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Yes, Microfinance Does Work. Here’s How…
By now, anyone with an interest in microfinance or poverty alleviation has read the criticism. There are tragic crises in Andhra Pradesh, the regrettable stepping-down of Muhammad Yunus from Grameen, and provocative headlines in the media claiming to refute microcredit's effectiveness. However, I feel strongly that if readers listen only to the white noise, they'll do themselves and the microfinance industry a disservice and, more to the point, they'll be misled.
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- Uncategorized
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- South Asia
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Rural women in Gujarat get energy-efficient products
AHMEDABAD: International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is helping Ahmedabad-based Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) provide energy-efficient cook stoves and solar lanters to its members. IFC will provide a partial credit guarantee for a $5 million loan that an Indian private sector bank is providing to SEWA-sponsored Grassroots Trading Network for Women.
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- Uncategorized
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- South Asia
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Reality Check at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Most companies trying to do business with the 4 billion people who make up the world’s poor follow a formula long touted by bottom-of-the-pyramid experts: Offer products at extremely low prices and margins, and hope to generate decent profits by selling enormous quantities of them. This “low price, low margin, high volume” model has held sway for more than a decade, largely on the basis of Hindustan Unilever’s success in selling Wheel brand detergent to low-income consumers in India.
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- South Asia
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Hope springs a trap
THE idea that an infusion of hope can make a big difference to the lives of wretchedly poor people sounds like something dreamed up by a well-meaning activist or a tub-thumping politician. Yet this was the central thrust of a lecture at Harvard University on May 3rd by Esther Duflo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology known for her data-driven analysis of poverty. Ms Duflo argued that the effects of some anti-poverty programmes go beyond the direct impact of the resources they provide. These programmes also make it possible for the very poor to hope for more than mere survival.
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- South Asia
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Lok Capital and Acumen Fund announce Rs. 7 crore investment in Hippocampus Learning Centres
Bangalore, May 2012: Lok Capital, one of the largest dedicated funds in India for businesses focused on serving the lower income and base of the pyramid (BOP) customer segments and Acumen Fund, a pioneering nonprofit global venture firm addressing poverty in South Asia, East and West Africa, today announce Rs. 7 crore investment in Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC), a for-profit rural education service provider in India. This is Lok Capital’s and Acumen’s first investment in Education and marks the launch of their respective education portfolios. Based in Karnataka, India, HLC provides affordable, quality education by employing and training local female teachers who coach students between the ages of 3-12 in both pre-school and primary instruction.
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- Uncategorized
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- South Asia
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Nachiket Mor: The Business Of Morality
In India, businesses and businessmen, particularly from the private sector, have always been viewed with some suspicion. Given our underlying socialist ethos, this is perhaps not surprising, but in recent times, this has worsened with reportage about the various means that some businesses have used to gain an advantage, be it bribing government officials and elected representatives, indulging in coercive practices with their customers, misusing monopoly power, concealing information, or ill-treating employees.
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- Health Care
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- South Asia
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Genpact to buy VentureEast-backed Atyati Technologies
Business processing outsourcing major Genpact Ltd has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Atyati Technologies, a technology platform provider for the rural banking sector in India. The terms of the transaction, including the stake acquired and the deal value, remain undisclosed. The deal is expected to close in 3-4 weeks.
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- Technology
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- South Asia
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New Apps for the Bottom Billion
When it comes to mobile communications, there's still a lot of room for innovation at the bottom. In Bangalore, India, researchers from the University of Toronto and Microsoft are now imagining new business models for the world's poorest phone owners by adapting a little-known protocol that can receive pictures as bitmapped text messages. The technology could readily be used in the roughly 1.5 billion low-end Nokia and Samsung phones in circulation.
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- Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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