NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Australian group seeks BoP business opportunities

A T THE tail end of a business conference in the pretty Papua New Guinean coastal town of Madang late last month, a posse of high-powered Australian suits slipped into tropical mufti, climbed aboard a charter plane and flew deep into the wilds of the Southern Highlands interior. Dropping into remote villages over three days, they visited markets and surveyed crops, talked to tribal elders and field workers. They asked lots of questions about how people were making a livi...

Source

The Age (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific

Microcredit loans used to buy food

Fewer than half of microcredit borrowers invest the money in the grassroots businesses that such loans are intended to foster, new research into poverty alleviation has discovered. But the claim is disputed by some microlenders, including ASA of Bangladesh, winner of the Banking at the Bottom of the Pyramid category in last year’s FT Sustainable Banking Awards. Microcredit was devised in the 1970s in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank to lend small sums...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Al Gore: Oil “Junkie” America Needs Third World Help

The former Vice President, clean-shaven in a dark suit and black cowboy boots, pauses. "Junkies find veins in their toes, when the veins in their arms and legs collapse," he says to Charlie Rose. The audience suffers an uncomfortable pause, and then laughs. Gore keeps a straight face. He isn’t joking. This is the closing panel of the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise , held on New York&...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Banco Real: Brazilian lender focuses on both profit and growth

Jeronimo Ramos, a director at Banco Real in São Paulo, sounds like a man with a mission. “You have to operate inside local communities. You have to know your customer’s story at first hand. Because by giving people credit, you are creating well-being. About 70 per cent of people that get credit are lifted out of poverty as a result.” Yet as Mr Ramos insists, Banco Real is not in the business of delivering social services. “We are not a philanthropic organi...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Enterprise Introduces a Whiff of Revolution

By Sarah Murray In her book Dead Aid ,* Dambisa Moyo calls for the end of aid to Africa within five years. Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda - which has halved aid as a percentage of its gross domestic product in the past decade - recently argued in the Financial Times that aid creates instability and dependency while failing to reduce poverty or disease. Ms Moyo and Mr Kagame are among those questioning traditional models of dev...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Profit for Good

By Sarah Murray In water-scarce India, access to modern irrigation technology has long eluded the country’s 260m smallholder farmers. Now, small-scale manufacturing and a distribution system is bringing irrigation products to growing numbers of these farmers, generating water savings of 30-50 per cent, energy savings of 50 per cent and increased crop yields of up to 70 per cent. The new system is not, however, funded by a multilateral de...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Slumdog Entrepreneurs

Over the last five years, Mumbai has been blessed with two significant depictions. In 2004, Suketu Mehta wrote “Maximum City,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and is one of the best books about a great city in recent years. In 2008, “Slumdog Millionaire,” a romantic tale of urban poverty and quiz show success, sold millions of tickets and won a bucketful of Oscars. Both capture the energy and diversity of Mumbai, but neither adequately captures the economic...

Source

New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Coca-Cola Distribution Model Contributes to Entrepreneurship

Report finds that the company’s Manual Distribution Centers have led to the creation of 12,000 jobs while contributing to the Millennium Development Goals. SocialFunds.com -- As part of its commitment to the Business Call to Action, Coca-Cola has developed a Manual Distribution Center (MDC) model in Ethiopia and Tanzania that has the potential to contribute to some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Coca-Cola’s efforts in Africa are described in a report entitled ...

Source

Social Funds (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa