NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Science for the poor

How does one help the poor or those who belong to the base of the pyramid (BOP) during these tough times? The Ateneo of School Government (ASoG), in partnership with the International Development Research Center, provided a scientific answer: Innovation for BOP or iBOP. The iBOP works on this principle: the poor should be enabled to be not just recipients, but as consumers of services. Inventors and technopreneurs should create products that answer to the needs and fit ...

Source

ABS-CBN News Online (link opens in a new window)

CBN should bar universal banks from microfinance banking?Crown Eagle MFB boss

President/Chief Executive, Crown Eagle Microfinance Bank, Mr. Ben Taiwo Ojomo has called on the Cental Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bar universal banks from microfinance banking sector. Speaking in an interview with Vanguard at a pre launching of the bank, Ojomo averred that it is misplaced priorities for universal banks to establish microfinance banks as they are supposed to focus on competing globally with other banks. Speaking on the challenges confronting the microfinan...

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Vanguard (link opens in a new window)

Microfinance bank pledges commitment to SMEs

T HE Crowned Eagle Microfinance Bank Limited has made a commitment to add more value to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Speaking at the pre-launching news conference of the bank recently at Ikorodu, the President/Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr. Ben Tai Ojomo explained that their commitment to SMEs was to add value to their business with enhanced credit facilities. His words: We would position ourselves as a bank for small and medium size businesses and hel...

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Guardian Newspapers (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Conceptualization of Market Expansion Strategies in Developing Economies

Of late, the issue of market expansion has attracted the attention of academia as well as industry. Market expansion as a strategic growth option is particularly relevant in developing countries like India because of very low product penetration and consumption levels. The McKinsey Quarterly in its global survey of business executives reports that 84 percent of executives consider growing number of consumers in emerging markets as an important trend but a lesser number of executi...

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KIIT School of Management, India (link opens in a new window)

Measuring Market-Based Approaches

By Raman Nanda Market-based approaches, which can sustainably provide needed goods and services once donor dollars have dried up, must be a part of the solution to the problems of poverty. However, building new models that provide such goods and services at affordable prices ? in the face of high transaction costs, poor distribution systems, dispersed customers, limited financing options and, often, corruption ? requires imaginative business solutions and partnerships...

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Alliance Magazine (link opens in a new window)

Global Survey Finds Most Companies Lack Sustainability Strategy

Results of a global survey of corporations on sustainability released today show that one-half of businesses polled lack a sustainability strategy. Those with a strategy are more likely to be focused on improving perceptions and responding to increasing regulations, rather than meeting social needs or generating revenue opportunities. CEOs made up the majority of survey respondents, and although less than half have a strategy today, 55 percent said sustainability will grow in impor...

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PR Newswire (link opens in a new window)

Banking Access Can Help Break Cycle of Poverty

Johannesburg, Jun 11, 2008 (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX News Network) -- QUEUING at the bank often seems as inevitable, and about as much fun, as death and taxes. Yet for many in SA, bank services remain far out of reach. The findings of the 2005-06 Income and Expenditure Survey (IES) on access to financial services show up the divisions in the economy that leave so many poor and unemployed, and the way markets continue to replicate the inequalities created ove...

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Calibre (link opens in a new window)

Latin America: Social innovation ? Giving the majority a stake

Latin American companies are getting to grips with ?bottom of the pyramid? business. Illiterate residents across rural Bolivia have never heard of the academic CK Prahalad. And until recently many had never used modern banking services. They still don?t know who Prahalad is, but now they are withdrawing money from a voice-recognition ATM developed by Prodem, a microfinance institution. In addition to understanding verbal instructions, the specially adapted bank ...

Source

Ethical Corporation (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America