NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Fighting Poverty – One Yoghurt at a Time

The west’s beleaguered banking system could learn a thing or two from an illiterate Bangladeshi villager called Sobi Rani. She is a Grameen Lady, one of the thousands of grassroots activists who are the bedrock of the Grameen phenomenon, which, with nearly 30 businesses, is probably the largest financially viable social enterprise in the world. The cornerstone is the Grameen Bank, founded 33 years ago by Muhammad Yunus, superstar social entrepreneur and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The ...

Source

The Guardian (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

A Company Prospers by Saving Poor People’s Lives

It all started with mosquito nets. Or, no, with guinea worm filters. Or, before that, with a million yards of wool in the mountains of Sweden. Or, taken back another generation, to uniforms for hotel and supermarket workers. There are plenty of charitable foundations and public agencies devoted to helping the world’s poor, many with instantly recognizable names like Unicef or the Gates Foundation. But private companies with that as their sole focus...

Source

New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

IFC invests $15M in WaterHealth for filtration in rural India

Irvine, Calif.-based WaterHealth International [1] is planning to install water purification and disinfection systems for 600 communities across India, funded by a $15 million project finance round from International Finance Corp. [2] this week. IFC, a division of the World Bank, has previously invested equity in WaterHealth International to grow the business. But this new cash infusion will allow WaterHealth to quadruple the number of decentralized units up and running in Indian comm...

Source

Cleantech.com (link opens in a new window)

Rural India Snaps Up Mobile Phones

By Eric Bellman In the village of Karanehalli, a cluster of simple homes around an intersection of two dirt roads about 40 miles from India’s high-tech capital of Bangalore, Farmer K.T. Srinivasa doesn’t have a toilet for his home or a tractor for his field. But when a red and white cellular tower sprouted in his village, he splurged on a cellphone. While the way his family threshes rice -- crushing it with a massive stone roller -- hasn’t chang...

Source

The Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

How to count the invisibles?

On a visit to a poor neighborhood, or favela, in Rio de Janeiro several years ago, Melanie Edwards asked how many people lived there. She heard estimates from 5,000 to 60,000. No one really knew. They were ?invisible,? just a small part of the 1 billion people around the world who are off the grid, lacking birth certificates, driver?s licenses, or voter registration cards. ?They have nothing to show that they exist in the world,? Ms. Edwards says. That information gap poses...

Source

Christian Science Monitor (link opens in a new window)

India to Follow $2,000 Car with $20 Laptop

The project, backed by New Delhi, would considerably undercut the so-called $100 laptop, otherwise known as the Children’s Machine or XO, that was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the US. The Children’s Machine, which received a cool reception in India, is the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child charity initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, the computer scientist and former director of MIT’s Media Lab. Intel launched a simila...

Source

The Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Experiments Bring Internet to Remote African Villages

By CHRIS NICHOLSON Published: ENTASOPIA, Kenya - The road from Nairobi winds 100 miles to this town deep in Masai country. The asphalt gives way to sand and dust, until finally it is just a dirt track climbing over broken hills and plunging back to desert flats. The going is slow.?The outpost, with about 4,000 inhabitants, is at the end of that road and beyond the reach of power lines. It has no bank, no post office, few cars and little infrastructure. Newspapers arrive in a bundle ev...

Source

New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Charity Alone is Not the Answer

Other new models of philanthropy are even more closely linked to the business world. Last year, the Soros Economic Development Fund, Google?s philanthropic arm, and the Omidyar Network unveiled a $17m fund to invest in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. SMEs are an important engine for economic growth and job creation but are sorely lacking in India due, in part, to a lack of the financing needed to scale up. Reuben Abraham, senior adviser to the fund based in Hyderabad, ...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)