News
Pakistan approves strategy to expand microfinance outreach to 3 mln households 
Associated Press of Pakistan, February 14, 2007
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has approved the strategy to expand microfinance outreach from one million to three million households by 2010.He was chairing a meeting here Wednesday to review the strategy prepared by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to increase the coverage of microfinance sector in Pakistan.
>> More Details | created on: 02/16/2007
India's Huge Market for Cheap Phones
By Nandini Lakshman, Business Week, January 8, 2007
It's one of the world's hottest mobile phone markets, but Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung must deliver cool handsets at very thin profit margins.
>> More Details | created on: 01/12/2007
India poised for pharmaceutical boom
By Mark Sappenfield, The Christian Science Monitor, January 2, 2007
For decades, India's drugmakers have been the pharmacy for the world's destitute, finding ways to copy the best medicines at the lowest prices. By some estimates, India's generic medicines treat half the AIDS patients in the developing world.
Yet this picture has begun to change since India decided to comply with global patent standards last year. Now as never before, Indian pharmaceutical companies are looking to expand business in rich countries, which, critics say, will come at the expense of the world's poor. The intent is to follow the footsteps of India's information-technology (IT) sector, which parlayed lower costs and improved innovation into India's greatest modern success story.
>> More Details | created on: 01/12/2007
Citi plans thumbprint ATMs for India poor
Financial Times, December 1, 2006
Citigroup is rolling out a network of biometric automatic cash machines aimed at illiterate Indian slum dwellers, using the latest technology to woo the country's millions of "unbanked" poor.
The machines will recognise account holders' thumbprints, eliminating the need for a personal identification number, and will have colour-coded screen instructions and voiceovers to help guide them through transactions.
>> More Details | created on: 12/07/2006
Vikram Akula, Founder & CEO of SKS Microfinance
CNN.com, November 13, 2006
Vikram Akula is on an economic mission: to empower India's poor.
His drive to fight poverty led to the birth of the Hyderabad-based SKS in 1998. It is a microfinance company that lends small amounts of money, typically $100, to impoverished women.
The cash is used to buy everything from animals to irons so clients can start their own homegrown ventures. SKS started out as non-profit but later changed its status and is now one of the fastest growing microlenders in the world.
With role models like Mohammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his microfinance work, Akula is in good company. CNN's Andrew Stevens asked the former management consultant why he made this career choice.
>> More Details | created on: 11/21/2006
Credit will cut rural poverty in India
By Amy Yee , Financial Times, October 31, 2006
Microfinance in India, -currently focused on small loans for the rural poor, is growing fast enough to make an impact over the next -decade, according to a new report.
However, the sector must focus on transparency and governance, training local partners, and developing a more diverse menu of services, says the report, released yesterday at a microfinance conference in New Delhi.
>> More Details | created on: 11/10/2006
For India's Traditional Fishermen, Cellphones Deliver a Sea Change
By Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post, October 15, 2006
Babu Rajan pointed off the starboard bow and shouted: "There! There!" In choppy, gray seas four miles from shore near India's tropical southern tip, Rajan spotted the tinselly sparkle of a school of sardines. He ordered his three dozen crewmen to quickly drop their five-ton net overboard.
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Microfinance Institutions Reach Crucial Agreement with Government in Andhra Pradesh, India
MicroCapital, October 11, 2006
In a broad reaching agreement, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) operating in Andhra Pradesh, India have reached an agreement with the state government on MFI interest rates, product portfolio, inter-MFI competition, credit disbursement and loan recovery methodologies. An agreement pertaining to a smaller jurisdiction – the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh was earlier reported on MicroCapital.
As per the terms of the agreement, MFIs have agreed to an interest rate ceiling of 15%. They have agreed to desist from providing multiple credit to an existing borrower and recover loans at a pace compatible with the borrower’s income level. MFIs are also to remain strictly within the micro-credit domain, avoiding micro-insurance products.
