NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Julio Maura, executive president of GrupoNueva, describes how his company is set on making products affordable for Latin America?s poorest farmers. Virtuous circles, environmental footprints, sustainability matrices ? corporate responsibility now has a new shape to add to its conceptual armoury: the pyramid. Coined by CK Prahalad in his much profiled book ?The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid?, the theory centres on the world?s three or four billion poor people who li...

Source

Ethical Corporation (link opens in a new window)

Yehu Microfinance plays big role in Kenya

One of the greatest stories in the CHOICE community is the rise of Yehu Bank, the microcredit organization that CHOICE board member Louis Pope developed, originally as a CHOICE program. Although Yehu was later spun off for accounting reasons, they still work closely together. And everyone in the CHOICE community can be proud of what Yehu accomplishes, supplying loans to nearly 7,000 women in Kenya with a 97% repayment rate. Water plays a powerful role in our lives. In the village of...

Source

choicehumanitarian.org (link opens in a new window)

From charity to business

(The following appeared in the full article From Charity to Business) A credit to the industry ProCredit came to banking by an indirect route. Its founder, C.P. Zeitinger, began his career in the 1970s by examining Latin American financial institutions that were getting money from German development agencies. When he pointed out that the whole thing was a waste of money, he was, in effect, fired by the agencies . After working on the conversion of various not...

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The Economist (link opens in a new window)

FG Urged to Review Private Sector-Led Development Concept

Lagos United Nations Ambassador, Economic Development, Africa and the Middle East, Alhaji Mahmoud Umoru has called on the federal government to review its concept of private sector-led economic development. He said for the concept to materialise in Nigeria, government must ensure that basic infrastructure, including roads, electricity, water and transportation were functional and affordable. Umoru told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday that al...

Source

This Day (Lagos) (link opens in a new window)

Region

Sub-Saharan Africa

Gift to Tufts will aid world’s smallest firms

The founder of eBay and his wife have donated $100 million to Tufts University, the school’s largest gift ever, but also one with a unique twist: All the money will be invested in microfinance, which involves tiny loans as low as $40, designed to help poor people in the developing world start small businesses, such as selling hand-woven cloth or goat’s milk. Pierre and Pam Omidyar intend the gift to generate healthy returns for their alma mater and in so doing to demonstrate ...

Source

The Boston Globe (link opens in a new window)

Micro no More

The group of 30 women in the dusty square of a poor village outside Hyderabad, their children on their laps, passing tiny deposits and loan payments to a young man in their midst, seem to be engaging in a form of finance quite unlike that practised in the City of London or Wall Street. But is it really that different? Microfinance offers all the transactions you would expect in any branch of finance: loans, deposits, money transfers, insurance. It is distinct only because it involves...

Source

The Economist (link opens in a new window)

CBN, UNDP Rejuvenate Microfinancing

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have commenced a reinvigorated campaign to jump-start the micro-finance sub-sector of the economy. Working in collaboration with other stakeholders such as the CitiGroup Foundation and Nigerian commercial banks the CBN and UNDP held the first edition of the Nigerian Edition of the Global Microenterpreneurship Award, in Abuja, on Tuesday, to mark this year’s International Year of Micro-credit (IY...

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Vanguard, Emma Ujah (link opens in a new window)

Giants and Minnows

One of the most encouraging trends in microfinance is that the world’s largest banks and insurers are becoming interested. At a minimum, they can do something that small local institutions cannot: move money around the world through their own systems, and tap and raise huge pots of capital. They can also reduce the risk and increase the liquidity of small institutions by packaging and reselling their loans, and even provide savings products through tiny institutions. So-called ?b...

Source

The Economist (link opens in a new window)