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News

Intel CEO: Need To Speed Gains For ‘Next Billion People
Intel Press Release, May 3, 2006

The multiplying effects of computers, the Internet and education can double the reach of technology’s benefits worldwide in the next 5 years, Intel Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said today in a speech at the World Congress on Information Technology.

>> More Details  |  created on: 05/08/2006


Six Trends Will Drive Sustainable Development, According to PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers, April 10, 2006

Sustainable development will steadily advance over the next 10 years, with six major trends influencing industry world-wide, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers' report, "Corporate Responsibility: Strategy, Management and Value." The challenge of creating strategies that meet immediate needs without sacrificing the needs of future generations will be driven by the growing influence of: global market forces; revisions in corporate governance; high speed innovation; large scale globalisation; evolving societal requirements and communication, the report says.

>> More Details  |  created on: 04/11/2006


Nonprofits Pursue Private Investors
By Clay Holtzman , Puget Sound Business Journal, April 2, 2006

Redmond-based Unitus Inc. recently completed a $9 million initial close on a $20 million private equity fund meant to buy stock in its microfinance partners. The new money will provide additional resources for the nonprofit's eight microfinance partners, which are located abroad and backed by Unitus-facilitated grants and loans.

>> More Details  |  created on: 04/07/2006


Bottled Water Big for Multinationals
By Mark Stevenson, Yahoo News, March 21, 2006

Violent protests have driven away corporate investment in desperately needed municipal water systems in developing nations. So the world's poor buy bottled water from Coke, Pepsi and other multinational companies.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/30/2006


Tech a Key to Easing Poverty, Microsoft official adapts software for Third World uses
By Sara Israelsen, Deseret News, March 11, 2006

The connection between a computer and the economic stability of an African villager may seem like a stretch, but to Kevin Johnson, it's a connection he works on every day.  Johnson, co-president of the Platforms and Services Division of Microsoft, spends his weeks traveling the world, trying to adapt Windows technology to the various developing countries and citizens.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/17/2006


The tin-can antenna: A boon for third world
By Elisabetta Povoledo , International Herald Tribune, February 28, 2006

A physics research institute here is using a low-cost but effective tool to bolster communications in developing countries: the tin-can antenna.
 

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/28/2006


The Business of Giving
By The Economist, February 23, 2006

Philanthropy is flourishing as the number of super-rich people keeps growing. But the new donors are becoming much more businesslike about the way their money is used, says Matthew Bishop.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/28/2006


The Birth of Philanthrocapitalism
By The Economist, February 23, 2006

RELATIVE to the corporate environment, we are in the 1870s. But philanthropy will increasingly come to resemble the capitalist economy, predicts Uday Khemka, a young Indian philanthropist and a director of the SUN Group investment company owned by his family.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/28/2006


Grameen and Segway team up to produce micro-entrepreneurial "Slingshot"
By Erick Schonfeld, CNNmoney.com, February 16, 2006

Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated 1.6 billion don't have electricity.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/23/2006


Business Prophet
By CK Prahalad, Business Week, January 23, 2006

This article discusses how strategy guru C.K. Prahalad is changing the way CEOs think.

>> More Details  |  created on: 01/27/2006


Putting Paid to Poverty
By Al Hammond & Bill Kramer, January 17, 2006

"Putting Paid to Poverty" provides a hopeful scenario for the development of the 'base of the pyramid' over the next ten years.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/17/2006


A New Way to Do Well by Doing Good
By Rachel Emma Silverman, Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2006

Making tiny loans to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries has long been a popular charitable cause, but it is now gaining traction as an investment.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/07/2006


OSS CEO Announces Global Campaign to Deliver Intelligence to the Poor, Lifting the Bottom of the Pyramid - the Poor - With Information
Yahoo Finance, December 14, 2005

>> More Details  |  created on: 01/04/2006


Founder of Ebay sets up Dollars 100m microfinance aid fund
Financial Express, November 4, 2005

The Dollars 100m (Euros 84m, Pounds 56m) fund, which will be run for profit by endowment managers at Tufts University in the US, marks a growing trend among a new generation of philanthropic entrepreneurs and technology billionaires to seek market-based solutions to global poverty rather than rely solely on traditional charities.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Pennies from the poor add up to fortune
By David Ignatius, The Korea Herald, July 1, 2005

>> More Details  |  created on: 01/03/2006


A New Path to Profit
By Allison Overholt, Fast Company, January 1, 2005

An interview with C.K. Prahalad addressing the potential of solving poverty through profits.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


PEOPLink and CatGen: Empowering a Global Network of Artisans
By Nia Ujamaa, Digital Divide Network, December 1, 2004

Discusses the success of PEOPLink and CatGen in empowering a global network of local artisans.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Profits and Poverty
By C.K. Prahalad, The Economist, October 1, 2004

An article about how Prahalad is redefining the poor as entrepreneurs and value conscious consumers.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


The Global Compact: A Business Perspective
International Chamber of Commerce, July 1, 2004

A look at the Global Compact as businesses begins to take more of a role in International Development.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Selling to the Poor
By C.K. Prahalad & Allen Hammond, Foreign Policy, May 1, 2004

The authors examine how to tap into the virtually untouch consumer market in the developing world. Doing so, they believe can both generate big profits and help end economic isolation throughout the developing world.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Deutsche Bank: microcredit development fundPDF
Deutsche Bank Microcredit Fund, May 1, 2004

The Deutsche Bank Microcredit Fund was conceived as a vehicle to combine the interest, abilities, reach, and resources of Deutsche Bank and its Private Bank clients to support the long-term sustainability of microcredit institutions.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


The Blinders of Dominant Logic
By C.K. Prahalad, Long Range Planning, 2004

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Business and Poverty: Bridging the Gap.PDF
By Maya Forstater & Jacqui MacDonald, Resource Center for the Social Dimensions of Business Practice, December 1, 2002

This article makes the case for the role of business in poverty allieviation.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Coping with Antiglobalization: A Trilogy of Discontents
By Jagdish Bhagwati, Foreign Affairs, January 1, 2002

Globalization is doomed to controversy thanks to a trio of misapprehensions. But the opposition stems more from nostalgia and sterile theory than from economic reality.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Building a Shared Future: The Role of Business as a Partner in African DevelopmentPDF
By UNDP, International Business Leaders Forum, January 1, 2002

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Revolution in a Coffee Cup: Waking the Sleeping Consumer Giant
By Kris Herbst, Changemakers.net, April 1, 2001

Dicusses how Trans-fair USA has worked with the Coffee Industry to help developing country coffee producers to build self-reliance, dignity, and control over their communities, while promoting sustainable production.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


Bottom Up, Digitally Enabled Development, A VisionPDF
By Allen Hammond & Elizabeth Jenkins, iMP Magazine, February 1, 2001

The authors address the importance of "Digitally enabled Development" as one of the keys to third world development.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


The Great Divide in the Global Village
By Bruce R. Scott, Foreign Affairs, January 1, 2001

Robust growth depends on a strong state that can enforce laws, yet many impoverished countries lack effective governance. And by strictly limiting immigration, rich countries deny the world's poor a chance to vote with their feet.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/18/2005


 

Academic Research

Is Private Education Good for the Poor?
By James Tooley, Working Paper from University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (England), June 25, 2005

Private education is often assumed to be concerned only with serving the elite or middle classes, not the poor. And unregistered or unrecognised private schools are thought to be of the lowest.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/23/2005


New Strategies for Consumer Goods
By Peter D. Haden & Olivier Sibony, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, December, 2004 (Subscription Required)

Most consumer goods companies can still improve some of their operations, but a few of them will look for innovative new strategies, such as outsourcing production, building new service businesses, or developing neglected product categories.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


Lessons from the Field: An Overview of the Current Uses of Information and Communication Technologies for Development
By John Paul & Robert Katz, WRI Paper, November, 2004

An overview of the digital divide that effects many in the developing world and highlights many of the projects that are attempting to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to bridge this divide

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Designing for the Base of the Pyramid
By Whitney, Patrick & Kelkar, Anjali, Design Management Review Boston, September, 2004 (Vol. 15, Iss. 4, Fall 2004)

The Institute of Design, extends the BOP idea by focusing specifically on wealth creation in urban slums in the developing world. The goal is to make the local economies more sustainable, encourage the growth of small businesses, and in the long term to h

>> More Details  |  created on: 07/10/2006


Pharma's Emerging Opportunity
By Farhad Riahi, McKinsey Quarterly, 2004 (Subscription Required)

Focusing on the diversity within emerging markets can help pharma companies serve them profitably.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


Small and Medium Enterprises, Growth, and Poverty: Cross-Country EvidencePDF
By Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Thorsten Beck, et al, December, 2003

This paper explores the relationship between the relative size of the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, economic growth, and poverty using a new database on the share of SME labor in the total manufacturing labor force. Using a sample of 76 countr

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Challenges to Sida's Support to Private Sector Development: Making Markets Work for the PoorPDF
Sida Provisional Edition, October, 2003

The document forms a background to Sida's action for private sector development by 1. Taking a stand in the overriding objectives and values underlying Swedish development assistance; 2. Explains how private sector development can be an effective instrume

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Factors Influencing Women Entrepreneurs of NGOs in India
By Femida Handy & Meenaz Kassam, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, July 7, 2003 (Vol. 13, Issue 2)

This article examines women entrepreneurs in the nonprofit sector in India to determine which factors influence such self-selection.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


The Base of the Pyramid (BOP): Reperceiving Business from the Base Up
By Boyer, Nicole, Global Business Network (GBN), May, 2003

The paper provides an introduction to the BOP.

>> More Details  |  created on: 07/27/2006


How Corporations and Environmental Groups Cooperate: Assessing Cross Sector Alliances and CollaborationsPDF
By Dennis A. Rondinelli & Ted London, Academy of Management Executive, 2003 (Vol. 17 No. 1, 2003)

Gives a set of strategic criteria for executives who are interested in participating in more intensive cross-sector collaborations on environmental issues with their nonprofit counterparts

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Brand Building in Emerging Markets
By Gilberto Duarte de Abreu Filho & Nicola Calicchio, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 (Subscription Required)

Brand-name products will always capture their share of affluent consumers. But in the low end of emerging markets, companies should take their cues from local competitors: keep local managers in place, adhere to local standards of quality, and maintain the autonomy—and the cost efficiency—of local operations.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


How Businesses can Combat Global Disease
By Rajat K. Gupta & Lynn Taliento, McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 (Subscription Required)

The global health outlook is bleak. In 2002, more than six million people—most of them in poor countries—died from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria (exhibit). These three diseases, plus a handful of others, have crippled economic growth and progress in developing countries. This article thus discusses how and why MNCs should be involved in controlling global epidemics.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


The Great Leap: Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid
By Hart, Stu & Christensen, Clayton, MIT Sloan Management Review, September, 2002 (Fall 2002)

The authors illustrate their point of how and when BOP can be successful with examples of companies that are already profitably disrupting such industries as telecommunications, consumer electronics and energy production.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Why do the Poor and the Less-Educated Pay More for Long-Distance Calls?PDF
By Hausman, Jerry A. & Sidak, J. Gregory, January 25, 2002

The paper documents that poor and less-educated customers pay more for long-distance phone calls because these customers are more apt to pay the message toll service (MTS) rates and/or other higher rates.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Do Retail Brands Travel?
By Peter N. Child & Suzanne Heywood, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2002 (Subscription Required)

Retail chains have found that while they can hang out their signs anywhere, consumers respond differently in every country. Understanding those differences is the key to building a successful retail brand across borders. A survey of 40 retail grocery and clothing brands in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom shows the importance of tailoring a brand's image to each national market.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


Small Schools, Big Lessons
By Bill McKinney & David m. Steglich, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2002 (Subscription Required)

Small learning communities can help big-city public schools re-create the intimacy and personal attention of their small-town counterparts, boosting graduation rates and achievement.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


The Fortune at the Bottom of the PyramidPDF
By C.K. Prahalad & Stuart L. Hart, Strategy+Business, January, 2002 (Issue 26, First Quarter 2002)

Dispells some of the assumptions regarding selling to the poor and discusses how companies can both maximize their profits and help the poor

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Do the Poor Pay More? An Empirical Investigation of Price Dispersion in Food RetailingPDF
By Hayes, Lashawn Richburg, Princeton Dept of Econ., Industrial Relations Working Paper, November 7, 2000 (No. 446)

The paper gives mixed research on the question of whether prices are higher in poor, urban neighborhoods.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Rethinking Marketing Programs for Emerging MarketsPDF
By Niraj Dawar & Amitava Chattopadhyay, WDI Working Paper, June, 2000

Addresses the fundemental inconsistencies in the emerging market strategies of multinationals who are attempting to woo this market without altering their marketing strategies.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Are Prices Higher for the Poor in New York City
By Lashawn Richburg Hayes, Industrial Relations Section Working Paper No. 423, February, 2000

The paper finds that market prices in poor neighborhoods are not higher than those in more affluent areas

>> More Details  |  created on: 01/19/2006


India as a Source of Innovations
By C.K. Prahalad, 2000

Analyzes and the old mindset of the poor as an intractable problem and shows how currently there has been a shift in this mindset to one of the poor as an active market and the Bottom of the Pyramid as a source of innovation for this market.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Developing Customers Before Products
By Robert J. Davis & Shinichi Ueyama, McKinsey Quarterly, 1996 (Subscription Required )

To increase their sales growth and profitability, some companies are beginning to develop customers before products. Adept at identifying and meeting unmet as well as latent demand, these companies can almost guarantee a profitable market prior to making substantial investments in a new product.

>> More Details  |  created on: 03/20/2006


 

Cases

Serving the Poor: Do Embedded Ties Matter?
By Pablo Sánchez, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez & Joan Enric Ricart , IESE Business School, January 1, 2005

In the past, the 4.6 billion people living in poverty were considered anything but a market. Recently, however, several authors have suggested that by stimulating commerce and development in low-income segments, multinationals could radically improve the lives of billions of people and help create a more stable and inclusive world. In order to succeed at this challenging goal, companies need not only to innovate strategies, business models and products, but also to better understand the market and local customer needs.

>> More Details  |  created on: 04/18/2006


Electrification for all: EskomPDF
World Business Council on Sustainable Development, May 27, 2004

Eskom's pre-payment systems keep a customer from going into debt as it provides automatic credit control - as opposed to the billing system where the utility has to do this itself - manually.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Businesses Are Helping to Overcome Global Poverty
By Stern N, Richard Ivey Business School, January 1, 2004

The facts today point to a decline in global poverty and to the reality that global economic development is working. These positive developments are due to policies pursued by both public organizations and the international business community. But as the Chief Economist of the World Banks says, business can do even more to help the world's poorest countries.

>> More Details  |  created on: 04/18/2006


EID Parry (India) Ltd. (Chennai, India)PDF
By Kuttayan Annamalai & Sachin Rao, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003

Organizing rural farmers through the use of internet kiosks provides a way to improve efficiency of selling and buying while empowering the poor.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Procter & Gamble – PuR Water Purification SachetsPDF
World Business Council on Sustainble Development, October 21, 2003

A complementary approach to providing piped-treated water is through treatment of drinking water directly in people’s homes. This point of use (POU) model has the advantages of cost, immediate availability and ease of distribution to reach rural areas

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Coca-Cola: The entrepreneur development programPDF
World Business Council on Sustainble Development, March 20, 2003

Coca-Cola’s Southern Africa division, in conjunction with local bottling companies, have developed the Entrepreneur Development Program in South Africa to help new entrepreneurs enter the supply chain and profit from new sustainable business ventures.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Expanding the Playing Field: Nike's World Shoe Project, Asia
By Ted London & Heather McDonald, World Resources Institute, 2002

The case analyzes Nike's international expansion and highlights strategic and internal challenges faced by multinational companies attempting to create a foothold in emerging markets, and investigates the sustainability issues surrounding market entry into the bottom of the pyramid.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


Rick Surpin, United States
By Penelope Rowlands, David Bollier & Kirk O. Hanson, Business Enterprise Trust, January 1, 1992

A long-time community development worker creates hundreds of jobs for low-income women and minorities by forming a for-profit home health care cooperative, Cooperative Home Care Associates.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/22/2005


 

Books

Multinational Corporations: A Key to Global Poverty Reduction
Global Envision, 2006

MNCs have the unmatched power and competence to reduce global poverty. Increasingly, world opinion, as well as the inclinations of their own managers and staff, urges MNCs to use that power more effectively. But MNCs lack a vehicle to make that transition in a sustainable and legitimate way.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/02/2006


Agricultural Growth and the Poor: An Agenda for Development
World Bank, June 1, 2005

The majority of the world's poor depend directly or indirectly on agriculture. Despite the strong linkages between broad-based agricultural growth and poverty reduction, international support to agriculture sharply declined from the late 1980s. The need to raise agriculture's prominence in the development agenda has never been greater. This book seeks to articulate the World Bank's Rural Strategy on agriculture to the wider development community. It provides decision makers with the rationale for supporting agriculture by presenting the lessons learned on the policies, institutions, and priority investments that can sustain pro-poor agricultural growth.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Capitalism at the Crossroads
By Stuart L. Hart, Wharton School Publishing, March 30, 2005

Global capitalism stands at a crossroads—facing international terrorism, worldwide environmental change, and an accelerating backlash against globalization. Today's global companies are at a crossroads, too: finding new strategies for profitable growth has never been more challenging. Both sets of problems are intimately linked, says Stuart L. Hart—and so are the solutions.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Technology, Globalization and the Poor: Summary of the Global Knowledge for Development Virtual ConferencePDF
By John Paul, World Resources Institute, December 1, 2004

Can technology help make globalization work for the poor? Can the private sector use ICT to create, as CK Prahalad argues, "sustainable win-win scenarios where the poor are actively engaged and, at the same time, the companies providing products and services to them are profitable"? During four weeks in November and December 2004, GKD’s Technology, Globalization and the Poor online conference attempted to explore these questions. This PDF document is a searchable compilation of the discussion.

>> View Article  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity
By Raghuram Rajan & Luigi Zingales, Crown Business, October 1, 2004

Capitalism’s biggest problem is the executive in pinstripes who extols the virtues of competitive markets with every breath while attempting to extinguish them with every action.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
By C.K. Prahalad, Wharton School Publishing, August 25, 2004

The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It's where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world's billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and help millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Profits with Principles: Seven Strategies for Delivering Value with Values
By Ira Jackson & Jane Nelson, Currency, June 29, 2004

At a time when unethical business practices continue to dominate the business press, PROFITS WITH PRINCIPLES offers persuasive proof that when businesses combine profit making with a concern for values and the greater good, they do better in the marketplace than those that concentrate only on the bottom line.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/14/2008


Doing Business with the Poor: A Field Guide
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, April 26, 2004

This guide presents a number of practical guidelines for businesses intending to engage in business with the poor. It primarily seeks to inform how to develop and engage in these new business opportunities and how to "do well by doing good". The guide highlights that all companies, regardless of their industry, can help stimulate local markets and enable the poor to become active participants in these markets, as customers and entrepreneurs. Designing clever business models to address this challenge will also open new avenues of growth for the company.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty and the Threat to Global Stability
By William Lewis, University of Chicago Press, April 16, 2004

The disparity between rich and poor countries is the most serious, intractable problem facing the world today. The chronic poverty of many nations affects more than the citizens and economies of those nations; it threatens global stability as the pressures of immigration become unsustainable and rogue nations seek power and influence through extreme political and terrorist acts. To address this tenacious poverty, a vast array of international institutions has pumped billions of dollars into these nations in recent decades, yet despite this infusion of capital and attention, roughly five billion of the world's six billion people continue to live in poor countries. What isn't working? And how can we fix it?

