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Improving Development, One Failure at a Time
The development community needs to learn to better manage failure and stop sweeping it under the rug. On Jan. 14, Engineers Without Borders Canada with Peace Dividend Trust launched a website to challenge development organizations worldwide. Admittingfailure.com is a platform for individuals to submit mistakes they?ve encountered in their work.
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Small is Beautiful, Small is Cheap, But Do the Poor Care?
Sachet marketing ? selling products in small amounts ? provoked much attention in the early days of BoP. While the poor cannot afford products in large containers that would last weeks, marketers found they would buy them in small, single-serve sizes. But does sachet marketing really work for the poor? Do they care? And should companies?
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- Impact Assessment
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Investing Without Borders: Impact Investing and the New Indicators for FDI
There are many institutional factors that affect foreign direct investment and many are captured in the World Bank’s new Investing Across Borders (IAB) indicators. The IAB indicators cover 87 countries, incorporating survey data from 2,350 lawyers, accountants, consultants and other experts with practical knowledge of FDI deals in their countries.
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Changes in the Behavior of the Brazilian ?BoP consumer?
To understand the current state of the Brazil’s social mobility, companies need to not only understand the differences between the segments that make up the base of the pyramid, but also consider the differences between regions and age groups. After all, 72% of the population in the Northeast region fits into the lower income classes.
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MIT Global Challenge, Connecting Ideas and Innovators
In 2008, the MIT Public Service Center asked: ’What would it look like if we applied that level of problem-solving to the challenges faced by under-served communities, places where markets are failing to provide basic necessities like clean water, health care, or reliable energy?’ The result is the MIT Global Challenge.
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- Impact Assessment
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The (BoP) Project: Finding Sustainable Water Solutions
The Grundfos LIFELINK system is certainly no robot, but it is about as high-tech as rural water solutions can get. A single-point water supply system with a submersible pump that is powered entirely by solar panels, the water is pumped to an elevated storage tank, then led by gravity to a tap unit in a small, secure concrete housing structure.
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- Agriculture, Environment
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Energy for the BoP Made ’Simple’
Simpa Networks manufactures a solar household system that, unlike some others, is off-the-shelf, and easy to install and maintain. Inspired by mobile phone prepayment systems, the big innovation is Simpa’s unique "Progressive Purchase" pricing model, a micropayment system specifically designed to fit the unpredictable incomes of the poor.
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- Energy
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Can Private Sector ?Greed? Manifest Into Transformational Development?
Okay, so I’m obviously pining for some exaggeration here, but with the base of the pyramid now seen as a veritable consumer demographic, can 2011 be the year where multinationals really start to delve into the BoP no longer for CSR but for profits?
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