NextBillion - A WDI Publication

US bank Citigroup has teamed up with private equity group CDC to invest at least $200m (?102m) in Africa. Citigroup will invest $100m in its first African private equity fund. The UK government-owned CDC group, formally called the Commonwealth Development Corporation, will match this amount. The fund will provide opportunities for Africa’s infrastructure, telecoms, manufacturing and energy industries, the CDC said. We believe that profitable ...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Rockefeller Revolutionary

?I AM not a ?steady as it goes? sort of person,? says Judith Rodin, with admirable self-awareness. In the 21 months since she became president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Ms Rodin has shaken to its core the charitable foundation established by John D. Rockefeller, an oil tycoon, in 1913. The 58 people who have left the staff, about one-third of those she inherited, are but the most visible evidence of the thorough change in culture over which she is presiding?or, rather, the most audible evid...

Source

The Economist (link opens in a new window)

How big a change have cellphones made to Africa? I shout the question at Isis Nyong’o, over the throbbing bassline of a Kenyan ragga track. She tells me calmly: It’s had about the same effect as a democratic change of leadership. I’d expected hype from a Kenyan-American executive at MTV Networks Africa but by now I believed the hype myself. It was not the bling, the fashion models with candy-floss hair - it was the Nairobi teenagers mobbing the entr...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Migrant workers sending money home has become the biggest source of foreign income in some poor European countries, the World Bank has said. In a report on European and Central Asian (ECA) nations, the bank said that remittances sometimes beat foreign investment aid and exports in size. Officially recorded payments in the region - which includes former Soviet states - were over $19bn (?9.67bn). The largest amount of remittances, as a share of GDP, were sent to...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Region

Europe & Eurasia

Pyramid power

Will seamstresses in Guatemala or poor farmers in India pay $3 for a pair of reading glasses? It seems unlikely. Such people are among the three billion or so who earn only a dollar or two a day. And yet Scojo Vision, an American optical firm, is betting that they will pay that princely sum for its spectacles. The notion that only subsidies or handouts can provide the world’s poorest with essential services such as health care is wrong, says Jordan Kassalow, Scojo’s co-founder a...

Source

Economist (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

$100 laptop could sell to public

The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project are looking at the possibility of selling the machine to the public. One idea would be for customers to have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world. Five million of the laptops will be delivered to developing nations this summer, in one of the most ambitious educational exercises ever undertaken. Michalis Bletsas, chief connectivity officer for the project, said eBay could be a pa...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Motorola’s gloomy outlook casts shadow on mobile phone market

As rapid industrialisation has boosted disposable incomes and phone networks in emerging markets such as India and China, handset makers have tapped into growing demand. Over the past two years, China has enjoyed growth of 5 million users a month, while Indian monthly growth now averages 6 million. The need for lower-cost models for large parts of these markets, along with intensifying competition between manufacturers, has eaten away at margins. Motorola has rattled the mobile phon...

Source

The Guardian (link opens in a new window)

India’s vast market lures telecom giants

Companies like General Motors, Unilever and Coca-Cola are pinning their future growth plans on Asia, where tens of millions of consumers are stepping over the threshold from poverty to the middle class. But to appeal to these low-income, highly price- conscious customers, many businesses are finding that they must learn to make money on drastically less expensive offerings. And as they reinvent themselves to suit the frugal shoppers of Asia, some wonder whether the strategies of Western corporat...

Source

International Herald Tribune (link opens in a new window)