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Raising the Bar: Creating Value with the United Nations Global Compact
By Claude Fussler (editor) & Aron Cramer, et al, Greenleaf Publishing, 2004

Raising the Bar, produced by a unique team of business experts and UN agencies, is designed to fill a critical vide - poches the support of more than 1,000 organisations for the globally recognised Principles of the United Nations Global Compact and the need for this support to be translated into the day-to-day running of business to create value and improve performance.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


How to Change the World: Social Enrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
By David Bornstein, Oxford University Press, December 1, 2003

What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are, writes David Bornstein, the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up--and remake the world for the better.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Reaching the Rural Poor: A renewed Strategy for Rural Development
By Csaba Csaki & C. De Haan, The World Bank, 2003

Today the fight against poverty will be won or lost in rural areas, home to about 70% of the world's poor. The likelihood of achieving the Millennium Development Goals without a focus on improving the livelihoods and service accessibility of rural dwellers is low.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


A New Financial System for Poverty Reduction and Growth
By Biagio Bossone & Abdourahmane Sarr, International Monetary Fund, October 1, 2002

The proposal draws on the premise that the availability of stable demand deposits for bank lending, in the process of which inside money is created, does not require any act of intentional saving. The authors argue that separating inside money creation from lending, and distributing it on a nonlending basis to depositors through specialized payment service institutions, could broaden access to financial resources, fuel non-inflationary, demand-led growth; and foster financial deepening, diversification, and stability.

>> More Details  |  created on: 02/07/2006


Rapid Assessment Process
By James Beebe, Rowman and Little, 2001

Rapid Assessment Process (RAP) has gone under many names but invariably uses the techniques of fieldwork and ethnography in a telescoped manner to provide solid, field-based research findings for use by policymakers and program planners. It uses an emic perspective, a team of researchers, triangulation of research findings, and iterative process to produce high-quality research in a fraction of the time taken by traditional ethnography.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Development as Freedom
By Amartya Sen, Anchor Books, August 15, 2000

Development as Freedom is a general exposition of the economic ideas and analyses of Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. This brilliant and indispensable treatise compellingly analyzes the nature of contemporary economic development from the perspective of human freedom. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of economic life and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. It is a good to be enjoyed by the world's entire population. Drawing on moral and political philosophy and technical economic analysis, this work gives the nonspecialist reader powerful access to Sen's paradigm-altering vision and vividly shows how he, in the words of the Nobel Prize committee, has both "restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems" and "opened up new fields of study for subsequent generations of researchers."

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Whose Reality Counts?: Putting the First Last
By Robert Chambers, ITDG Publishing, 1997

In this sequel to Rural Development: Putting the Last First Robert Chambers argues that central issues in development have been overlooked, and that many past errors have flowed from domination by those with power. Development professionals now need new approaches and methods for interacting, learning and knowing. Through analyzing experience – of past mistakes and myths, and of the continuing methodological revolution of PRA (participatory rural appraisal) – the author points towards solutions.In many countries, urban and rural people alike have shown an astonishing ability to express and analyze their local, complex and diverse realities that are often at odds with the top-down realities imposed by professionals.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


2025: Scenarios of Us and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology
By Joseph Coates & John Mahaffie, et al, Oakhill Press, September 1, 1996

Tapping the worlds of science and technology, this penetrating look at the years ahead paints a fascinating picture you're sure to enjoy. Looking backward from the year 2025, fifteen scenarios reflect a well-focused view of what life will be like in the United States as well as other societies (both affluent and less prosperous).

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Business as Partners in Development: Creating Wealth for Countries, Companies, and Communities
The International Business Leaders Forum, 1996

Published in collaboration with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, this publication is aimed at every level of an organisation, and seeks to stimulate consideration of the new way of doing business. In the context of three billion people rapidly taking their place in market economies, the private sector has become the principal motor of development and a growth-test of economic strength.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005


Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability
By Paul Hawken, HarperCollins Publishers, June 1, 1994

Paul Hawken, the entrepreneur behind the Smith & Hawken gardening supplies empire, is no ordinary capitalist. Hawken is on a one-man crusade to reform our economic system by demanding that First World businesses reduce their consumption of energy and resources by 80 percent in the next 50 years. As if that weren't enough, Hawken argues that business goals should be redefined to embrace such fuzzy categories as whether the work is aesthetically pleasing and the employees are having fun; this applies to corporate giants and mom-and-pop operations alike. He proposes a culture of business in which the real world, the natural world, is allowed to flourish as well, and in which the planet's needs are addressed.

>> More Details  |  created on: 11/30/2005