>> More Details | created on: 10/13/2006
India's BIG microfinance revolution
By Nandini Lakshman, Business Week, September 25, 2006
ICICI Bank is a big money-center lender that deals with sizable companies in Bombay, Bangalore, and New Delhi. It is also one of India's biggest consumer lenders. So why does Nachiket Mor spend a lot of time in India's economically depressed rural hinterland looking for prospective borrowers?
He recently visited a family of five living in a soot-covered hut, getting by at barely subsistence levels in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Mor signed off on a one-year, $130 loan that will allow the family to buy a buffalo and sell its milk. And written into this loan contract is a most unusual clause. If the animal isn't milking, the family gets a moratorium on its monthly loan repayment.
>> More Details | created on: 09/29/2006
Bill to regulate microfinance sector on cards
The Economic Times, September 21, 2006
International venture funds foraying into microfinance will not have to grapple with conflicting rules of operation. The government is preparing a bill to regulate the sector, which is expected to grow to Rs 35,000 crore, by ’10. The big funds planning to make a foray into the sector include, the Maharashtra government promoted VC Fund -Urjankur, UK-based CDC, Unitus Private Equity and Delhi-based Lok Capital.
Even IFC has set up a fund with the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation (APIDC), for the purpose. Finance ministry services special secretary Vinod Rai said on Wednesday, the microfinance legislation will be tabled in the winter session of Parliament.
>> More Details | created on: 09/22/2006
Banks bet on booming remittances
By Joel Rebello, DNA India, September 11, 2006
With an increasing number of Indians living abroad, either for work or having settled there, foreign exchange remittances into the country is likely to increase, market players say.
India receives the largest amount of remittances in the world, “getting over 10% of the $230 billion global market, according to World Bank numbers,” says Manish Misra, ICICI Bank’s head of global remittance. He expects the business to grow 15-20% annually in the next 4-5 years.
“It is inevitable that, with the need for overseas workers, India will remain a big market for the remittance business,” Misra says. The bank’s remittance service, Money2India, has a 22% market share in the Indian business.
>> More Details | created on: 09/29/2006
Bangladeshi who founded bank for poor wins peace prize
Yahoo News, September 6, 2006
The Bangladeshi who established a bank for the poor has been named winner of the eighth Seoul Peace Prize.
The biennial prize of 200,000 dollars, awarded to Muhammad Yunus, honours peace efforts by politicians, academics, activists and international organizations.
"His tireless endeavor to root out poverty and create a new model of giving credit to the poor will bear fruit in terms of greater peace in the world," the Seoul Prize Cultural Foundation said.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Fighting poverty $1 at a time
By Shahreen Abedin, CNN.com, September 5, 2006
It all started with $50. In 1988, that's what it took Noni Bala Ghosh to revive her family's business of making sweets to sell in Kholshi, her tiny village in Bangladesh.
Family members had given up the business because they could no longer afford to buy milk to churn into rich chhana, a thick cottage cheese used to make creamy sweets.
Driven to despair, Noni heeded the advice of several women in her village who had taken loans from Grameen Bank, a lending organization that developed the poverty-busting lending program known as "micro-credit," in the 1970s.
Through a series of small loans from the bank, she soon bought a cow and began to supply her own milk, and eventually engaged her two sons and husband, Gopal, to help support the family business she led. After 3 1/2 years, Noni had become the key supplier to a prominent sweets shop in Dhaka. Once again, she could afford to feed and clothe her family.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
HLL, ITC draw up two-pronged strategies to woo customers
By LALITHA SRINIVASAN, The Financial Express, August 31, 2006
India’a largest FMCG company Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) is gearing up to launch its rural initiative ‘Project Shakti’ in Bihar and Jharkhand very soon.
With this, Project Shakti will be operational across all states in India. The company also plans to cover 500,000 villages with 100,000 Shakti Ammas (women entrepreneurs) in the next two years. Competitor ITC Ltd is also planning to set up 50 Choupal Sagars (rural super stores) by the end of this fiscal year.
