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

Access to capital, business development and collective bargaining capacity are critical to rural liv

There is need for us as a nation to start paying a lot of direct attention to the crisis of rural poverty. As Archbishop James Spaita of Kasama Diocese has correctly observed, the economic situation in most of the rural areas of Zambia is very bad. And whatever the claims we may have today of economic progress or signs of recovery, there is nothing of this that can be seen in our rural areas. The situation in our rural areas has been one of continued deterioration. This may not seem ...

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The Lusaka Post (link opens in a new window)

AFP, 7 February 2006 - Beggars in impoverished Bangladesh are to receive interest-free loans from US banking giant Citigroup to help them become self-employed, the bank said in a statement Tuesday. The bank has donated 250,000 dollars to expand a four-year-old project run by micro-finance pioneer Grameen Bank. Grameen is credited with developing a unique microcredit system that has been used by some five million people in Bangladesh and replicated worldwide over the last 30 year...

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Agence France-Presse (AFP) (link opens in a new window)

Capturing the BRICS Markets

Aggregate spending power may be immense but the average Russian, Chinese, Brazilian or Indian consumer will hardly be flush with cash. The world?s biggest economies will no longer be the richest. Luxury goods companies will doubtless continue to find a ready market among brand-conscious elites. But companies hoping to capture the emerging mass market will need to develop products (and business models) tailored not only to local taste but also to local spending power... ...partnering ...

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Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

GFUSA Designs ?Poverty Progress Index? to Measure Social Performance of MFIs

Innovative Tool to Determine Client Needs, Program Effectiveness, Factors to Overcome Poverty? Through the UN Millennium Development Goals, the global community has challenged itself to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. To adequately respond to the scale of global poverty, however, microfinance institutions (MFIs) must operate more efficiently, provide products and services that meet the changing needs of their communities, and show results.

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microfinance gateway (link opens in a new window)

Citigroup to give loans to Bangladeshi beggars

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) - Beggars in impoverished Bangladesh are to receive interest-free loans from US banking giant Citigroup to help them become self-employed, the bank said in a statement.? The bank has donated 250,000 dollars to expand a four-year-old project run by micro-finance pioneer Grameen Bank. Grameen is credited with developing a unique microcredit system that has been used by some five million people in Bangladesh and replicated worldwide over the last 30 years. Pr...

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Yahoo! News (link opens in a new window)

Moto Debuts Credit Card Phone

Motorola added a new feature on Wednesday to the already versatile cell phone: credit card capability. The world?s second-largest cell phone maker unwrapped M-Wallet, a technology that allows users to pay bills, purchase products, or transfer money using their cell phones. M-Wallet, a software application that consumers and merchants alike can download from the Internet, also allows retailers to market goods and services directly to customers? cell phones. M-W...

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Red Herring (link opens in a new window)

GENEVA, Feb 7 (KUNA) -- The International Organizatioon for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday that migrants now number between an estimated 185-192 million people who last year officially sent an estimated USD 232 billion in remittances, USD167 billion to developing countries. IOM spokesperson Jemini Pandya noted that sending remittances through informal channels is estimated to be at least 50 per cent of recorded flows, implying that the true size of remittances reaching development coun...

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MENAFM.com (link opens in a new window)

Rural artisans and SSI better, proves Bangladesh

Can farm mechanisation lead to greater employment generation and poverty alleviation? The answer is ?yes?, provided the mechanisation is on a small-scale and equipment are manufactured by rural artisans and small-scale industry. A case in point is Bangladesh, which has been experimenting with this concept for sometime now (...) Bangladesh, Dr Kabir said, had gone for small-scale farm mechanisation, wherein tillage operations are mechanised and most of the farm equipment are manufacture...

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Oneworld South Asia (link opens in a new window)

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creative economy