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A Successful New Model for Enterprise Development
We received a notice recently that the Acumen Fund was celebrating its 5-year birthday. That’s remarkable, because the organization, with a mission to create and support sustainable enterprises that deliver affordable healthcare, water, and housing to the poor, has accomplished an amazing...
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NextBillion.net Nominated for a Webby Award!
We?re happy to announce that NextBillion.net has been nominated for Best Business Blog of 2006 in the 10th Annual Webby Awards! Hailed as the “Online Oscars” by Time Magazine, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity,...
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Harvesting Sustainable Practices in the Egyptian Desert
Friends often ask me how profit can co-exist with good social and environmental practices, especially at the BOP. After all, we have a hard enough time here in the so-called ?advanced? economy of the United States doing it ? with the compound pressure of poverty, won?t social and...
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Changemakers, freeing the scavengers
I attended last night’s Ashoka Changemakers award ceremony for the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Competition, which was well-attended by business and non-profit fans of social entrepreneurship alike. The Ashoka speakers were self-effacing and concise; first was Sushmita Ghosh,...
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Wringing Profit from the Poor
When I meet people and they ask what I do, I?m often met with a skeptical eye when explaining my promotion of private sector strategies for development. This recent article succinctly describes why. It?s an interview with John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit...
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IDB Refines Its Private Sector Strategy
The Inter-American Development Bank?s (IDB) annual meeting opened this week in Brazil amidst violent protests against the agency?s lending practices. Critics contend that the bank’s loans typically help big business, and do little for the masses of Latin American and Caribbean citizens...
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A Note of Caution on Microfinance
With the Year of Microcredit behind us, and investments in the sector accelerating, rarely do you hear criticisms of the much lauded poverty alleviation tool. One notable exception is a recent piece by Thomas Dichter, long-time practitioner in the international development industry and author...
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NextBillion Now Recruiting Interns
Editor’s note: We encourage anyone holding a bachelor’s degree or who will be earning their B.A. or B.S. in the next few months to apply. The application period for NextBillion.net’s internship will end soon! (Updated 12 April 2006)Interested in working in the BOP realm but not sure how to...
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