Clearly, India’s two major FMCG players in rural markets are now extending their reach to woo new consumers.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
India's Banks Are Big on Microfinance
By Nandini Lakshman, Yahoo News, August 23, 2006
ICICI Bank (IDN) is a big money-center lender that deals with sizable companies in Bombay, Bangalore, and New Delhi. It is also one of India's biggest consumer lenders. So why does Nachiket Mor spend a lot of tie in India's economically depressed
rural hinterland looking for prospective borrowers? He recently visited a family of five living in a soot-covered hut, getting by at barely subsistence levels in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Mor signed off on a one-year, $130 loan that will allow the family to buy a buffalo and sell its milk. And written into this loan contract is a most unusual clause. If the animal isn't milking, the family gets a moratorium on its monthly loan repayment. "The client would need to find other money to service the loan or even sell the buffalo to pay us, which would be counterproductive for both of us," explains Mor, deputy managing director at ICICI.
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Microcredit and moneylending in India
The Economist, August 17, 2006
MONEYLENDERS bad; microcredit good. That has been the common view about financial services in much of the Indian countryside. Traditional moneylenders charge extortionate interest rates to those in desperate need.…
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Reaching the bottom of the pyramid
By Bhaskar Hazarika , ciol.com, August 11, 2006
Rural India has more than 60 per cent of the disposable income, and thanks to the Internet, the rural Indian can now buy what his urban counterpart is buying.
>> More Details | created on: 08/14/2006
Microloans May Work, but There Is Dispute in India Over Who Will Make Them 
By Tyler Cowen, The New York Times, August 10, 2006
MICROFINANCE is based on a simple idea: banks, finance companies, and charities lend small sums — often no more than a few hundred dollars — to poor third world entrepreneurs. The loan recipients open businesses like tailoring shops or small grocery stores, thereby bolstering local economies.
But does microfinance, in fact, help the poor?
>> More Details | created on: 08/10/2006
ICT Access Centers to be introduced in rural areas
News from Bangladesh, August 3, 2006
The government for the first time is going to introduce ICT Access Centers for the rural people to attach the underprivileged section to the technology-based knowledge society, reports UNB.
The rural ICT Access Centers, to be equipped with modern computers and Internet facilities, will provide ICT-enabled services to the rural people to bring them into the mainstream of development.
“Within next two months, we’ll be able to introduce such knowledge centers,” Science and ICT Minister Dr Moyeen Khan told a workshop here Wednesday.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
India's great leap forward?
By Brian Bremner, Business Week, August 2, 2006
The world second fastest-growing mobile phone market offers challenges for telecoms and implications for Indian society.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
Micro-insurance - "Reaching out to the poor"
By Interview with Vipin Sharma, Program Director for Micro Finance at CARE India, WBCSD, July 31, 2006
Allianz and CARE are cooperating to offer the people in the tsunami-struck region of Tamil Nadu micro-insurance products. Vipin Sharma, Program Director for Micro-finance at CARE India, speaks about the project.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
Going Mobile in India
By Nandini Lakshman, Business Week, July 24, 2006
Service providers and handset manufacturers look forward to explosive growth as India skips the copper wire and heads straight for wireless networks.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
India’s farmers switch faith to mobile phones
By Ashling O’Connor, The Times online, July 24, 2006
FOR centuries, Indian farmers have relied on ancient rituals, the study of wind direction and local gossip to ascertain the annual onset of the unpredictable monsoon rains. Deciding when to sow their crops and when to take their produce to market is based on experience and instinct.
>> More Details | created on: 08/03/2006
Tata offers Rs 25 cr annual medical aid to poor
rediff news, July 19, 2006
The Tata Group and three other top business houses have joined hands with the Jharkhand government to ensure medical treatment to the state's below poverty line population.
Apart from the Tatas, Birla, Essar and Jindal group have formed the Sarva Swasthya Mission Trust -- which will be the first of its kind private-public partnership in the country.
This project will provide health coverage and medical treatment to the poorest of the poor in the state at affordable prices and also encourage good private sector health services to reach out to remote and rural areas, a release by the Tata Group said.
>> More Details | created on: 07/20/2006
'One lakh' car to roll out from 3-4 places: Tata
The Economic Times - India, July 7, 2006
NEW DELHI: Tata Group Chief Ratan Tata on Friday said the ambitious Rs 1 lakh car will be manufactured from three-four places, including West Bengal and Uttaranchal.
>> More Details | created on: 09/13/2006
High finance reaches Bangladesh's poor
Yahoo News, July 6, 2006
Tiny loans for Bangladesh's rural poor became part of a groundbreaking financial product on Thursday through one of the world's first "microcredit" securitisations.
>> More Details | created on: 07/07/2006
Haier sees growth at bottom of pyramid
TMCnet, July 2, 2006
Haier India is on overdrive as it plans to launch an India-specific range of products by mid-'07. This is as per its strategy of capturing the low-end of the consumer durables market.
>> More Details | created on: 07/06/2006
Management goes to bottom of the pyramid
By Kalpana Pathak, Business standard, June 28, 2006
INNOVATION: A Fortune 500 company will form business partnerships with slum-dwellers in Mumbai.
Slum-dwellers of Santosh Nagar, Goregaon (Mumbai), will soon be business partners with a Fortune 500 American company (name yet to be disclosed) that plans to invest money to set up a nutrition unit at the slum as a pilot project.
>> More Details | created on: 07/06/2006
Tata promises Rs 1 lakh car by 2008
Hindustan Times, June 23, 2006
Tata Motors on Friday said it would launch the much-touted Rs one lakh car in early 2008, as the company had completed its styling and designing and tested the prototypes within the plant.
>> More Details | created on: 06/27/2006
Quantifying the BoP in India: Marketers target the ABCD junta
By Shailesh Dobhal, The Economic Times, June 21, 2006
NEW DELHI: Interested in selling profitably to the poor? Most Indian marketers are not strangers to management thinker and author CK Prahlad’s almost decade-old bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) idea, essentially the existence of a huge market opportunity with low-income consumers. However, in the absence of concrete data on where these consumers and markets reside, it has sadly remained a mere cliché, with many paying just lip-service to Mr Prahlad’s path-breaking BOP approach.
>> More Details | created on: 06/27/2006
Immigrants from India spread business success to homeland
By Edward Iwata, USA Today, June 20, 2006
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — When Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia was a kid growing up in Bangalore, India, in the 1980s, his native country seemed eons from evolving into an economic power.
Bhatia and his parents, a banker and a government bureaucrat, waited 10 years before their house got a telephone line. Because of auto shortages, they waited two years to buy a tiny Suzuki car. They shopped at small family stores with limited goods.
>> More Details | created on: 06/27/2006
Dharavi poor may get health cover
By Falaknaaz Syed, Business Standard, June 2, 2006
Scheme to see partnership between physicians and residents.
Over 30,000 families living below the poverty line in Asia’s largest slum at Dharavi may soon have insurance cover for their medical expenses and regular health check-ups, thanks to a unique care model.
>> More Details | created on: 06/05/2006
Indian motor maker gives the go-ahead for £1,200 'people's car'
By Randeep Ramesh, The Guardian, May 20, 2006
One of India's biggest motor manufacturers announced ambitious plans yesterday to launch a cheap, small "people's car" in 2008 for about £1,200.
Tata Motors, a subsidiary of one of the country's largest conglomerates, said it would invest 10 billion rupees (£120m) in the plant near Kolkata in West Bengal. Initially the plant will employ 2,000 people.
>> More Details | created on: 07/06/2006
Free outgoing call creates a new price threshold
By Satish John , DNAIndia, May 16, 2006
MUMBAI: The bugle was sounded for a fresh battle on Thursday in the booming Indian telecom market.
‘Don’t stop Mobile’, a new scheme unveiled by Tata Indicom across 20 circles that allows customers to make free outgoing calls for a period of 2 years to any Tata Indicom Mobile or Tata Indicom fixed phone. It allows a maximum outgoing talktime of 3,600 minutes (60 hours) to another Tata Indicom phone.
It was only in October last year that Tata Indicom had coined a new free incoming scheme called “non-stop mobile” which forced its competitors to follow suit quickly as new subscribers emerged to enlist for the Tata scheme.
