellular-News
The mobile phone is enabling people at the bottom of the pyramid like balloon sellers and water melon vendors to widen their markets. The mobile provides the balloon seller timely information about the crowd gatherings, his potential market. The handset comes in handy for the watermelon vendor during the nine months of off- season to find work as repairman. Thousands of artisans are finding that the mobile connects them to their markets and even opens new markets for them. These and oth...
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Monday, September 24, 2007 — No Region Specified

Uncomfortable Truths

Source: Inquirer
WIKIPEDIA defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a concept which suggests that organizations, especially business organizations, have an obligation to consider the interests of customers, employees, shareholders, communities, and the ecology in all aspects of their operation. I have four propositions to expand on this definition. MANILA, Philippines -- WIKIPEDIA defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a concept which suggests that organizations, especially business o...
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Monday, September 24, 2007 — No Region Specified

Mobile Phones Provide Jobs in Rural Areas

Source: Tech2
The mobile phone is enabling people at the bottom of the pyramid to widen their markets. For instance, it provides vendors timely information about crowd gatherings, a potential market. It comes in handy for the watermelon vendor during the nine months of off-season when he can find work as a repairman. Indeed, thousands of artisans are finding that the mobile connects them to their markets and even opens new markets for them. These and other benefits of mobile phone in ru...
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Monday, September 24, 2007 — No Region Specified

LOJ Launches New Protector Policies: Targeted at Persons with Small Incomes

Source: Jamaica Gleaner
Life of Jamaica (LOJ) has launched a new insurance product, the 'Protector Series', targeting a mass market of small and micro businesses as well as persons in lower-income groups. Life of Jamaica is entering a market that is currently underserved and does not recognise the need for such a service, said Karl Williams, LOJ assistant vice-president for corporate marketing. According to social labour surveys the target market is about 60 per cent of the population...
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Monday, September 24, 2007 — No Region Specified

From Chamber's Business Civic Leadership Center: How Business Is Promoting Global Development

Source: PR Newswire
As the UN General Assembly meeting draws near and with it, discussion of the status of the Millennium Development Goals, development agencies, multilateral organizations, and governments in poor countries are waking up to the fact that multinational companies may be vital for their success. Public-private partnerships have never been hotter -- multinational corporations view them as an opportunity to practice corporate citizenship and expand their markets, while their public partners in...
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Monday, September 24, 2007 — No Region Specified

It Costs Money to be Poor

Source: Spero News
Predatory businesses such as pawnbrokers, pay-day lenders, rent-to-own stores, and used-car lots prey upon the poor and heavily indebted. There is a better way.   A row of identical signs arranged like landing lights at an airport repeat the appealing offer: ?Borrow $200, Repay $203.?? This modern spider-to-fly invitation displayed in front of the office of payday lenders appeals to hard strapped workers who just need a boost till payday.? What?s three bucks?? Technically, s...
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Thursday, September 20, 2007 — No Region Specified

Poor Pay More for City Living

Source: The Baltimore Sun
Food, home, services in low-income areas cost residents a $2,800 'poverty premium' It's not exactly a secret that the poor pay more for everyday goods and services than their wealthier neighbors. But a local group has just put a dollar figure on that poverty premium - about $2,800 a year for low-income residents in the Baltimore metro area. In a report released yesterday, the Job Opportunities Task Force says that residents in low-income neighborhoods often spe...
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Thursday, September 20, 2007 — No Region Specified

MMA Convention to Focus on Bottom of the Pyramid

Source: Hindu Business Line
The sixth edition of MMA (Madras Management Association) All India Management Students? convention, which is scheduled to take place on September 21 and 22 will focus on ?Strategies for the bottom of the pyramid?. Chennai, Sept. 19 The sixth edition of MMA (Madras Management Association) All India Management Students? convention, which is scheduled to take place on September 21 and 22 will focus on ?Strategies for the bottom of the pyramid?. Announcing this at a conference on Wednesda...
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 — No Region Specified

Brazil's Retail Sales Signal Rise in Spending by Poor

Source: Bloomberg
Brazilian families in the impoverished northern states are increasing purchases of consumer goods faster than the national average, signaling government handouts are fueling growth in the region. Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian families in the impoverished northern states are increasing purchases of consumer goods faster than the national average, signaling government handouts are fueling growth in the region. Retail sales in Maranhao, the poorest state by per capita gross domestic ...
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 — No Region Specified

A Health Check for Microfinance Banks

Source: Business Daily
A small enterprise trader at the Maasai Market in Nairobi who fits the microfinance bank clientele profile. The MFBs have to consciously evaluate their strengths and plummet into a poor clientele with a wit and will to take risk while operating under commercial business principles. 20-September-2007: Recently, Business Daily ran what would easily be referred to as an excellent piece on Microfinance Banking in Kenya, and generally Africa. Notwithstanding the admiration there is for the...
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 — No Region Specified

Africa Telecoms Summit to Promote Internet Access

Source: Reuters
A U.N.-backed Africa communications summit in Rwanda next month will seek to boost high-speed Internet access to match the continent's explosive growth in mobile phones, officials said Wednesday. UNITED NATIONS, Sept 19 (Reuters Life!) - A U.N.-backed Africa communications summit in Rwanda next month will seek to boost high-speed Internet access to match the continent's explosive growth in mobile phones, officials said Wednesday. The Oct. 29-30 Connect Africa gathe...
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 — No Region Specified

India's Cell-Phone Ride Out of Poverty

Source: Business Week
Struggling artisans and tradespeople in rural India are finding that mobile phones are their ticket to better sales and better lives Times are good for Ganesh Bicchwe. The festival season in India is around the corner, and in Maheshwar, a hand-loom weaving center in the central India state of Madhya Pradesh, master weaver Bicchwe's Nokia (NOK ) 3310 mobile phone is ringing busily. A garment store in New Delhi wants 500 scarves?the broad, 3-meter-long, intricately designed, fine cotton ones w...
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 — No Region Specified

Deutsche Bank Places Micro-Credit Portfolio with Private Investors

Source: International Herald Tribune
Deutsche Bank AG said Wednesday that it has set up an investment portfolio for micro-credit markets, a move aimed at making very small loans available to people in developing countries. FRANKFURT, Germany: Deutsche Bank AG said Wednesday that it has set up an investment portfolio for micro-credit markets, a move aimed at making very small loans available to people in developing countries. The Frankfurt-based bank, Germany's biggest, said the ?60 million (US$84 million) in bo...
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 — No Region Specified

Mobile Payments: Macro Hype & Micro Trends

Source: Mobile Messaging 2
There's currently a lot of noise in the mobile payments segment. Companies such as Firethorn, mFoundry, even Google recently have garnered considerable attention and coverage. Admittedly I've looked at the segment at my personal blog, www.mobilepointview.com, recently with Google Sends SMS Mobile Payments: GPay as well as Mobile Payments: The Tipping Point. I think we need to differentiate and identify what can be labeled as macro forces wher...
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 — No Region Specified

Beyond the Bottom Line

Source: Wall Street Journal
Oxford Entrepreneurs Are Meant To Consider How to Save the World OXFORD, England -- The main lecture hall at the University of Oxford's Sa?d Business School isn't named for a banking tycoon, a high-tech entrepreneur or a big-ticket donor. It honors former South African President Nelson Mandela, a choice many at the school believe is key to understanding Sa?d. It's a small little tag that stands for something much bigger that we're about, wh...
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 — No Region Specified

Global Business Leaders Explore Impact of Technology and Credit

Source: CSRwire
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), in collaboration with Visa International today begin a global conference called Next Generation Access to Finance: Gaining Scale and Reducing Costs with Technology and Credit Scoring. The conference will highlight technologies used by pioneering organizations in the financial services industry, including microfinance organizations, to reduce costs and reach new customers. WASHINGTON, D.C. - September 17,...
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 — No Region Specified

Making Goods Affordable for Poor

Source: Sify Business
That suggestion has been criticised on the ground that the market is not geared to cater to the poor. Many people oppose the market mechanism even though poverty is generally less in market economies than in government-controlled socialist ones. Here is an issue that deserves further discussion. Basically, there are two ways of giving the poor what they need at a price they can afford. One - the ideal one - is to convert that need into a public good. The second method is to add frills...
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007 — No Region Specified

Underground Industries Flourish Worldwide

Source: The Epoch Times
More than 50 percent of all Latin Americans, 78 percent of Africans (including South Africa), 65 percent of Asians?excluding those who work in agriculture?work in these gray industries. WASHINGTON?More than 50 percent of all Latin Americans, 78 percent of Africans (including South Africa), 65 percent of Asians?excluding those who work in agriculture?work in these gray industries. Underground industries generally refer to businesses which operate outside a country's laws by n...
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Monday, September 17, 2007 — No Region Specified

Social Business Enterprises can Alleviate Poverty

Source: Business Daily
Despite many advances global poverty persists. Models that rely on government action or capitalism narrowly defined as maximization of financial profit are limited in their ability to put poverty where it belongs ? in a museum. 18-September-2007: Despite many advances global poverty persists. Models that rely on government action or capitalism narrowly defined as maximization of financial profit are limited in their ability to put poverty where it belongs ? in a museum. The key missin...
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Monday, September 17, 2007 — No Region Specified

Legatum and MIT Announce the Creation of Academic Center Dedicated to Development and Entrepreneursh

Source: MIT news
New center to provide fellowships for aspiring entrepreneurs from the developing world Legatum, a private firm that invests in the global financial markets and in initiatives that support sustainable development, announced Sept. 17 a structured gift of $50 million to create a new center at MIT. The establishment of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship will support aspiring entrepreneurs from the developing world who have a strong commitment to development entrepreneurship, hel...
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Monday, September 17, 2007 — No Region Specified

NComputing Changes Economics of PC Access Worldwide

Source: Market Wire
Company Ships Over 500,000 Seats Less Than Two Years After Introducing Revolutionary Virtual PC Solutions; Rapid Adoption in Both Underserved and Business Markets Globally REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - September 17, 2007) - NComputing, Inc., provider of the world's most affordable solutions for PC access, today announced dramatic growth in adoption of its breakthrough systems for multi-user PC computing. With schools, government organizations and businesses worldwide turning to the company...
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Friday, September 14, 2007 — No Region Specified

Upwardly Mobile In Africa

Source: Business Week
How basic cell phones are sparking economic hope and growth in emerging?and even non-emerging?nations Precious little would seem to connect the Kenyan village of Muruguru to the 21st century. The red dirt roads become impassable in the rainy season. Only a few homes have electricity, indoor plumbing, or even a floor other than earth packed by bare feet. The villagers survive on corn, potatoes, and bananas they raise in hand-tilled fields, and earn a little extra cash by cultivating coffee beans ...
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Friday, September 14, 2007 — No Region Specified

1st 'Sari-Sari' Store Chain Targets 'Bottom of the Pyramid'

Source: Inquirer.net
Your friendly neighborhood 'sari-sari' (mom and pop) store will soon sport a new look, thanks to Microventures Inc.'s pioneering Hapinoy Project. ANILA, Philippines -- Your friendly neighborhood 'sari-sari' (mom and pop) store will soon sport a new look, thanks to Microventures Inc.'s pioneering Hapinoy Project. Paolo Benigno A. Aquino IV, president of Microventures, on Friday said the one-year old company would begin the makeover of 1,000 Hapinoy stores in Luz...
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Friday, September 14, 2007 — No Region Specified

Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai

Source: Express Healthcare
Spearheading the revolution of providing quality healthcare to the needy, Aravind Eye Hospital (AEH), Madurai, has won as many accolades from management gurus for its effective business model, as from its millions of patients. And why not? From a 11-bed Hospital in Madurai to the largest provider of eye care services in the world, Aravind has come a long way indeed. Working with the mission of 'Eliminating Needless Blindness', the main hospital (paying section) has eight speci...
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Thursday, September 13, 2007 — No Region Specified

Building Futures

Source: Financial Times
Now 47, Jos? Antonio Reyes has worked for years as a builder in his native El Salvador and has never once thought about opening a bank account. On the face of it, he and his wife Edith Portales seem like some of the most unlikely people to have their lives transformed by innovations in trans-national finance. The couple live in a cramped and airless house in Soyapango, near the country's capital, San Salvador, which they share with their son Fernando and their nephew Gerardo Alfar...
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007 — No Region Specified

Nokia's Global Design Sense

Source: Business Week
Design Director Antti Kujala talks about how Nokia's localized studios can create products that reflect the needs and aspirations of emerging markets Nokia (NOK) is looking to add 2 billion new users by the end of the decade by reaching out to emerging markets, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Africa, and India (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/6/07, Nokia Wins with Wide-Angle Vision).Nokia operates nine satellite design studios located within targeted nations where researchers and des...
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007 — No Region Specified

