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Brokering 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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Housing for the Poor – Part II
A month ago, I posted some information about housing technologies for the BOP. This week, a colleague of mine emailed me to tell me about some of her research in the area. One thing her team has discovered is that the choice of technology may not be as important as the choice of business...
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Interview with Kurt Hoffman, Part III
This post is part 3 in a 5 part series.A.H.: What?s next, and is there a way to pay for technical assistance as part of the investment process, so that an SME fund could be fully self-financing and sustainable?K.H.: Once we had shown the model worked, and that it could generate a...
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From New York to Nairobi, the Parallel Problems of Poor People
In his broad analysis of business and the BOP, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C.K Prahalad points out that being poor is expensive. With a lack of products and services tailored to fit their needs and incomes, they languish in exploitative informal markets that often prevent them...
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New Calendar on Nextbillion.net
We’re pleased to announce that a new Calendar feature was launched today on Nextbillion.net. The Calendar will highlight upcoming BOP-related events, such as WRI’s two regional conferences on private sector-led development, to be held in Brazil and Mexico later this month.As much as...
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Interview with Kurt Hoffman, Part II
This post is part 2 of a 5 part series.A.H.: After the initial success of the Uganda Fund, what were the next steps? K.H.: Following our success in Uganda, we set up the Empowerment through Energy Fund in South Africa with ABSA Bank and development finance bank IDC. ABSA committed $5...
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Interview with Kurt Hoffman, Director of the Shell Foundation
Small and Medium-Size enterprises (SMEs) create most of the jobs in any economy, and they also play a critical role in providing goods and services to low-income communities. But there are very few sources of financing to help SMEs scale. Interest in SME funds is growing, however, so finding...
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Credit 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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