NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Hands Off Our Houses

Mumbai, India: LAST summer, a business professor and a marketing consultant wrote on The Harvard Business Review’s Web site about their idea for a $300 house . According to the writers, and the many people who have enthusiastically responded since, such a house could improve the lives of millions of urban poor around the world. And with a $424 billion market for cheap...

Source

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

Categories

Uncategorized

Region

South Asia

Fighting the Taliban One Irrigation Project at a Time

JALALABAD, Afghanistan-When Chris Corsten describes his job, he starts from space and zooms into the eastern hemisphere of the world, down into Central Asia, and then into Afghanistan, using Google Earth. In one of the country’s rural districts, nestled in mountains and riverbeds, are hundreds of colored dots representing construction sites. If Corsten moves his cursor over one of these dots, a geo-tagged photograph showing Afghan men building walls or mixing cement appears. If he display...

Source

Slate.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Pak to be Leading Recipient of UKAID Next Year

KARACHI: Pakistan will be biggest development programme partner of UKAID next year, said Andrew Mitchells, UK Secretary of State for Department of International Development (DFID). "The biggest development partnership programme that Britain will have next year in the world will be in Pakistan and it is designed to help children get into the schools," he said after inaugurating a mobile banking franchise of private mobile telephone company here on Wednesday in cooperation with Tameer-e-P...

Source

Business Recorder (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

LeapFrog to Invest up to $40 Million in India

MUMBAI --LeapFrog Investments, a $135 million fund focused on micro-insurance, is looking to deploy as much as $40 million in India. "India presents an opportunity as the level of penetration of insurance is very low," said Jim Roth, the company’s co-founder and partner. In other markets, insurance is for the wealthy, whereas in India there is insurance that focuses on the mass market, he said, adding that LeapFrog will invest between $5 million and $20 million in a company. M...

Source

The Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

A $25 Solar Lamp for Millions in India

One of the partners, Matthew Scott, led the design and development of a solar-powered lamp when he was a student at the Stanford Business School in 2003. The lamp is based on light-emitting diode (LED) technology, which uses much less electricity than incandescent bulbs or fluorescent tubes. Scott initially intended for the lamps to be used in commercial buildings or aircraft. Then he read "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" and shifted his approach. The book by C.K. Prahalad des...

Source

The Saudi (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

A Network to Help Start-Ups With a Cause

By DEEPTI CHAUDHARY OF MINT BANGALORE - A social-sector advisory firm has launched a platform to bring together rich individuals, foundations and companies keen on investing in businesses that cater to the poor. Intellecap Impact Investor Network (I3N), launched ear...

Source

Livemint.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

IFC to Invest $45M in Listed Non-Banking Indian Finance Co

International Finance Corporation (IFC) plans to invest $45 million as equity in an unnamed public-listed mid-size Indian non-banking finance company (NBFC) for expanding access to finance for the micro, small and medium entrepreneurs. Although the name of the target company stands undisclosed, its primary business is ’asset-backed financing’ - focused on providing funds to the bottom-of-the-pyramid stratum in rural and semi-urban areas. The NBFC has significant presence in the ...

Source

VCCircle (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Microfinance Staff Seek Greener Pastures

Mumbai: SKS Microfinance Ltd, India’s largest and only listed microfinance institution (MFI), has seen an exodus of at least 3,000 of its employees in the three months ended 31 March, even as the lender of tiny loans to the poor grapples with large-scale defaults from borrowers in Andhra Pradesh and a rapidly eroding market value. The 12% decline in its employee strength for the March quarter is the sharpest fall the company has seen. SKS is not the only micro-credit lender th...

Source

Livemint.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia