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What About U.S.?
In the several days since the news that Yunus’ microfinance movement would be coming to the U.S., I’ve had some time to consider what this says about how we treat the BoP institutionally. To me, the fact that Yunus’ forays in NYC are seen as so newsworthy illustrates the “us...
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Exploring the Green-BoP Nexus Pt. 2: Businesses Bridging the Divide
Last week, I discussed the rift the Tata Nano has exposed between environmentalist and poverty-alleviation focused professionals, academics and activists - a car that at once represents aspirations of new material wealth for millions of BoP consumers and a potentially enormous source of new CO2...
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- Education
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- academia
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Financial Access for the BoP: Expanding Inclusion in India
Which banking models could be used to enable access to the BoP? A recent BCG publication, entitled “A Roadmap for Expanding Financial Inclusion in India,” tries to answer just that question for the Indian market.India has the second highest number of financially excluded households...
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How to Combat BoPwashing
Let’s face it, this BoP movement has picked up speed since the early days of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. We’re getting to a point where we can really glimpse a world, a development space, where the term BoP has arrived in the mainstream, in the media and in business plans...
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Guest Post: President Bush Visits A to Z in Tanzania
Guest blogger Brian Trelstad is the Chief Investment Officer of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund serving the 4 billion people living on less than $4 a day. Before joining Acumen Fund, Brian Trelstad spent four years at McKinsey & Company as a consultant in the healthcare and...
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Financial Access for the BoP: Recent Advances and Business Models
In “The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid,” the authors analyzed several markets. However, only one market - financial services - was not estimated in terms of exact size and scope. Financial services can be a fiendishly hard thing to...
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Exploring the Green-BoP Nexus Pt. 1: A Nano-Sized Car Reveals Macro-Level Rifts
The launch of the Tata Nano, the ridiculously low-priced car that could open a floodgate of new drivers in India and elsewhere, is undoubtedly one of the milestone innovations marking the early years of the 21st century. This is not just because of the unprecedented feat of technological and...
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Excerpt: Acumen Fund’s Winter Update
I recently received an e-mail update from Acumen Fund’s CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz.? It is interesting to hear updates from Acumen, whose operations include offices in Pakistan and Kenya - two countries that have been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.? Often, those of us in...
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