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Weekly Roundup: What Tata Would Have Done Differently: In an Interview, Ratan Tata Says the Company Has Not Been Innovative Enough in Reaching the BoP
Ratan Tata will be stepping down as chairman of Tata Sons Ltd. As he says his goodbyes before his retirement in December, the already candid executive seems to be even more forthcoming about what his company has done right and what it has done wrong.
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Ethiopian shoemaker takes great strides
Eight years ago Ethiopia's Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu decided to sell cool colourful shoes made of recycled materials, including car tyres.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mexico experiments with the ‘branchless’ bank
Tess Vigeland: The FDIC estimates that somewhere around 18 percent of the U.S. population is what's called underbanked -- Ppeople who turn to payday lenders and check cashing services and the mattress because they don't have good access to the banking system.
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- Latin America
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StartMe gives SA entrepreneurs crowdfunding
South African entrepreneurs, who have been hard pressed to find funding via traditional means such as bank loans, can now take advantage of a new funding mechanism in South Africa – StartMe.co.za.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Is innovation essential for development work?
Innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
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- impact investing
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Using Small Loans to Generate Big Profits
NAIROBI, Kenya—At a recent group-lending meeting in the Kawangware slum, about 10 miles from downtown, Jackson Munyovi sought $350 to build a new shanty for his wife and two children.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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- microfinance
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Weekly Roundup: Oxford’s BoP Debate, Why ‘Old’ Arguments are Still Worth Our Time
Although a little more than two months old, “Responsible Capitalism or Business as Usual” a passionate and multi-faceted debate has been pinging its way around the Web in recent weeks. The forum hosted University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School is worth your time, even if many of the arguments and counter arguments are familiar.
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Bamboo Finance Invests R$7 Million (US$3.6M) in Bille, To Build 1200 Affordable Houses in Sao Paulo State
Geneva, Switzerland, July 19, 2012 – Bamboo Finance, a leading impact investment firm with a pioneering history of funding growth stage business models that drive economic viability in low-income markets, has invested R$7M (US$3.6M) in Bille, a Special Purpose Enterprise (SPE) created by Crinale, a Brazilian housing developer, for building and selling 1,200 houses in the interior of Sao Paulo State. Bille uses an innovative and efficient business model to build and sell affordable standard houses, reducing the time from development to sale by more than 50%. To date, Crinale has completed six affordable housing projects in five towns, delivering more than 1,100 low-income houses in the interior State of Sao Paulo.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Latin America
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