Articles by Rob Katz
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Wednesday
September 14
2005Financial Times features BOP in special report
The Financial Times? Special Report on Business and Development, published today, pulls together a host of NextBillion strategies,anecdotes, and prescriptions in one well-written package. Available to subscribers only, the 15-pagesection can be read by non-subscribers using a free...
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Wednesday
September 7
2005Mobile telephony and pro-poor growth
Ethan Zuckerman of the WorldChanging blog writes eloquentlyabout the importance of mobile phones in low-income communities. He identifies three factors critical to thespread of mobile telephony: new versus replacement infrastructure,pay-as-you-go pricing, and used phones.Zuckerman...
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Thursday
September 1
2005African Microfinance Fails to Profit
An April 2005 report on the financial performance of Africanmicrofinance institutions (MFIs) finds that more than half of those surveyedfail to turn a profit. Conventionalwisdom (and much of the writing on this site) tends to say otherwise ? that microfinanceis profitable. Maybe...
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Tuesday
August 30
2005Does insurance serve or exploit the BOP?
Howmuch credit should banks extend to the BOP? Are insurance policies appropriatefinancial instruments for low-income communities? For the last few weeks, theeditorial page of South Africa?sBusiness Day has taken up the debate. On the one hand, the paper reports on...
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Monday
August 29
2005Brokering Private Investment to Alleviate Poverty
I?m typically skeptical of developmentagencies? efforts to stimulate business solutions to poverty. When it comes to the Growing SustainableBusiness (GSB) initiative of the UN Development Program, however, perhaps myskepticism is mislaid. According totheir web site,The Growing...
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Tuesday
August 23
2005Credit Access Expanding in African Communities
According to Business Day, South Africa’s plastic revolution is putting credit card firms in the pink. Cheeky title, but the subject matter is serious business - signaling that the formal economy is growing rapidly in southern Africa. Visa and Mastercard, the industry leaders, report annual...
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Monday
August 22
2005Business Week Features Indian BOP Success Stories
BusinessWeek dedicates this week’s issue to China and India, and, not surprisingly, did an excellent feature on some Indian BOP success stories - namely Bharti (telecom), Tata (autos), ITC (agriculture), and ICICI (finance).? Those of us following BOP trends over the past months and years will...
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Monday
August 22
2005MTN VillagePhone
In Uganda, incumbent telecom MTN has now registered its 2000th entrepreneur in the Village Phone project. MTN’s partnership with the Grameen Foundation and local microfinance institutions gives entrepreneurs access to start-up capital ($230) which includes a car battery or solar power panel,...
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