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

Microcredit is reducing poverty, one loan at a time

Today, microcredit has reached more than 67 million poor people around the world. At any moment, as much as $6 billion in microcredit loans may be in circulation, with huge diversification and minimal loss. These loans, made at market rates, prove conclusively that the poor are not only creditworthy but have a real need to access credit. Read full article here. ...

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Pugent Sound Business Jounral

Kyrgyzstan: “Business incubators” help to reduce poverty

Promoting small businesses is one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty in a poor country like Kyrgyzstan, where government figures suggest at least 40 percent of the population of five million live below the poverty line. The country’s President Askar Akaev subscribes to this view and he has been busy pushing ’business incubators’ as one way of assisting small business enterprises. ...

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IRIN News

The Future: Tech-savvy shanty towns

Why should businesses think of the poor as a market at all? These are people, thanks to participation in underground economies or aggregate buying, who have some disposable income; who are poorly served today; and who have tremendous potential as a future market. Read full article here. ...

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Red Herring

The Future: The meek shall inherit the tech, part 1

[T]here’s one more group of people technology companies have long ignored, who have the potential to be a major new market, and who, if tapped, could help shape technologies for decades to come. Who is this? The world’s poor: the 4 billion-plus people who live on less that $20,000 a year. Read full article here. ...

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Red Herring

Selling to the Poor

Allen L. Hammond and C.K. Prahalad write about the largest untapped consumer market on Earth: the world’s four billion poor people. The market for goods and services among the world’s poor?families with an annual household income of less than $6,000?is enormous. The 18 largest emerging and transition countries include 680 million such households, with a total annual income of $1.7 trillion?roughly equal to Germany’s annual gross domestic product. ...

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Foreign Policy

WLL: Bringing Phones to Telecom’s Last Frontier

Until a few years ago, telephones were a rarity in India. The country just wasn’t wired for them, and consequently, they were priced beyond the reach of most people. But walk around in old town Delhi and crowded Bombay, as I did during the past couple of weeks, and you’ll be struck by the ubiquitous billboards hawking phones and instant connections for just 1,000 rupees, or $25. How is this possible? It’s all thanks to a technology called wireless local loop. WLL systems are ea...

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Busines 2.0

Seeking Riches From the Poor, by Megan Lindow

There is a great demand for simple technologies that can be used by people in Africa who lack access to banks, phone lines, credit cards and computers. South African entrepreneurs are in a unique position to develop and deliver these products to Africa’s poor, says Raven Naidoo, a founder of Radian, a small technology-consulting firm. Read full story here...

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Wired News

6 Truths about Emerging-Market Consumers

They?re brand-aware, savvy shoppers who like mom-and-pop shops more than modern markets, a new pan-Latin study shows. Selling consumer products to Latin America?s 250 million low-income consumers ? men and women who constitute 50 to 60 percent of the region?s population and wield some $120 billion in annual purchasing power ? is more than an attractive opportunity: It is a necessity for large corporations trying to accelerate their growth. ...

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strategy+business

Region

Latin America