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(Bottom of the) pyramid selling
IS THERE anything more prestigious than business?” What would sound tin-eared from the mouth of Mitt Romney reads very differently when attributed to a woman of long-standing poverty, discussing her newly found self-respect. The quotation comes from a recent paper by a trio of female researchers from Oxford University's Saïd Business School—Catherine Dolan, who lectures in marketing and corporate social responsibility; Mary Johnstone-Louis, a doctoral candidate; and Linda Scott, of the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The researchers studied a sales programme that employs Bangladeshi women at the proverbial bottom of the pyramid, run by the Bangladesh arm of CARE, an NGO. Its Rural Sales Programme (RSP) focuses on women who are destitute due to abandonment by their family or the deaths of their husbands. CARE calls the women aparajitas (a Sanskrit term meaning “she who cannot be defeated”) and offers them jobs selling household goods, such as soap, household goods, even saris. Begun in 2005, RSP now employs more than 2,400 women across Bangladesh and has partnerships with companies such as Unilever, Danone and Bic.
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Global Sanitation Target Under Threat
UN high-level meeting is expected to call on world leaders to support the 57 countries currently most off-track to achieve their millennium development goal targets for sanitation.
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- Agriculture, Health Care
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How the Poor Cope with Crisis
A study incorporating many grassroots voices examines how poor people in developing countries coped with the recent shock of higher food and fuel prices.
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- Impact Assessment
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Novogratz on Patient Capital Potential in Latin America
At last month’s United Forum for Social Innovation in Bogotá, I had the opportunity to talk with Jaqueline Novogratz, CEO of Acumen Fund. We asked her about what she considers the main challenges of innovation and social entrepreneurship in Latin America, the role of the public sector in promoting social innovation, the underlying logic of the approaches to overcoming poverty, and about Acumen’s intentions in Latin America.
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- Uncategorized
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Investors Can Rid the World of Slums
Approximately 180,000 people are added to the urban grid each day, according to the United Nations. That means, according to other estimates, that nearly 100,000 housing units are needed — every day, all around the world.
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- Uncategorized
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Can Coffee Kick-Start an Economy?
When he set out to wedge his coffee onto supermarket shelves in England and America, Andrew Rugasira didn’t start by making phone calls from his home in Kampala, Uganda. He didn’t begin by sending e-mails. The distance seemed too great for that. At one end of his business were farmers who, until he came along, thought their beans were purchased and carried off to make gunpowder. At the other were buyers at the corporate headquarters of chains like Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart. If he was going to succeed, he felt he would have to do it physically; it was as if he believed he could stretch himself to span the divide between the two worlds. So he got on a plane to London, without trying any advance contact.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Microinsurance in Rapid Expansion Says ILO, Munich Re Report
According to the Microinsurance Innovation Facility of the International Labor Organizationand the Munich Re Foundation, “the number of microinsurance schemes worldwide has increased substantially over the past five years and now reaches an estimated 500 million worldwide.”
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Intel Releases Rugged Education Tablet for the Developing World
Intel has launched the latest device in its line of classroom computers: a tablet, Intel studybook.The Intel studybook is built to be both a rigorous education tool and a sturdy playmate. It comes loaded with Intel’s Learning Series software, including an interactive ereader and LabCam applications.
- Categories
- Education, Technology
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