NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Results

• Blog Post
  BoP Career Paths: Interview with Chris Laurent of MicroVest

  In this series, NextBillion brings you Baase of the Pyramid career path stories and best practices from across the BoP industry spectrum. Today’s post features an interview with Chris Laurent, Business Development Officer at MicroVest; a capital-mobilizing intermediary for microfinance institutions.

• Blog Post
  Finding the Efficient Frontier of Financial and Social Returns

  One of the most heavily-attended panels at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference this year was titled: Social Impact Investing: Putting Your Dollar to Work in the Developing World. Moderator Amit Bouri opened with a question for the audience: "How many believe that to increase social impact, financial investors must sacrifice financial returns?"

• Blog Post
  SME Banking: The Next Frontier in Low-Income Finance

  SME Banking represents the next frontier in BoP finance in terms of its social impact and the sophistication required for profitably serving the poor. In this post and based on a recent IFC publication, the SME Banking Knowledge Guide, I explain how commercial banks are catering to SMEs by taking recourse to their competitive advantages.

• Blog Post
  Securitization: Increasing Liquidity in Base of the Pyramid Markets

  How does one convert "credit" extended to low-income households into tradable "commodities?" Is there a way to use the best know-how of financial markets to transform an industry that makes small loans to low-income households? Securitization promises to be an answer to all these questions.

• Blog Post
  Weekly Roundup: BOP Ubiquity

  One of my roles as Editor is to scan the news for articles of interest to our readership. But my job is getting harder - because "base of the pyramid" is becoming the general phrase used not only in the context of market-oriented development strategies, but as a figure of speech to refer to this segment broadly.

• Blog Post
  Does it Make Sense to Analyze BoP Firms from an Industry Lens?

  Why do we define firms on the basis of an industry if many of the most success BoP business models are hybrid? Why do we analyze the impact of an industry at the household level independently of other industries if the biggest impact occurs through its inter-industry effects? Is this hampering the potential of BoP solutions in low-income markets?

• News
  Self-Reliance Ethos Sets Africa Charity Apart

  While billions of pounds have been spent on food aid for developing countries, only a small portion has made any long-term difference to the future economic prosp...

• News
  One Man’s Crusade to Bring Riches to Rural Areas: Aavishkaar Social Venture Capital Fund

  Aavishkaar CEO Vineet Rai has been raising the ’social entrepreneurship’ bar that will help create excellent, livelihood-generating rural enterprises, says Rajni Bakshi. Vineet Rai enjoys putting a twist in the buzz about social entrepreneurship. Since his work is one of the reasons for the excitement about such businesses, Rai is now a frequent speaker at public events. "I can’t wait for the ’social’ to be dropped" is usually his opening line. Rai’s tightr...