NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Ebay Founder Plans to be India’s Biggest Social Investor

The philanthropic fund started by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of Ebay Inc, plans to be the biggest investor in projects targeting India’s 900 million poor, living on less than $2 a day. "The rate at which we’re investing, we will probably be the leading firm in that space at the bottom of the pyramid," said Jayant Sinha, managing director of Omidyar Network’s India operations. Ranked second on Barron’s list of the world’s 25 best philanthropists last month, the...

Source

Business Standard (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Agriculture

Region

South Asia

A New Plan for Job Growth in Haiti

Unemployment and underemployment were huge problems in Haiti even before last year’s devastating earthquake. And despite the influx of aid groups, and millions of dollars in aid, many Haitians remain without a job. But two students from the Massachusetts Ins...

Source

PRI’s The World (link opens in a new window)

Indian Tales of Inclusive Business Models

We just spent the last few weeks criss-crossing India to discover how private sector companies are striving to support India’s quest for "inclusive growth." Inclusive growth has become the economic development mantra for both Indian politicians and CEOs in recent months. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is championing this concept to ensure that even as the red-hot Indian economy keeps growing at 9%, this growth is equ...

Source

Harvard Business Review (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Can P&G make money in places where people earn $2 a day?

Despite the growing belief that the billions of poor -- what the late management thinker C.K. Prahalad termed the "bottom of the pyramid" -- can actually make up a viable economic market, most attempts to harness it have failed. Procter & Gamble ( PG ), a $79 billion (in sales) company better known for its middle- and upper-middle-class brands than for its low-end offerings, thinks there’s another way to re...

Source

CNNMoney.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific

Dermalogica Puts Kiva’s Microloans in Women’s Manicured Hands

Microfinance platform Kiva is moving into a salon near you thanks to a collaboration with professional skincare company Dermalogica. The pair are teaming up to launch JoinFITE (Financial Independence Through Entrepreneurship), a global entrepreneurship platform that will offer microloans to women in 56 countries. Over the next two years, JoinFITE will finance 25,000 female entrepreneurs--with a little help from Dermalogica’s customers.

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Husk Power Systems Wants to Lead “a Revolution in Electricity”

Sometimes the simplest ideas can produce powerful results. Husk Power Systems (HPS) is premised on a simple need--for electricity--and a simple material--discarded rice husks. The for-profit social enterprise was started four years ago by three Indians from the state of Bihar, along with one American classmate from the University of Virginia...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Microlenders, Honored With Nobel, Are Struggling

MUMBAI - Microcredit is losing its halo in many developing countries. Microcredit was once extolled by world leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as a powerful tool that could hel...

Source

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

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor

The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world. Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic ineq...

Source

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

Region

Latin America