NextBillion - A WDI Publication

AS a new development approach, making markets work for the poor (MMW4P) can have a big impact in SA because it is about changing the circumstances that prevent the poor from participating more effectively and extensively in the market economy. By lowering the barriers blocking people?s participation in markets, by getting businesses to extend their activities to poor regions and by giving the poor a leg up into market activities, development agents ? public and private ? will be helpi...

Source

Business Day (link opens in a new window)

Grameen Group, Groupe Danone team up to set up social business enterprise

Grameen Group Thursday signed an agreement with Groupe Danone, a French dairy company, aiming to provide nutrition to the low income and nutritionally-deprived population of the country. The joint venture project, titled Grameen Danone Foods, a social business enterprise, will establish its first factory in Bogra involving $ 1.0 million (10 lakh). Leaders of four Grameen enterprises--Grameen Byabosha Bikash, Grameen Shakti, Grameen Kalyan and Grameen ...

Source

Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Micro Pension Plan Set to Get off the Block

The government may be struggling to convince the Left about the New Pension Scheme (NPS) and the need to channel a slice of the pension and provident fund kitty into equity. Shaji Vikraman But there?s hope round in an unlikely source. Early next week, 50,000 women, many of them struggling to eke out a living, will sign up for the country?s first micro pension scheme. These ladies, members of Ahmedabad?s Self-Employed Wom...

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Economic Times, India (link opens in a new window)

Hong Kong’s initial foray into BOP enterprise development

More than 300 participants from various sectors on Thursday attended the Conference on Social Enterprise to discuss new approach to helping the poor. The conference, jointly organized by the Commission on Poverty and the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, aims to enhance community understanding of social enterprise and explain its relevance to poverty alleviation. The one-day conference was the first of its kind and scale in Hong ...

Source

Xinhua Online (link opens in a new window)

Region

Asia Pacific

Chip maker moves forward with plans to sell an affordable desktop PC in developing countries. Jeremy Kirk Intel has partnered with a Mexican telecoms company to sell an affordable PC designed for first-time computer users in developing countries. It’s the latest effort by technology vendors to develop products for emerging markets. Advertisement Intel said the PC would be a small, energy efficient system with full-featured PC technologies. It will be cheaper than...

Source

PC World (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

NOKIA has significantly raised its outlook for the global mobile phone market, saying it would grow by 15 per cent or more this year, which would mean shipments of about 914 million handsets. The Finnish market leader’s previous forecast was for growth of 10 per cent or more from about 795 million handsets in 2005. Motorola, the world’s No2 handset maker, does not produce overall forecasts but was thought to be in line with Nokia’s original numbers. Speaking y...

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The Weekend Australian (link opens in a new window)

JB: This is Earth & Sky, on the need for fresh water and the use of simple technologies in the developing world DB: They can make a huge difference for some of the billion-plus people on Earth today who live in poverty so extreme that they are at risk of dying every day. Consider the Sahel region of Africa. It’s been in drought conditions for decades. When rains do come, reservoirs and wells fill up. But, in some places, the water has to be carried to farmer’s fields by h...

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Earth & Sky Radio Series (link opens in a new window)

Private-Public partnership model to improve the livelihoods of the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP)

CII - ICRISAT & Coca-Cola Foundation Collaboration for Backward Areas Development through Strategic Intervention in Watershed Development The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Coca-Cola Foundation will collaborate for sustainable and equitable management of Rural Water Resources Infrastructure and other Natural Resources Management (NRM) through watershed+ interventions in Dungarpur district...

Source

Moneycontrol.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia