NextBillion - A WDI Publication

India’s Poor Risk ’Slow Death’ Recycling ’E-Waste’

NEW DELHI - Young rag-pickers sifting through rubbish are a common image of India’s chronic poverty, but destitute children face new hazards picking apart old computers as part of the growing "e-waste" industry. Asif, aged seven, spends his days dismantling electronic equipment in a tiny, dimly-lit unit in east Delhi along with six other boys. "My work is to pick out these small black boxes," he said, fingers deftly prising out integr...

Source

AFP (link opens in a new window)

Tags

waste

D.Light Wins Ashden Award

D light Design, an Indian social enterprise that brings innovative solar lanterns to many people across India and other developing countries, has won the top Gold Award at the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy 2010. The prize, worth 40,000 pounds, was announced on Thursday night by noted environmentalist and broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough. D light Design was chosen for designing, manufacturing and marketing high quality, durable and affordable solar lanterns. In the w...

Source

Hindustan Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

TechnoServe Partners With Cargill to Support Entrepreneurs in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- TechnoServe, in partnership with Cargill, has created an entrepreneur development program in Venezuela to identify promising small b...

Source

PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Danone Expands Its Pantry to Woo the World’s Poor

RICHARD TOLL, Senegal-Twice a week after work, Senegalese webmaster Demba Gueye treats himself to a snack: a 10-cent tube of Dolima drinkable yogurt. It’s a splurge considering his two-dollar-a-day food budget, and the 50-gram sachets are "teeny." But the 25 year-old says they’re delicious. "I’m crazy about it," he says. The yogurt is an attempt by French food company ...

Source

Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Paul Collier: Why Natural Resources Should Help End Poverty

Natural assets can be hugely valuable for the poorest countries. In Afghanistan, the Americans have used new aerial prospecting technology to scour the country for natural resources. So far they have found $1trn’s worth. Properly used, this would be enough money to transform Afghanistan into a land of prosperity. It could finance the security, schools and infrastructure that are the foundations from which ordinary people can earn a decent living. ...

Source

New Statesman (link opens in a new window)

Rang De: India’s First Online Platform for Micro-Credit

Kanakama Redi, a vegetable vendor in Puri, Orissa used to work from 8.00 am till late in the evening. Yet, most of her earnings were lost in repayment of the loan, availed at higher credit rates, to buy vegetables. Like her, Baban who makes bamboo baskets too could not make the most of her skills earlier as she required money for the raw material and it came at a high interest from the local lender. But things changed once micro-finance facilitator Rang De took care of their small-term requir...

Source

Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

IGNIA Completes Closing of Fund I at US$102 Million

MONTERREY, Mexico, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- IGNIA Fund I, LP Latin America’s first and largest impact investing fund, announced today that after seven rounds, it has concluded its fundraising process having reached US$102 million to serve businesses at the base of the socio-economic pyramid. This last round was led by J.P. Morgan with a US$5 million commitment and by Corporacion Mexicana de Inversiones de Capital (Fond...

Source

PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

The Pyramid Base Will Get Much Larger

C K Prahalad’s paradigm of targeting the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid makes for great anecdotes. But it’s easier said than done. India is the ideal environment for "field experiments". Secular growth has seen millions move up from abject poverty to lower-income and then from lower-income to middle-income level. The sociologists and demographers have fierce, politically-loaded arguments about the percentage of poverty reduction. ...

Source

Business Standard (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia