NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Loans, not gifts, the way to end poverty: aid agency

By Mark Colvin Opportunity International is aiming to raise nearly $1 billion in the next four years to lend to millions of poor entrepreneurs in India. While anti-poverty campaigners call for an increase in Australia’s foreign aid budget, there is also a debate about whether aid in the form of money, training or goods is the way to go. Opportunity International is an Au...

Source

ABC News Australia (link opens in a new window)

Drug Delivery

How do you get basic care to the remotest villages in Africa? One clever idea is to borrow tactics from retail chains like McDonald’s and Subway --operate an easy-to-replicate, owner-operated franchise system focusing on health care. Minnesota lawyer and businessman Scott Hillstrom started HealthStor...

Source

Forbes.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Finding Profit in Servicing the Poor

If someone were to do a poll of the Top 10 breakthrough ideas in management in the decade gone by, the concept of the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) would without doubt be somewhere at the top of the list. The idea?that there is a huge untapped opportunity for companies in creating value for and serving the 4 billion people comprising the world’s poor?has captured the imagination of companies across the world. Overnight, multinationals like Unilever and SC Johnson launched initiatives in this d...

Source

The Times of India (link opens in a new window)

Western Union And GSMA To Create New Global Mobile Money Transfer Service

The GSM Association (GSMA), a global trade association representing over 700 GSM mobile phone operators, and The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU), a global leader in money-transfer services, today announced an agreement to facilitate the development of cross-border mobile money transfer services. Western Union and the GSMA are developing a commercial and technical framework that mobile operators can use to deploy services that enable consumers to send and receive low-denomination, high...

Source

GSM Association (link opens in a new window)

Migrants Sent $301 Billion Back Home in 2006, Study Finds

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Source

Miami Herald (link opens in a new window)

Tags

migrants

CGAP Newsflash: Implementing Social Performance

Many microfinance institutions aim to help poor people, but can they prove they are helping? While most MFIs report on their financial performance, few report on their social performance as they feel that social performance is too vague and difficult to report on. Now the Social Performance Task Force has developed a common reporting framework that will help. The framework is a set of indicators that institutions with a social mandate can use to report on their social performance.

Source

CGAP (link opens in a new window)

CDC to Boost Microfinance Fund With $30m

By David Wighton in New York. CDC Group , the UK government-owned emerging markets investor, will today announce it is putting $30m into a new microfinance hedge fund, underlining the increasing commercial interest in microfinance. The hedge fund, called Minlam Microfinance Offshore Fund, has raised just under $40m, including money from John Muse, founder of Hick...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

BiD Challenge India 2007: Awarding Entrepreneurship for Development

Jointly organized by the Business in Development (BiD) Network Foundation and Intellecap , the BiD Challenge India 2007 business plan competition awarded six amazing entrepreneurs who are making a difference and rewriting the rules for running profitable enterprises for development.

Source

BusinessWire India (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia