NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

PepsiCo Gves $8M to Support Access to Clean Water in India

PepsiCo Foundation is donating $8 million to support access to clean water in India, the food and beverage company announced Thursday. Water is a critical environmental and social issue as billions of people worldwide currently lack access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needs. A growing population, cli...

Source

The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Battling Poverty With Tiny Bits of Cash

Bishoftu - At the outskirts of this town, 45 kilometres south of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Aselefech Desalegn fights the flames she uses for baking enjera, Ethiopia’s staple flatbread. Like millions of poor Ethiopian women, she is also constantly battling to feed her children. In recent years her livelihood has been supplying enjera to hotels in the town. "Except for the chair you see over there, all you see in the house comes from Buusaa Gonofaa," she says, referring to t...

Source

allAfrica.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Micro Credit Providing a Lifeline

Small-business owners are becoming more reliant on non-governmental organizations to provide capital. Chen Jia reports from Shaanxi province. Chinese farmers finding it hard to obtain bank loans are turning to micro-credit organizations to help them launch their own businesses, amid the accelerated expansion of the non-governmental financial system. With savings of only 1,000 yuan ($157) and no other income five years ago, Li Wenqin, a farmer in her 50s, never thought that she wou...

Source

China Daily (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific

Venturing into Growth Industries with High-Impact Capital

23rd in a series of excerpts from the book "The HIP Investor" (John Wiley & Sons, 2010). See other published articles in the series here ( bit.ly/gSJMtU ). How do impact investors spur long-term innovation? Through garage startups, which can also be sexy. That’s where William Hewlett and David Packard originated what’s now known as HP, or Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ). Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin followed in that tradition ...

Source

Reuters (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Health Care

Research by JNU Shows Inequality Has Increased in Both Rural & Urban Areas

NEW DELHI: Poverty in India has fallen at twice the rate since 2004-05 as compared with the previous decade, says a study by two professors of Delhi’s Jawarharlal Nehru University . The average annual decline in poverty rose to 4.3% in the six years from 2004-05, as against 2.1% between 1993-94 and 2003-04, ...

Source

The Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

60,000 of India?s Rural Women Entrepreneurs Get a Boost

A partnership between International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and Utkarsh Microfinance, a start-up based in Uttar Pradesh, India has helped 60, 000 women in rural parts of northern India have access to finance and increased credit. IFC’s $550 000 investment has helped Utkarsh expand access to financial services for women entrepreneurs in rural parts of India. With IFC’s help, Utkarsh is instituting practices that avoid over-indebtedness, encour...

Source

Microfinance Focus (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Opportunity for Socially Relevant MSMEs to Access Funding and Capacity Building

Sankalp Forum opens applications for Sankalp Awards 2012 (India and South East Asia), finalist MSMEs to get access to funding and capacity building. Sankalp Forum, a global platform for social enterprises, announced that it is now accepting applications for the Sankalp 2012 Awards. The awards will recognize emerging enterprises across 6 categories, including the newly laun...

Source

Sankalp Forum (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Unreasonable, Maybe, but It?s on a Social Mission

DANIEL EPSTEIN wants to get one thing straight: He is an unreasonable man. Happily, proudly unreasonable. Entrepreneurs who want to change the world, he says, have got to be a little crazy. And so, to foster some practical zaniness, Mr. Epstein is a co-founder of something called the Unreasonable Institute , in Boulder, Colo. For the last two summers, he has helped preside over this academy for entrepre...

Source

The New York Times (link opens in a new window)