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• Blog Post
  Let’s Talk: IDB Inaugural BoP Forum Highlights SME Growth, Network Connections

  The 1st IDB Forum for the Development of the Base of the Pyramid in Latin America and the Caribbean kicked off Monday in Sao Paulo, Brazil by emphasizing the critical role of SME creation and growth. To highlight the increasing importance of the sector, the IDB announced plans to double investments in BoP-related businesses in 2012 to $100 million.

• Blog Post
  Examining Poverty Footprints and Partnerships

  In March, Oxfam America in partnership with the Coca-Cola Company and SABMiller released a report on their shared poverty footprint and value chain analysis work. This new report highlights the impacts Coca-Cola and SABMiller are making on poverty within El Salvador and Zambia, and also reveals opportunities for improvement.

• News
  Does Microfinance for Profit Hurt Women?

  The commercialization of microfinance has been blamed for a lot of troubling trends, from prompting the clampdown in Andhra Pradesh to muddying the industry’s benign image as a development tool to help the poor. But one impact that has been largely overlooked is its impact on women. One of the hallowed truths about microlending has been that it works best when loans are made to women, a...

• Blog Post
  OpenIDEO’s Latest Challenge Aims For Practical Results in Colombia

  OpenIDEO’s most recent challenge asks the design community an important question: "How might we use social business to improve health in low-income communities?" It’s not an idle query. The question applies directly to Caldas, Colombia where the poverty rate is near 60 percent, with 26 percent extreme poverty and infant mortality at 12.5 percent.

• News
  Africa’s Women Mean Business ? But They Need Finance

  Inclusion was the big theme of the African Development Bank annual meeting in Lisbon last week, an acknowledgement that impressive economic growth numbers don’t tell the whole story. As the president of the AfDB, Donald Kaberuka, acknowledged at the start of proceedings, the bank had got it wrong in Tunisia and Egypt - although as one bank official pointed out, good things had been accomplished in Tunisia by President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in ...

• Blog Post
  Friday Roundup ? 6/10/11: Balancing Idealism Vs. Pragmatism

  This week felt like a bit like a tennis match between pragmatism and idealism. That’s always the balancing act we try to strike on NextBillion, to mix a metaphor. But whether it was one-for-one models, the effectiveness of microcredit or the promise of $300 homes, the volleys this week seemed to move a bit more fast and furious than usual.

• Blog Post
  Playing Politics: Women (Truly) Empowering Women in Bangladesh

  As with so many other causes, women’s empowerment, can always be trumped by politics. But in 2001, 24 women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh came together to change those politics. At the helm was Selima Ahmad, president of the Bangladesh Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BWCCI). By 2010, BWCCI counted 2,500 women-owned businesses as members.

• Blog Post
  When the Shoe Doesn’t Fit: An Investor’s Take on One-for-One Models

  There is one model that has grabbed significantly more mainstream attention than the rest: the "one-for-one." TOMS Shoes, the best-known example, gives shoes to the shoeless when you buy a pair for yourself. But as an investor have a new set of concerns about whether and how one-for-one models can become sustainable, scalable organizations.