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Best of February on NextBillion – Awakening to Competition
Whether it’s understanding the nuances of an existing BoP market or transforming seemingly daunting challenges into advantages to earn a sustainable profit, last month’s most-read posts on NextBillion all focused on fresh approaches to competition. If you haven’t already read them, check out the posts that made the top five for February.
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Deep in the Amazon: Ouro Verde’s Quest for Preservation, Profit
The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso ("tall trees") is named for the majestic Amazonian rainforests, but also has one of the highest rates of deforestation in Brazil. Luis Laranja started Ouro Verde, which buys, processes and sells high-quality Brazil nuts and products, while profitably preserving 1.3 million hectares of Amazonian forest.
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- Environment
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Quinoa, Dairy, Coffee: Value Chains and Rural Microcredit in Bolivia
Bolivia has grown famous for its 20-year history in microfinance. As part of my research with microfinance group Sembrar Sartawi, I travelled to a number of predominantly poor small towns across Bolivia to better understand how three value chains - quinoa, dairy and coffee production - each defined the ways in which micro-loans are provided.
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- Health Care
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- nutrition
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Embracing Failure at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference
In business, failure is part of the game, but this reality is often taboo in the social sector. At Root Cause, Phil Buchanan of Tactical Philanthropy provided his thoughts on the importance of "learning from history" from successful philanthropic cases.
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- Social Enterprise
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- failure
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ViewChange Video(s) of the Week: Honoring International Women’s Day
In honor of International Women?s Day, ViewChange is highlighting the many inspiring video stories about issues affecting women living in developing nations. Today we will focus on three incredible stories of enterprising women starting their own businesses or capitalizing on the opportunities by microcredit investment.
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Bringing ’Human-Centered Design’ Forward – Insights Into IDEO.org
This fall, design firm IDEOto launch IDEO.org to spread "human-centered design" by working directly with a wide spectrum of players and a diverse set of project categories to address poverty alleviation. IDEO.org leaders Jocelyn Watt and Patrice Martin, co-lead and creative director chatted with NextBillion about its mission.
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- Uncategorized
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Africa Election Watch 2011: Niger
One of the biggest determinants of living standards for those at the base of the pyramid too often receives scant attention in the Western press: a presidential election. In 2011, 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa will hold presidential elections. The next presidential election in Africa will take place in Niger, on March 12.
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Guest Post: Listening to the Voices of Experience
Acumen Fund created the Global Fellows Program because we wanted to build a core group of leaders from across the globe who not only had the intellect, passion and business skills, but also the experience of serving low-income consumers in some of the most challenging environments in the world. Last month I got a glimpse into that complexity.
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- Education, Social Enterprise
