NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Chotuwash, and More

The Godrej Group is walking the talk on ’Good and Green’, its brand campaign. If the low-cost refrigerator ChotuKool that runs on both battery and electricity created a buzz because of innovation (how much of it translated into actual sales is not known as yet), the Godrej Group is already ready for more. While ChotuKool is gearing up for national distribution through the postal system, in the pipeline are a slew of products targeted at the bottom of the pyramid. For examp...

Source

Business Standard (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Health Care

Region

South Asia

ZIMBABWE: Poverty Alleviation Scheme Targets Kids

HARARE, 30 September 2011 (IRIN) - Orphans and vulnerable children from more than 80,000 households in Zimbabwe are set to benefit from a three-year government and donor-funded programme to cushion them from the worst effects of poverty. Led by Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Labour and Social Services with support from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the governments of the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and the European Commission (EC), the National Action Plan for Orphans and...

Source

IRIN (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Global Partnerships Makes First Investments in Colombia

Global Partnerships (GP), a nonprofit social investor based in Seattle, Washington, and Managua Nicaragua, announced today that it has made its first loans to two partner organizations based in Colombia: Fundación Amanecer and Contactar. With the addition of these two partners to its portfolio, GP is supporting the work of 33 microfinance organizations and cooperatives in eight countries in Latin America, including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua an...

Source

Global Partnerships (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Could Impact Investing Help India’s Poor?

Sorting out plastic bags collected from rubbish tips is a serious business for Virender Kumar. Sitting on a pile of plastic bags, he is busy giving directions to the labourers he employs to help him with the recycling. Once the bags are sorted, he sells them to recycling units to be melted down into plastic pellets. He makes about 20,000 rupees ($410; £262) profit every month. But he has bigger ambitions that need funding. He says that by w...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

A Conversation With Ela R. Bhatt

Ela Bhatt, a Gandhian and a lawyer who founded the Self Employed Women’s Association in Gujarat, is sometimes referred to as the mother of microfinance. She helped start Mahila Sewa Co-operative Bank in 1974, two years before Muhammad Yunus began the project that would later become ...

Source

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

Region

South Asia

Malawi?s Solar Micro-finance Initiative Builds Business for Women Entrepreneurs

(WNN) Kasungu, Malawi: In the small landlocked southeastern African nation of Malawi only 8% of its growing 15.263 million people are connected to the national power grid, a source of power that has become increasingly unreliable. For many women and their families this often means only one thing - complete darkness at night or limited light generated only by candles or kerosene lamps. Being a woman in one of the poorest countries in the world carries with it many burden...

Source

Women News Network (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Paul Polak ? Developing Products for ’The Other 90 Percent’ of Humanity

He listened first, then designed products for the world’s poorest people long before the term ’social entrepreneur’ came into use. Go spend time with your new market. Understand their needs. Do not presuppose that you know the answer. Multinationals can play a role in this. It’s about collaborating. They can contribute to the development of millions of people’s lives by offering them goods and services they need at a price they can afford. But they have ...

Source

The Christian Science Monitor (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Green Growth

THE enrichment of previously poor countries is the most inspiring development of our time. It is also worrying. The environment is already under strain. What will happen when the global population rises from 7 billion today to 9.3 billion in 2050, as demographers expect, and a growing proportion of these people can afford goods that were once reserved for the elite? Can the planet support so much economic activity? Many policymakers adopt a top-down and Western-centric approach to such ...

Source

The Economist (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Education, Health Care