NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Could Impact Investing Help India’s Poor?

Sorting out plastic bags collected from rubbish tips is a serious business for Virender Kumar. Sitting on a pile of plastic bags, he is busy giving directions to the labourers he employs to help him with the recycling. Once the bags are sorted, he sells them to recycling units to be melted down into plastic pellets. He makes about 20,000 rupees ($410; £262) profit every month. But he has bigger ambitions that need funding. He says that by w...

Source

BBC (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

A Conversation With Ela R. Bhatt

Ela Bhatt, a Gandhian and a lawyer who founded the Self Employed Women’s Association in Gujarat, is sometimes referred to as the mother of microfinance. She helped start Mahila Sewa Co-operative Bank in 1974, two years before Muhammad Yunus began the project that would later become ...

Source

The New York Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Paul Polak ? Developing Products for ’The Other 90 Percent’ of Humanity

He listened first, then designed products for the world’s poorest people long before the term ’social entrepreneur’ came into use. Go spend time with your new market. Understand their needs. Do not presuppose that you know the answer. Multinationals can play a role in this. It’s about collaborating. They can contribute to the development of millions of people’s lives by offering them goods and services they need at a price they can afford. But they have ...

Source

The Christian Science Monitor (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

The Magic of Social Enterprise

A social entrepreneur’s record of bringing quality vision care to the poor and underprivileged, especially in rural India, and the phenomenal work done by his team with the support of local communities is an inspiring healthcare model. It is easy to get overwhelmed, even depressed, by statistics that tell a dark tale about India’s millions living miserable lives. Rural India has been left far behind in India’s story of growth and development, oft trumpeted from international...

Source

Business Line (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Solar-Powered Water ATMs Provide Clean Drinking Water to the Thirsty

Clean water is a luxury; one in eight people around the world lack access to supplies of the stuff, and unsafe water is responsible for 60% to 80% of all disease in India alone. There are plenty of possible solutions--new wells, pricey community water filters--but an organization called Sarvajal has devised a fix that is rapidly spreading across India: solar-powered water ATMs. Sarvajal was honored...

Source

Fast Company (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Coca-Cola India Rejigs Ops to Push Growth

MUMBAI: In a bid to accelerate growth in key categories, Coca-Cola India has introduced changes to its management structure. While on the one hand, the world’s largest non-alcoholic drinks maker has created a new vertical to push growth in rural markets by catering to the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers, on the other it has introduced a ...

Source

The Times of India (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Tags

poverty alleviation

Lok Capital Invests $3 million in Rural BPO

Lok Capital venture fund on Thursday said it has invested $3 million (Rs.1.44 crore) in RuralShores Business Services Ltd, a rural business process outsourcing (BPO) firm. "RuralShores will use the second round of funding to expand its operations in the rural BPO space for business development," Lok Capital partner Ganesh Rengaswamy said in a statement here. With 10 back off...

Source

Economic Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

From No Doctor to E-Doctors in Rural India

There aren’t too many doctors in the village of Hari Ke Kalan, in the Punjab region of northern India. But for $1, residents who bicycle to a new health clinic in town can get an appointment with a physician who appears on a large-screen television, beamed in over broadband Internet. The clinic, built by a startup called Healthpoint Services, is one of a network of eight "e-health points" that the for-profit company has built in India as part of a growing effort by entrepreneurs to ...

Source

MIT Technology Review (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Tags

Base of the Pyramid