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

Warning: Habits May Be Good for You

A FEW years ago, a self-described militant liberal named Val Curtis decided that it was time to save millions of children from death and disease. So Dr. Curtis, an anthropologist then living in the African nation of Burkina Faso, contacted some of the largest multinational corporations and asked them, in effect, to teach her how to manipulate consumer habits worldwide. Dr. Curtis, now the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medi...

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New York TImes (link opens in a new window)

Promises, promises

DEVELOPMENT aid can be as fickle as fashion. Remember those white Make Poverty History wristbands, which briefly made compassion chic in the run-up to the Gleneagles summit in 2005? Memories of the pledge made by G8 leaders there to double annual aid to Africa by 2010 also seem to have faded with time. According to the OECD, on current spending trends annual aid will fall $14 billion short of the $50 billion African target-not a statistic to savour as today’s G8 leaders tucked into their ...

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Economist (link opens in a new window)

Reaching out to the missing middle

Deshantori, a heart-wrenching documentary which follows a group of young Bangladeshis through a harrowing journey in search of employment opportunities outside the country, has sparked soul searching questions for Bangladeshis wherever it has been shown. For me, the most poignant moment of the documentary was when one of the survivors of the journey sadly relates that nobody would lend him money to start a business, but they lent him money to pay for a dangerous and illegal passage overseas. Why...

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Daily Star (link opens in a new window)

CII focus on skill development

Prof. Prahalad is certain about the potential for India to be the home for at least 30 of the Fortune 100 firms; to increase the country’s share in global trade; become a source of global innovations with new businesses, technologies and business models; and become the world’s benchmark on how to cope with diversity. Advocating entrepreneurial transformation, the document insists that folding the future in rather than extrapolating the past is fundamental. Taking small a...

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The Hindu (link opens in a new window)

Mexican microfinance institution Compartamos breaks silence on IPO

Breaking their silence since their April 2007 IPO, Carlos Danel and Carlos Labarthe, co-founders of Compartamos, the leading Mexican microfinance bank, publish an excerpt of their newly released ?Letter to Our Peers? in the latest issue of the magazine Microfinance Insights. The authors, who have been criticized by members of the microfinance community since their IPO brought in extraordinary returns, acknowledge in the letter that social and economic goals can reinforce each other, but state th...

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Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Karoo fish farm set to freeze poverty

IN A massive swing from agriculture to aquaculture, the dusty Karoo will become the centre of a commercial fish-breeding initiative that is set to haul about 250 women out of unemployment and poverty. The Camdeboo Satellite Aquaculture Project in Graaff- Reinet is the brainchild of a local company called Camdeboo Bream, and it is aimed at boosting the local economy and creating employment. The Graaff-Reinet firm?s objective is to become a leader in the breeding and suppl...

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The Herald Online (link opens in a new window)

Yoghurt maker’s recipe for funding social businesses

When it launched a nutrient-rich yoghurt for poor consumers in Bangladesh, Groupe Danone (NYSE:DA) , the French food company, hit an unexpected obstacle. It had trained a large sales and distribution team of women, but only a handful were still working after a week. The problem, Danone found after talking to a local charity, was that people there did not like women conducting door-to-door sales. With its partner Grameen, the microfinance institution, Danone decided to talk ...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Mexican microfinance institution Compartamos breaks silence since IPO

Breaking their silence since their April 2007 IPO, Carlos Danel and Carlos Labarthe, co-founders of Compartamos, the leading Mexican microfinance bank, publish an excerpt of their newly released Letter to Our Peers in the latest issue of the magazine Microfinance Insights. The authors, who have been criticized by members of the microfinance community since their IPO brought in extraordinary returns, acknowledge in the letter that social and economic goals can reinforce each other,...

Source

Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America