NextBillion - A WDI Publication

First-Ever SMEs Policy Announced: Policy Aimed at Poverty Reduction and Jobs Creation

The first-ever small and medium enterprises (SMEs) policy aimed at creating a conducive environment for the development of small business units across the country; thereby stimulating job creation and poverty reduction, with an outlay of Rs 13.128 billion was announced here on Wednesday. According to the SMEs policy, the government has to work mainly in four sectors, which are: Small Business Development Centre, Credit Information Bureau, Business Cluster and Credit Enhancement Mechan...

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Daily Times (link opens in a new window)

Eco-Friendly Coir Sector Will get Rs 200-cr Modernisation Funds

The Centre is readying a Rs 150-Rs 200-crore package for the eco-friendly coir industry. The idea is to help coir makers capture a larger slice of the global market. India is a dominant player is the global market, having a 90% share followed by Sri Lanka. Coir exports grew by 24% to top Rs 600 crore in 2006-07. For this fiscal, the Centre has drawn up a Rs 25 crore modernisation plan. This could be followed with a separate booster dose of Rs 150-Rs 200 crore, said a senior official.

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Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

How to release energies of the poor

For Richard Ndungu, the CEO at KPMG, when a company re-organises or repackages her products to facilitate access by the poor people, it is engaging in corporate social responsibility. Speaking at a SIFE Kenya CEO?s luncheon, Ndung?u pointed out that by unbundling a ?Bamba Fifty? Safaricom empowered millions of Kenyans who would otherwise have never used cell phone services. Equity Bank was also cited as another example of a fast growing bank in the East Afric...

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Business Daily Africa (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Small people, Big Achievements

Thousands of kilometres of tarmac have been laid out since the Jamsahib (Maharaja of Jamnagar) sent his wife?s pair of pink slippers to Rolls-Royce so that the carmaker could exactly match the colour of his new Phantom II. Sixty-years since democracy spelt the doom for such royal demeanour, Jamnagar, a small town on India?s western coast in Gujarat, has come to be known much more for a refinery that one man without the legacy of a Birla or a Tata built, symbolising the rise of a new b...

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Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Aussie Project Takes Dumped Phones to World’s Poor

An Australian initiative is taking unwanted mobile phones and distributing them to some of the world’s poorest people, who are starting businesses in a bid to escape poverty. Not-for-profit group Enable Community has already distributed phones to the tsunami-hit Indonesian province of Aceh, mostly to fledgling businesses who have set up using microfinance credit. The group plans to embark on a much larger project with a microfinance group in the Philippines later this y...

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MSN News (link opens in a new window)

Behind One Effort to Tap Into India’s Water Market

This article highlights the difficulty of diving into the potentially massive, but messy business of selling clean water to poor people. Many have tried to help developing nations with their water problems; few have come up with a way to profit from the effort. KAIKALURU, India -- After draining this town’s pool of drinking water recently, cleaners found drowned rats and bloated lizards. But at least, as is common at other storage tanks across this parched land in eastern India, there were n...

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Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Richard Branson’s Latest Venture

Virgin’s founder talks about why fellow entrepreneurs are uniquely suited to help fight problems such as poverty, AIDS, and climate change. The Entrepreneur: Sir Richard Branson, 57 Background: At 16, British-born Branson launched his first business: a magazine called Student. He then established a mail-order record business that turned into a chain of music shops and eventually became the Virgin Megastores. The Company: Since his first venture, Branson’s Virgin Gro...

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Business Week (link opens in a new window)

B-Schools Find Their Base

The Base of the Pyramid theory is an especially attractive one, especially, if, like me, you believe that MBAs can make a huge dent in world poverty by developing business opportunities in developing regions. The idea, made popular by Hart and University of Michigan business professor C.K. Prahalad, is that companies should not ignore the combined purchasing power of an estimated four billion people who live in poverty throughout the world. A few days ago I heard from a former BusinessWeek colle...

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MBA Universe (link opens in a new window)