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Hear the word poverty, and the image of a bright-eyed child with an extended hand staring at you from the TV screen appears in your mind. Put the word business next to it, and the mental screen turns off, failing under the pressure of the oxymoron. Business and poverty are almost mutually exclusive; the affluence and life force of one is incompatible with the misery and lifelessness of the other. Or is it? Over the last f...
The Business of Development: Innovation, Profits, and the Common GoodNews
Bajaj Allianz notches up some good numbers selling life insurance in India?s smaller towns. Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance was languishing among the also-rans about a year ago. Today, it is in the reckoning for the top slot among private sector life insurers. The credit for this goes to Sam Ghosh, Bajaj Allianz?s CEO and country head for Allianz, who transformed the company from a niche play to mass marketer. Ghosh was chosen to spearhead Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance in January 2004, after he deli...
Life insurance coming to rural India, 1 town/dayNews
In Chile, a novel training program pairs business-school students with low-income entrepreneurs in a mutually enriching partnership. By Nicole Keller When M?nica Civilo decided to start her own business, she felt disadvantaged because she had no access to financing. (Banks generally require businesses to be up and running, or at least to put up collateral for a loan.) Once she did manage to get the money together, the family toymaker found herself in a complicated situation. ?...
Incubating EntrepreneursNews
A Chinese company has developed the first computer costing around 1,000 yuan (125 U.S. dollars) using a Chinese-made Godson II CPU, and plans to put the computers into industrial production in June. We hope everyone can afford our computers, said Zhang Fuxin, an expert of the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) under the Chinese?Academy?of?Sciences in charge of developing Longmeng computers. Last...
China to produce low-cost computers of its ownNews
Calvert Foundation announced today that it invested a total of $1 million during the first quarter of 2006 in Davis, California-based MicroCredit Enterprises (MCE), a not-for-profit, anti- poverty business venture that leverages private capital to make tiny business loans to people -- mostly women -- living in extreme poverty in developing countries. The microloans promoted by MCE are provided at low rates that avoid the crippling costs and heightened risk of failure that result from the predato...Blog Post
I was just reading through the new issue of Co-Creations, the e-Newsletter by the Kenyan Development Network Consortium (KDNC). Amidst informative articles about sustainable eco-tourism and the current state of ICT development in Kenya is a fascinating piece about the provision of appropriate...
Development without the DependencyBlog Post
A relative veteran on NextBillion, Grameenphone’s mobile business model set an early standard for innovative service provision. The concept of at-your-door delivery of traditionally unaffordable goods and services --to remote and poor communities also works well with low-cost health care, using...
Progress has wheelsBlog Post
Sara?s recent post about the mainstreaming of green investment got me thinking about the mainstreaming of base of the pyramid (BOP) trends. Is it fair to use that word for such a niche hypothesis? Two projects, both with new web sites, suggest that it may be. Enterprise for a...
Is Base of the Pyramid Mainstream? Two Sites Suggest Yes
