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  • Rural homes without electricity get chance to receive solar power

    For as low as P343 per month, rural households in areas not reached by electricity will have the chance to use modern conveniences such as television sets, electric lights, karaokes and radio sets through solar power energy. Last week, the Negros Oriental provincial government, the Shell Solar Philippines Corp. and the Southern Sun Solar Power Corp. signed a memorandum of agreement that seeks to give solar-powered systems in rural areas through heavily-discounted loan packages. ...

    Source
    Philippine Daily Inquirer
  • Poverty Is a Growing Risk to Asian Markets

    Poverty isn’t something investors--nor many economists, for that matter--give much thought to. It doesn’t figure readily into bond yields or stock valuations. It’s not the first thing currency traders think about when placing bets. Nor is it an issue the world’s most powerful central banks ponder seriously. Yet that’s likely to change in the years ahead. All this matters to investors because China, India and other emerging Asian economies comprise the new frontier of c...

    Source
    Bloomberg
  • In Asia, more equality means less poverty

    The fate of the poor is also linked to other sectors and regions through migration, trade and remittances. For growth in these areas to contribute to poverty reduction in a larger way, it is essential to establish incentives for companies to utilize labor-intensive production. This requires enabling investment and appropriate trade, industrial and labor policies that make it profitable for businesses to hire workers. ...

    Source
    International Herald Tribune
  • How to turn the poor into consumers

    Growth opportunities in the region of 50 to 100 per cent are available if companies find that elusive ’sweet spot’ of function, price, distribution and volume. Take the Monsoon Hungama mobile phone. GSM mobile phones were first available in India for $1,000. As the price fell to $300, use gradually spread. When Reliance, a mobile phone provider, introduced the Monsoon Hungama promotion of 100 free minutes with a multimedia handset for $10 and a monthly payment of $9.25, the compan...

    Source
    The Financial Times
  • Microfinance key to poverty fight

    With little income or collateral, poor people are seldom able to obtain loans from banks and other formal financial institutions. Microfinance is one way of fighting poverty in rural areas. Through microfinance institutions such as credit unions, financial non-governmental organisations and even commercial banks, poor people can obtain small loans, receive money from relatives working abroad and safeguard their savings. Microfinance has changed the perception that poor people are not cred...

    Source
    The Financial Times
  • The next computing Kumbh mela

    I believe that the future of computing will be driven not by existing users but by new users. These are going to be from the world?s emerging markets. They need computing at the price of a cellphone. They need computing as a utility. The next big thing in computing will be about building a platform which makes the two most important creations of the past ? the computer and the internet ? available to the next users at a fraction of today?s prices. It will be about making hardware, softwar...

    Source
    The Business Standard
  • A Radical Approach that Delivers on Two Bottom Lines: Financial and Social

    First discussed in a Harvard Business Review article and then in Foreign Affairs , this transformative business idea is the mission of C.K. Prahalad, who has been called one of the top 20 business thinkers today. He brings this radical concept to life in his book that launches Wharton School Publishing/Pearson new business imprint, THE FORTUNE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Publication Date: August 25, 2004; $27.95 hardcover). T...

    Source
    Press release from Wharton School Publishing
  • Away on Business: Making a Difference

    Working in poverty-stricken areas gives corporate travelers an up-close look at global problems such as disease, illiteracy or injustice. It also puts them in a position to bring about change. ’When executives are in disadvantaged areas, the first instinct is to do something immediately ... and reach into their pockets for money, said Lelei LeLaulu, president and chief executive of ...

    Source
    Reuters
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