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Focusing on a Virtuous Circle Around Business Strategy and Impact Assessment
As a first-timer at the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) Metrics Conference in Washington D.C. last month, I was surprised to see a packed room on the first morning of the conference. After all, this was a conference about a very niche topic – the techniques used to measure social and environmental impact within the embryonic industry of impact investing. Impact investing is a broad term that describes profit-seeking investments that also generate positive social and/or environmental impact.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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NextThought Monday: Helping the BoP Design its Own Way Out of Poverty
Daniel Altman is an economist, writer and teacher with a deep commitment to international development. He’s had a revelation about the power of consumer products to create markets from the inside out, and he’s doing something about it.
Emerging Design Centers (EDCs) is a for-profit enterprise that puts cutting-edge design tools in the hands of the poor.- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Weekly Roundup: The Fatal Flaw @ the BoP?: Readers: Have a Question for Erik Simanis? Ask Away
Erik Simanis has been generating significant buzz with two essays published in the Harvard Business Review: Businesses Serving the Poor Need to Get Over Their Unease About Profit and Reality Check at the Bottom of the Pyramid. In the latter, Simanis says BoP practice has a fatal flaw. I’m planning to speak with Simanis soon, so if you have question let me know
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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The Hidden Agenda at Rio+20
As everyone knows by now, the "main event" – the official negotiations among government leaders –was a disappointment. The general consensus among participants was that the official agreement, spelled out in agonizing detail in a document entitled "The Future We Want," would not produce the future we want. It is, at best, an exercise in rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. As the week wore on, it became clear to me that the so-called "side events" (organized by companies, NGOs, and consortia) had really become the main event.
- Categories
- Environment
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Innovations in Financial Inclusion: Community Development and Co-operative Strategies: Ashoka Changemakers has Launched the G20 Financial Inclusion Challenge
In June Mexican Presidency of the G20 and Ashoka Changemakers officially launched the G20 Financial Inclusion challenge during the summit in Los Cabos. It signaled the G20’s continued emphasis on financial inclusion as a component of stable and vibrant financial systems.
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- Uncategorized
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Featured Event: Partnering to Crack the Nut
At the Cracking the Nut Conference earlier this week, effective partnerships were highlighted as essential for success in growing rural agricultural markets. Despite a line up of sessions dedicated entirely to the subject, partnerships were discussed in almost every session.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Tags
- supply chains
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PopTech: On Failure, Jedi Knights and the Edge of Social Change
I recently sat down with Executive Director and Curator Andrew Zolli, and PopTech President Leetha Filderman for a candid conversation on a broad spectrum of topics, from impact investing to the importance of failure, to the pace of social innovation and how PopTech sees its role as an accelerant. While best known for its leave-your-head-spinning conferences, it appears that what’s actually popping at PopTech is a lot quieter, slower and more fundamental than may initially meet the eye.
- Categories
- Education, Impact Assessment
- Tags
- failure, incubators
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The ABCs of Affordable Housing: A New Report From Acumen Fund
Building quality affordable housing is not easy. It takes knowledge, creativity, and perseverance. One needs all the tools they can get. That is why we wrote The ABCs of Affordable Housing in Kenya. We hope this report will serve as a resource to practitioners and investors who are looking to enter the affordable housing sector in Kenya or elsewhere. Its pages contain a handful of challenges practitioners are bound to encounter and strategies to address them. Some of these strategies are specific to Kenya, but the vast majority can be drawn across geographic boundaries.
- Categories
- Education