The Fight against Latin Poverty

Source: Business Week
Governments are trying novel solutions in partnership with business--and the poor themselves San Juan de las Manzanas is a hardscrabble little village in central Mexico where families live in barren adobe hovels with dirt floors and no running water. They eke out a living raising pigs and coaxing corn out of the dry clay soil, as their parents and grandparents did before them. Their children rarely attend more than a few years of primary school before dropping out to take menial jobs to help sup...
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007 — No Region Specified

Doing Business with the Poor for Prosperity

Source: WBCSD
The SNV ? WBCSD Alliance for Inclusive Business joins forces with the Inter-American Development Bank to increase business opportunities to benefit the poor in Latin America Ann Arbor, Michigan, 10 September 2007 - Building on the success of their Alliance for Inclusive Business in the Central American and the Andean Region, the Netherlands Development Organisation SNV and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) today signed a memorandum of understanding with the Inter-Ame...
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007 — No Region Specified

Rural B-School Empowers Indian Women

Source: Business Week
For less than three cents a day, largely uneducated women are learning how to invest their money and run their own profitable businesses On the first day of a 10-day business course, 15 women are gathered in an 8-by-10-foot classroom in western India, absorbing the nuances of finance. Teaching in the local Marathi language, the female instructor peppers her talk with examples to explain investments, credit, profit and loss, and market accessibility. The advanced finance course also will cover su...
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007 — No Region Specified

Low Technologies, High Aims

Source: New York Times
Beneath the bustling ?infinite corridor? linking buildings at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just past a boiler room, an assemblage of tinkerers from 16 countries welded, stitched and hammered, working on rough-hewn inventions aimed at saving the world, one village at a time. M.I.T. has nurtured dozens of Nobel Prize winners in cerebral realms like astrophysics, economics and genetics. But lately, the institute has turned its attention toward concrete thinking to improve t...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007 — No Region Specified

The World Bank, founded to fight poverty, is searching for the right role in places that need its he

Source: Economist
A typical bank will do its very best to retain customers who are relatively mature and reliable. Whenever it deals with these favoured clients, it will try to offer a personalised service, devise innovative products and keep rival lenders away. The World Bank is certainly not a typical bank, but in this respect it follows the norm. It relishes dealing with its ?best? customers: the middle-income countries (MICs), a group whose GDP per head typically ranges from about $1,000 to $6,0...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007 — No Region Specified

Nokia's Big Plans for India

Source: America's Network
On a three-day tour of India in late August, the first since he became president and chief executive of Finnish telecom giant Nokia (NOK) last year, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo highlighted just how important the fast-growing Indian telecom market has become. He visited Nokia's manufacturing facility in Chennai and met telecom regulators in New Delhi and corporate customers in Mumbai. Nokia has long dominated the Indian mobile handset market, with a 70% share, and on his trip Kallasvuo announced tha...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007 — No Region Specified

Mali's Farmers Discover a Weed's Potential Power

Source: New York Times
When Suleiman Diarra Banani's brother said that the poisonous black seeds dropping from the seemingly worthless weed that had grown around his family farm for decades could be used to run a generator, or even a car, Mr. Banani did not believe him. When he suggested that they intersperse the plant, until now used as a natural fence between rows of their regular crops ? edible millet, peanuts, corn and beans ? he thought his older brother, Dadjo, was crazy. KOULIKORO, Mali ? When Suleiman Diar...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007 — No Region Specified

IDB President Moreno Calls for Market-Based Solutions for Providing Basic Services to Low-Income Con

Source: Inter American Development Bank- Press Release
Announces partnerships with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, SNV-Netherlands Development Organization Ann Arbor, Michigan ? IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno today called market-based solutions the key to providing water, housing and electricity and other basic services to low-income consumers in Latin America and the Caribbean. Speaking at a conference entitled Business with Four Billion: Creating Mutual Value at the Base of the Pyramid Moreno urged...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007 — No Region Specified

In India, a Quest to Ease the Pain of the Dying

Source: New York Times
It was a neighbor screaming in pain 35 years ago that set Dr. M. R. Rajagopal on the path to his nickname: India?s father of palliative care. He was dying of cancer, with lots of tumors on his face and scalp, Dr. Rajagopal recalled. His family asked if I could help, and I couldn?t ? I was just a medical student. TRIVANDRUM, India ? It was a neighbor screaming in pain 35 years ago that set Dr. M. R. Rajagopal on the path to his nickname: India?s &q...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007 — No Region Specified

Drugs Banned, Many of World?s Poor Suffer in Pain

Source: New York Times
Like millions of others in the world?s poorest countries, she is destined to die in pain. She cannot get the drug she needs ? one that is cheap, effective, perfectly legal for medical uses under treaties signed by virtually every country, made in large quantities, and has been around since Hippocrates praised its source, the opium poppy. She cannot get morphine. WATERLOO, Sierra Leone ? Although the rainy season was coming on fast, Zainabu Sesay was in no shape to help her husband. Ditches had t...
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Monday, September 10, 2007 — No Region Specified

Data Cross-Referencing is a Must

Source: Economic Times
In a country where more people have mobile phones than bank accounts, credit information companies that assign credit scores based on payment histories are getting active to study this population. Bangalore-based Otco International is a credit information company that services borrowers who do not have any previous credit histories. Collin Timms , Director, Otco International Ltd, and chairman of Guardian Bank, spoke to ET of the opportunity.
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Monday, September 10, 2007 — No Region Specified

High Levies May Dampen Mobile Growth in Sri Lanka

Source: India Interacts
High levies on mobile phones, hiked to 10 percent from 2.5 percent, could put a dampener on telecom expansion in Sri Lanka, currently growing at a rate of over 15 percent. The Lankan telecom sector is set to enter more exciting times with Sunil Mittal's Bharti Airtel, an Indian company, being awarded licences to provide 2G and 3G mobile services in the country. Airtel plans to invest $200 million in Sri Lanka over the next five years. Industry analysts forecast a thinning of prof...
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Monday, September 10, 2007 — No Region Specified

New Global Alliance Unveils Integrated Strategy to Combat Neglected Diseases

Source: Business Wire
Blueprint to Control Diseases Afflicting 2.7 Billion Poorest People Creates Global Disease Control and Poverty Reduction Model A blueprint for controlling and potentially eliminating the seven, most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) afflicting the poorest of the poor?2.7 billion people living on less than $2 per day?has been published in the Sept. 6, 2007 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. The peer-reviewed article details an integrated control ...
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Monday, September 10, 2007 — No Region Specified

Empowering Consumers with Ready Credit will Fuel Retail

Source: Sify
Empowering consumers with ready credit is how Kishore Biyani, CEO of the Future Group, expects to build his retail business. On the last day of the India Retail Forum, Biyani, elaborated on the future of retailing in the session on ?Future Yet to Unfold?. Mumbai: Empowering consumers with ready credit is how Kishore Biyani, CEO of the Future Group, expects to build his retail business. On the last day of the India Retail Forum, Biyani, elaborated on the future of retailing in the session on ?Fut...
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Monday, September 10, 2007 — No Region Specified

Fortune in Rural Retail Hinges on Empowering Farmers

Source: DNA India
Modern retail?s rural foray sounds more like a fairytale journey than a trip with a strict business purpose. In fact, several dangers lurk, behind the lure of the rural idyll, and one of the biggest challenges lies in ensuring a constant flow of funds to boost the buying power of people in India?s 6 lakh villages, home to 72% of the country?s population. MUMBAI: Modern retail?s rural foray sounds more like a fairytale journey than a trip with a strict business purpose. In fact, several dangers l...
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Friday, September 07, 2007 — No Region Specified

Lighting up Africa: Why Today's Residents are Still Making do With Wax and Wicks

Source: The Independent
The shortage of power in Africa means that, when the sun goes down, there is no relief from the darkness. But now the World Bank has plans to brighten up the gloom When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb he vowed that electricity would be so cheap that only the rich would keep burning candles. Try telling that to today's residents of Africa, still making do with wax and wicks some 130 years later. The Dark Continent nickname may have been coined by Edison's contemporary exp...
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Friday, September 07, 2007 — No Region Specified

Dealing With Poverty By Focusing on Misery

Source: Wall Street Journal
How to help the world's poor? That's a perennial question with apparently ever-shifting answers at the highest levels of government, though some simple approaches are out there. The World Bank these days, under the leadership of newly installed President Robert Zoellick, is looking for a new long-term strategy. The bank's missions are essentially to reduce global poverty and improve living standards. But as The Wall Street Journal reports, as the institution seeks to "...
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Friday, September 07, 2007 — No Region Specified

