NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Cash in hand: why Africans are banking on the mobile phone

For consumers in developed markets, using a mobile phone for banking services is a smart add-on to a bank’s branch network. But to people in the developing world, the arrival of mobile banking - or m-banking - is potentially revolutionary. If money is an economy’s lifeblood, improving its circulation plays a critical role. Many Africans living in rural areas, for instance, rely on money sent home by members of their family who work in towns and cities. But getting that cash...

Source

The Guardian (link opens in a new window)

Latin America’s Poor Provide Rich Pickings

Peruvian housewife Genoveva Airaconda spends her days visiting neighbours around her shanty town on the outskirts of Lima. It might not sound like a profitable pastime, but her visits provide a steady income for her family as well as adding to the bottom line of Swiss-based multinational Nestl?. Airaconda is one of hundreds of door-to-door salespeople that the food giant has recently employed to sell their nutritional products in the Peruvian capital. By usi...

Source

The Guardian

Region

Latin America

Microfinance To Provide Cheap Handsets To Poor

Leading microfinance lender SKS Microfinance will join hands with Nokia and Airtel for providing cheap handsets to the poor.?This is our pilot project. We are in the process of it and the MoU is soon to be signed, Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS Microfinance said here today. The company will launch the project in Andhra Pradesh first. As much as 15 per cent of the customers of SKS are already having handsets. We expect 75 per cent of our customers to go for these cheap ...

Source

Business Standard (link opens in a new window)

Bridging the Global Digital Divide, One Laptop at a Time

On May 20, the non-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program unveiled the second version of its XO laptop, which is designed to bring affordable, modern technology to children in developing countries. In April, Intel announced its next-generation Classmate PC, which targets the same market. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been tweaking its Windows XP operating system for these educational devices, which also run on the open source Linux operating system. Experts at Wharton say that the focus on thi...

Source

Knowledge at Wharton (link opens in a new window)

50 Best Websites 2008

There’s a lot of international development news that doesn’t make it onto CNN. So bookmark AfriGadget , a site dedicated to simple, sustainable inventions in Africa. Recent entries have covered efforts to create biodiesel fuel out of local pine nuts in Sierra Leone, and programs to build bicycles out of bamboo in Ghana and Kenya. AfriGadget isn’t updated every day (and sometimes not even once a week), but it offers such distincti...

Source

Time (link opens in a new window)

d.light design Launches Revolutionary LED & CFL Lighting Products

d.light design today announced the launch of its first line of revolutionary lighting products, custom-designed for urban and rural households in developing countries that do not have regular access to electricity and are currently relying primarily on dim, polluting and hazardous kerosene lanterns for lighting. ? We believe that 1.6 billion people without regular access to electricity deserve high-quality, safe and dependable light that they can afford, ? ...

Source

Business Wire (link opens in a new window)

Banks fail to reach rural borrowers

The percentage of bank lending going to rural areas has fallen by 50 percent during the past decade, despite concerted attempts by the government to increase access to credit in the countryside. According to recently released data from Bangladesh Bank, bank advances to rural areas were 16.93 percent of the country’s total advances in 1998, but fell to 8.39 percent at the end of December 2007. While micro-credit institutions have been able to provide small loans in rural...

Source

Daily Star (link opens in a new window)

RP shows how to help, not exploit, the poor

SARI-SARI stores, sachets, electronic loads and unlimited texting. These are just some of the models that the Philippines will be sharing with the rest of Asia on how entrepreneurs can better serve and reach the $3.5-billion ?base of the pyramid? (BoP) market in the region. The Ateneo School of Government,...

Source

Business Mirror (link opens in a new window)