NextBillion - A WDI Publication

The Candy Bar at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Should Big Food Be Delivered to the Amazon?

Last week, Nestle, the world’s largest food company, launched a barge called Nestlé Até Você a Bordo - or Nestlé Takes You Onboard - on an 18-day voyage up the Amazon River in Brazil. This so-called floating supermarket will bring more than 300 well-known Nestlé brands, including Ninho (packaged milk), Maggi (soups and seasonings) and Nescafé (instant coffe...

Source

CSR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Private Equity Funds Step Up Investments in MFIs

Private equity (PE) investments in microfinance institutions (MFIs), which fell by 12 per cent last year (2009), have recovered this year. Between January and June this year, MFIs have attracted PE investment totalling $84 million (about Rs 386.4 crore) - an increase of a little over 15 per cent over the first half of 2009. Industry experts say the attraction of MFIs for PE investors lies in two sets of figures - the high interest rates that MF...

Source

Sify Finance (link opens in a new window)

Inside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The headquarters of probably the most powerful charity in the world, and one of the most quietly influential international organisations of any sort, currently stand between a derelict restaurant and a row of elderly car repair businesses. Gentrification has yet to fully colonise this section of the Seattle waterfront, and even the actual premises of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which, appropriately perhaps, used to be a cheque-processing plant,...

Source

The Guardian (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Agriculture

Solar for All Initiative Awards Prizes for Innovative Off-Grid Power Solutions

Ashoka and Canopus Foundation, founders of the Solar for All Initiative, announced the winners of the Solar for All Design Contest. For the past six months, Solar for All has been running a Contest to find the best innovations in delivering affordable solar photovoltaic power to low income communities without access to electricity, combining both affordable technical solutions with a developed market approach. The Award Ceremony, held on the ev...

Source

PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Kinetic Plans Power Project for Villages

Kinetic Chairman, Arun Firodia, who saw an opportunity at bottom-of-the-pyramid long before the phrase became a catchword and launched the moped Luna, now plans to launch a project that would bring power to villages. The plan entails starting a pair of micro-electric plants at villages with a population of over 2,000. The mini wer-generation stations, one each for solar and biomass, will have a capacity of around 35-kilowatts each. "Through our family trust, we will soon be startin...

Source

Hindustan Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Cooperatives Can Get Women Out of Poverty

On July 3, Uganda joined the rest of the world in the celebrations to mark the 88th Annual Cooperative Day, a day which provides us with a chance to reflect upon the remarkable achievements of the Cooperative Movement. The theme for this year was Empowering Women, a section of society which has historically stood to gain the most from the movement, and continues to advance itself using cooperative tools. All over the world, women are choosing t...

Source

Daily Monitor (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

In India, for India: Medical Device Makers Plug In

(Reuters) - In a sleek glass and chrome building in Bangalore’s software hub, the more than 1,000 young researchers and engineers at GE Healthcare could hold the keys to innovations that save lives in India’s vast hinterland. The 50,000-sq. ft. R&D facility, GE Healthcare’s largest, recently launched the MACi, a portable electrocardiogram (ECG) machine that weighs less than 1 kilo and runs on a battery even in hot, dusty conditi...

Source

Reuters (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

India’s Mobile Providers: Competing for Calls at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Six months ago, Chunnilal Menaria’s wife grumbled about her husband spending US$45 on a mobile phone. They lived in a one-room stone house, with no toilets or running water, only eight hours of electricity a day and earned US$60 a month with which they fed their family of five. The monsoon seasons, from which India derives much of its annual rainfall, have been poor over the past couple years and forced Menaria to take up carpentry to supplement his dwi...

Source

Knowledge@Wharton (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia