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Targeting the Urban Ultra Poor: Taking The Road Less Travelled
India’s urban population has surged from 78.9 million in 1961 to 286 million in 2001, and could double in another 25 years. To help those urban poor that are left out of microfinance programs, Kriti Social Initiatives decided it was essential for the pilot to include program components addressing livelihoods and healthcare.
- Categories
- Health Care
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SOCAP11: Waste Management that Works
Parag Gupta, founder and CEO of Waste Ventures recently told me that urban India produces a mound of garbage that weighs twice as much as the Empire State Building every week. In that big pile of trash, Gupta and his team identified a glowing opportunity for economic, social, and environmental impact.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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India Taps Communication Tools to Transform Villages
Several Indian companies are relying on a host of communication technologies to bridge the digital divide by offering sustainable solutions for rural India. Some 70 percent of India’s population, or nearly 750 million people, live in villages but contribute just 30 percent of country’s GDP. This is likely why rural consumers have long been ignored by marketers. However, this is gradually changing, especially since the rural share of consumer goods today is...
- Region
- South Asia
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The BOP and Corruption
Focus on BOP has strong economic potential and the power to alter markets; can the same theory have similar impact on economics of corruption?How do you define the BOP of corruption? The bottom end of this pyramid is made up of the ordinary middle class Indians. If 45 percent have paid a bribe then it has to be the great Indian middle class.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Progress and Promises: Exploring the BoP with Monitor Inclusive Markets
In May, Monitor Inclusive Markets released a report on market-based solutions in Africa across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Profiling 440 enterprises, "Progress and Promises" represents the largest study to date of social enterprises in Africa. It grew out of a simple observation: the aid model is broken. But what’s the alternative?
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Social Entrepreneurship Takes Off in Brazil
From 2001 to 2009, poverty rates dropped from 35.2 percent of the total population to 21.4 percent. Yet, that still leaves more than 40 million Brazilians below the poverty line. But over the past few years, leading Brazilian-based organizations have been cultivating social or inclusive business models.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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City of God’s Plan for Financial Inclusion
Isolation and lack of economic opportunity made The City of God community susceptible to drugs and violence, issues spotlighted by the 2002 movie. But soon, CDD as it’s known, will have its own bank and currency. Modeled after Banco Palmas, a bank established in Fortaleza, CDD’s community bank will be the first of its kind in Rio de Janeiro.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
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Root Capital Makes Money By Investing Where Wall Street Won’t: Poor, Rural Farmers
Small money, big change. That, in essence, is what William Foote was banking on when he ditched Harvard Business School to start what is now Root Capital , a "nonprofit social investment fund" that lends to small and medium rural businesses in developing countries. Root Capital’s business model is to go where other banks will not --the agricultural sector of poor countries --and loan rural businesses as much as $500,000 to expand or improve t...
- Region
- Latin America
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