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

New eBay site lets people finance the world’s poor

By Jonathan Stempel EBay, the world’s largest online auctioneer and payments company, launched on Wednesday a Web site allowing ordinary investors to buy securities aimed at improving conditions in the world’s poorest countries. MicroPlace , located at http://www.microplace.com, will allow people to invest as little as $100 (48.83 pounds) to support development in impoverished areas. So-called microfinance is...

Source

Reuters UK (link opens in a new window)

EBay: The Place for Microfinance

On the online auction giant’s new MicroPlace site, investors can lend as little as $50 to would-be small business owners around the globe. By Catherine Holahan Tracey Pettengill Turner doesn’t want to give handouts to poor people. But she does want to make investments in them. So on Oct. 24, Turner is launching MicroPlace.com , a Web site that lets small investors provide low-interest micro loans...

Source

BusinessWeek (link opens in a new window)

Private Sector and International Development – Part II

The growing acceptance that the private sector has a key role to play in international development raises some major challenges for the traditional actors in this sector, argues Director of the Shell Foundation Kurt Hoffman. International development is experiencing an exciting and relatively new trend ? a growing acceptance that the private sector has a key role to play in poverty alleviation. Bill Clinton is e...

Source

eGov Monitor (link opens in a new window)

For Intel, the business side of doing good

Former Stanford University professor turned technology executive, Craig Barrett believes that it’s the duty of every large company to give back to society in some way. As chairman of Intel , the largest chipmaker in the world, he not only helps define the vision and strategy of Intel, but h...

Source

CNET News.com (link opens in a new window)

Unserved by banks, poor Kenyans now just use a cellphone

By Matthew Clark With a click of a cellphone key, Bernard Otieno makes the transfer ? sending funds instantly from his residence in a sprawling Nairobi slum to his wife, who holds down their rural family farm some 250 miles away. Mr. Otieno, a security guard who works the night shift, used to risk carrying cash on infrequent, slow trips to his hometown or pay high rates to send money through the post office. Now, he’s one of a growing number of Kenyans t...

Source

Christian Science Monitor (link opens in a new window)

Fantasy Philanthropy Baseball – Compete for Capital!

By Douglas K. Smith Over the past 15 years, new philanthropies (the Skoll Foundation ) as well as long-established ones ( Pew ) have challenged the nonprofit sector to act like the for-profit one. The payoff has been impressive. Yet one aspect of a market-based system remains elusive: access to capital based on competitive performance. When...

Source

Slate (link opens in a new window)

Loans, not gifts, the way to end poverty: aid agency

By Mark Colvin Opportunity International is aiming to raise nearly $1 billion in the next four years to lend to millions of poor entrepreneurs in India. While anti-poverty campaigners call for an increase in Australia’s foreign aid budget, there is also a debate about whether aid in the form of money, training or goods is the way to go. Opportunity International is an Au...

Source

ABC News Australia (link opens in a new window)

Drug Delivery

How do you get basic care to the remotest villages in Africa? One clever idea is to borrow tactics from retail chains like McDonald’s and Subway --operate an easy-to-replicate, owner-operated franchise system focusing on health care. Minnesota lawyer and businessman Scott Hillstrom started HealthStor...

Source

Forbes.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa