NextBillion - A WDI Publication

The social enterprise business model is a proven means of developing people-centred activities that

Nowadays, it is not enough for a business merely to make money. Companies also have to demonstrate that they care about the society and environment in which they operate. This notion has caught on to such an extent that the concept it helped to create Corporate Social Responsibility has itself become a big business. But, while this is largely an additional activity indulged in by large companies, a new type of small business is springing up. Social enterprise...

Source

The Independent (link opens in a new window)

The Bank of Nova Scotia has been running a quiet little experiment in banking for the past three years in some of Jamaica’s poorest communities that it says might one day yield results across all its far-flung international operations. The bank has ventured into the field of microfinance, traditionally the realm of advocacy groups and charities, making small loans to people who otherwise would never be able to borrow from a traditional bank. Loans can be as small as $...

Source

The Toronto Star (link opens in a new window)

$3B in OFW remittances eludes banks

As much as $3 billion in cash sent home by overseas Filipino workers is still coursed through non-bank channels such as couriers, Governor Amando Tetangco of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP, the central bank) said Wednesday, citing findings of a government study. Banks are expected to capture $10.3 billion in OFW remittances this year and will likely capture a bigger proportion as the money inflows continue expanding in the years ahead, Tetangco said. As we are...

Source

INQ7 (Philippines) (link opens in a new window)

In one of our media fora in Club 888 at Marco Polo Hotel many weeks ago, I confronted representatives of the regional office of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) by saying that our government is so involved in small and medium enterprises to the extent that less attention and funding are given to micro businesses. I’ve pointed out to them that if we are really serious in addressing our widespread poverty, it is most advisable that our government should equally attend to the needs an...

Source

Sun Star (link opens in a new window)

British tycoon Richard Branson launched a business school on Wednesday in Johannesburg aimed at budding entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds in South Africa. The South African economy is dependent on entrepreneurial activity for creating future economic growth and jobs, Richard Branson said at the launch of the Branson School of Entrepreneurship at Cida City Campus, the first project to carry his name. I hope to up the percentage of successful companies in So...

Source

Mail & Gaurdian Online (link opens in a new window)

A responsible profit from the war on malaria

?Business is for profit, and profit is for a purpose,? he says. ?This makes business sustainable and profit responsible.? When he was 19, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen left school, went hitchhiking and wound up in Cairo, where he met a couple of Nigerian wheeler dealers. They told him about some ?easy business? importing trucks, but he eventually decided he would be better off without partners. ...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

North Africa & Near East

Cornell students help corporations and Kenya’s poor build business partnerships

Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, is one of East Africa’s largest slums and the setting for the recent film The Constant Gardener, which presents images of grinding poverty, tempered by people’s spirit of endurance. A story of another kind is also unfolding in Kibera and in Nyota township in rural Kenya -- one in which a multinational corporation assumes the unlikely role of business partner to poo...

Source

Chronicle Online (link opens in a new window)

Tags

corporations, poverty alleviation, youth

Clockwork Laptop To Link Poorest Parts Of Third World To The Internet

Note: This article gives additional details about the power source being integrated into MIT’s new laptop being designed for developing countries. It combines sophisticated modern technology with one of the oldest mechanisms known to man. Researchers yesterday unveiled plans for the clockwork laptop, a new generation of computer that its West designers hope will bring the internet to even the most impoverished parts of the Third World. The laptop, which will cost j...

Source

Bristol United Press