World Bank Launches Program to Improve Lighting for Sub-Saharan Africa

Source: International Herald Tribune
Lacking electricity, Africans spend an estimated $17 billion (?12.5 billion) a year on lighting sources such as kerosene lamps that are inefficient, polluting and hazardous. The World Bank intends to change these conditions with a program launched Wednesday to provide lighting for the 250 million people in sub-Saharan African who have no access to power. WASHINGTON: Lacking electricity, Africans spend an estimated $17 billion (?12.5 billion) a year on lighting sources such as kerose...
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Friday, September 07, 2007 — No Region Specified

Jobs Abroad Support 'Model' State in India

Source: New York Times
This verdant swath of southern Indian coastline is a famously good place to be poor. People in the state of Kerala live nearly as long as Americans do, on a sliver of the income. They read at nearly the same rates. TRIVANDRUM, India ? This verdant swath of southern Indian coastline is a famously good place to be poor. People in the state of Kerala live nearly as long as Americans do, on a sliver of the income. They read at nearly the same rates. With leftist governments here in the st...
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Thursday, September 06, 2007 — No Region Specified

Will Low-Cost Laptops Help Kids in Developing Countries?

Source: Wall Street Journal
The nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child is working to develop computers that could be built for just $100 each and distributed to children in developing countries. So far the organization has won the backing of some major technology companies as well as the United Nations. Intel Corp., which initially had its own low-cost PC design, decided to join the effort1 in July. The OLPC expects to begin mass producing its laptops, which are designed to be used outdoors and can be power...
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Thursday, September 06, 2007 — No Region Specified

Micro-finance Gives Developing World a Chance to Ease Poverty

Source: The Business
An email has just arrived in my inbox from an organisation called Kiva, telling me that a Cambodian woman I recently lent money to, Pork Saru, has made a repayment of $28 (?13.88, e20.54). Twelve other people from all over the world received the same email. In June, the 13 of us lent Saru a total of $500. She used the loan to buy a motorcycle to transport goods more easily to the grocery store she owns, and to improve her product range. None of the lenders knew each other, and none of...
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Thursday, September 06, 2007 — No Region Specified

Can Rural Finance Take Root in China? About 750 Million People Hope So

Source: Knowledge@Wharton
The Agricultural Bank of China's showcase microfinance project -- its only such project -- is based in a small but tidy office in a dry mountain region in the country's far west. Founded in the early 1990s with Australian development money, the program -- which doles out small loans of less than $250 each -- is directed at three of the poorest counties in China. It has been a boon to local farmers who have used the money to buy chickens and seeds, and? even open small stores that sell...
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Thursday, September 06, 2007 — No Region Specified

Brightening the Night in Africa

Source: The World Bank News and Broadcast
A World Bank Group initiative will help bring light to 250 million Sub-Saharan Africans who don?t have electricity. The Lighting Africa initiative includes the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, other development organizations, local lighting suppliers and service providers, and the international marketplace. September 5, 2007 ? A World Bank Group initiative will help bring light to 250 million Sub-Saharan Africans who don?t have electricity. The Lighting Africa initiati...
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Thursday, September 06, 2007 — No Region Specified

India's Rural Poor: Why Housing Isn't Enough to Create Sustainable Communities

Source: Knowledge@Wharton
India's desire to become the world's next big economic power is as real as the enormous challenges it faces in raising the social and economic well being of its rural populations. According to Abraham George, founder of The George Foundation, an NGO focused on poverty alleviation in South India, The issue of adequate housing is integral to poverty reduction and social justice in India. In this opinion piece, George describes the living conditions of the rural poor and argues ...
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007 — No Region Specified

Chu, Rodriguez Form Social Enterprise VC Fund

Source: InstitutionalInvestor.com
Michael Chu , co-founder of Pegasus Capital , a South American private equity firm and Alv?ro Rodr?guez Arregu? , former CFO of restructured glass manufacturer Vitro have teamed up to launch Ignia. The venture capital firm is focused on investing in and developing commercial and socially inclusive enterprises for the lowest socio-economic sectors. Rodr?guez says the fund will concentrate its first phase of operations in Mexico, but hopes to expand ...
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007 — No Region Specified

The Wealth of Nations

Source: Science News
A country's competitive edge can spread industry to industry, like a disease The economies of poor and developing countries often depend almost exclusively on a single product?perhaps timber or coffee?or on a handful of products at most. That's hardly a startling observation, but what's puzzled economists over the years is why it's been so difficult for these countries to start up new activities in the hope of spurring economic growth and lifting themselves out of poverty.
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007 — No Region Specified

In Turbulent Pakistan, Start-Ups Drive a Boom

Source: Wall Street Journal
Pakistan's political scene is growing more clouded, but a clear demonstration of confidence in the country's future is coming from an emerging economic force: entrepreneurs. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's political scene is growing more clouded, but a clear demonstration of confidence in the country's future is coming from an emerging economic force: entrepreneurs. Scores of new businesses once unseen in Pakistan, from fitness studios to chic coffee shops to hair-tr...
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007 — No Region Specified

New Survey Reveals That Employees Believe Companies Should Join the Fight against Global Poverty

Source: OnPhilanthropy
You might consider the fact that more than a billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day motivation enough for every profitable company to contribute to the fight against extreme global poverty. But contributing - while seemingly simple - becomes staggeringly complex when terms like strategic philanthropy, accountability and measurement are involved. As more and more companies design and implement philanthropic programs ...
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007 — No Region Specified

Energy Poverty and Political Vision, Alejandro Litovsky

Source: Agora Vox
The delivery of affordable, reliable and sustainable power to citizens is one of the key challenges of the 21st century. Alejandro Litovsky reflects on the importance of political leadership in addressing an acute global problem. Around 2.64 billion people, 40% of the world?s population, lack modern fuels for cooking and heating. 1.6 billion have no access to electricity, three-quarters of them living in rural areas. As decision-makers in Europe and north America wonder how to reduce energy cons...
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007 — No Region Specified

CA Wants Intel as Bangladesh's Partner in IT

Source: The Daily Star
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed has urged Intel Corporation to make Bangladesh a partner in its programmes, particularly in IT sector, in order to take advantage of the tremendous business opportunity in a huge market of 140 million people. Fakhruddin also gave assurance of all-out support from the government when visiting Intel Chairman Craig Barrett made a courtesy call on him at his office yesterday. Barrett said Intel is interested in the development of ICT and education...
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007 — No Region Specified

Venture Funds Head for Base of Pyramid

Source: Sustainable Industries
Cleantech companies applying new technologies to old problems faced by the world?s poor are attracting funds. But the money?s coming from Silicon Valley venture funds, not NGOs. Venture funds Walden International and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) are looking into funding India-based Novatium, developer of a $100 personal computer. Khosla Ventures invested an undisclosed amount in Stanford University-incubated Cosmos Ignite Innovations in 2006. The company?s $50 solar-powe...
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007 — No Region Specified

Taxing Sri Lanka's Mobile Customers; Goose or Eggs?

Source: Lanka Business Online
Taxes are necessary. The consistent theme of the 'Choices' columns has been that choices have to be made; that one cannot have the cake and eat it too. Sept 03, 2007 (LBO) - Taxes are necessary. The consistent theme of the 'Choices' columns has been that choices have to be made; that one cannot have the cake and eat it too. Taxes or inflation The present administration got elected by promising to fight a war, give government employment to all gra...
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007 — No Region Specified

El BID propone franquicias sociales para un sistema de salud destinado a los sectores m?s carenciad

Source: Jujuy al Dia
Jorge Gronda se reuni? con representantes del BID, Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, para trabajar en la creaci?n de franquicias sociales que tienen el objetivo de brindar una cobertura de salud a los sectores m?s desprotegidos. Jujuy al d?a - Jorge Gronda se reuni? con representantes del BID, Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, para trabajar en la creaci?n de franquicias sociales que tienen el objetivo de brindar una cobertura de salud a los sectores m?s desprotegidos. En dialogo c...
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007 — No Region Specified

Cellphones May Take Banking to the Rural Poor in the Third World

Source: International Herald Tribune
In many third world countries, where bank branches are few and far between, the development that finally may make financial services practical for the rural poor fits in the palm of a hand. PARIS: In many third world countries, where bank branches are few and far between, the development that finally may make financial services practical for the rural poor fits in the palm of a hand. Mobile devices like cellphones have the potential to effectively bring financial markets t...
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007 — No Region Specified

Report: Indian Drug Market to Reach $20B

Source: CNN Money
India's fast-growing economy, expansion in health care insurance and infrastructure, to grow national drug sales to triple by 2015. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Indian drug market is expected to triple in size by 2015, to $20 billion in annual sales, according to a report released Wednesday by international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. The report said India will undergo a significant transformation to become one of the top 10 pharmaceutical markets in the next ...
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