>> More Details | created on: 05/16/2006
Mobile phone boom spurs economic growth in Bangladesh
Yahoo News, May 10, 2006
DHAKA (AFP) - Bangladesh's booming mobile phone industry has emerged as a key driver of the cash-strapped nation's economy, creating nearly 240,000 jobs and adding 650 million dollars to gross domestic product.
>> More Details | created on: 05/18/2006
India: Largest international banker to diversify into agribusiness financing
Sify Business, May 10, 2006
Standard Chartered, the largest international banker in India, has firmed up plans to enter agriculture and commodities financing during 2006. It will also consolidate its operations in traditional as well as in the growing retail banking sectors.
>> More Details | created on: 05/25/2006
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
What's next for Tata Group: An interview with its chairman
By Ranjit V. Pandit, The McKinsey Quarterly, April 28, 2006
In this interview, Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata discusses the strategies of India's huge steel-to- software conglomerate, his vision of India as a global knowledge center, and the trade-offs between business success and social responsibility.
Rather than aspiring to be truly global, Tata Group seeks to expand in countries where it can achieve "a meaningful presence."
At home Tata Group wants to pioneer new products, including a $2,200 "people's car," for India's emerging mass market.
Tata, who is also the chairman of India's investment commission, explains why improving the infrastructure of his country is essential to retaining its best people and persuading those who have left to return.
>> More Details | created on: 04/28/2006
Future Capital to foray into retail of financial products
By Kala Vijayraghavab and R Sriram, The Economic Times, April 26, 2006
Mumbai: Future Capital, a majority-owned company of Pantaloon Retail, is chalking out a massive foray in the next few months into the manufacture and retailing of financial products, based roughly on a Latin American model.
>> More Details | created on: 04/26/2006
ICICI Bank Targets 250 MFI's
By Sunita Jyoti, The Financial Express, April 14, 2006
Besides retail, ICICI Bank, the second-largest commercial bank, has aggressively doubled its rural microfinance and agri-business
loan portfolio over a period of nine months. The outstanding in group's total rural microfinance and agri-business portfolio has increased to Rs 10,000 crore compared to Rs 5,200 crore last year.
>> More Details | created on: 04/17/2006
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
ICRISAT to collaborate with CII and Coca Cola Foundation on watershed development
Moneycontrol.com, April 3, 2006
ICRISAT & Coca-Cola Foundation Collaboration for Backward Areas Development through Strategic Intervention in Watershed Development The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Coca-Cola Foundation will collaborate for sustainable and equitable management of Rural Water Resources Infrastructure and other Natural Resources Management (NRM).
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
Sales Effort Gives India's Rural Poor an Opportunity
By John Lancaster, Washington Post, April 2, 2006
This article discusses a Hindustan Lever initiative that enlists about 20,000 poor and mostly illiterate women to sell products.
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
New environmental targets for DSM plants
Hugin News/DSM, March 26, 2006
The Nutrition Improvement Program, which focuses on the fortification of foods with vitamins and minerals in order to prevent disease and mortality due to malnutrition, is DSM's first initiative in the context of the 'Base of the Pyramid'. This is a new development in the field of sustainability to which the company will increasingly be paying attention.
>> More Details | created on: 04/04/2006
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
Building Wealth by the Penny
By John Lancaster, Washington Post, March 14, 2006
With its open sewers and mud-walled homes, this impoverished farming village of 2,200 in southern India did not look like fertile territory for an entrepreneur. But Srilatha Kadem was undeterred. Oblivious to the midday heat, she marched briskly along the unpaved streets, her cloth bag filled with soaps and shampoos and her heart with vaulting ambition.
>> More Details | created on: 03/14/2006
Grameen teams up with Groupe Danone to set up food plant
By Reaz Ahmad, The Daily Star, March 13, 2006
Microcredit guru Prof Muhammad Yunus launches a joint venture food enterprise in collaboration with one of the world's major food producers -- Groupe Danone.
>> More Details | created on: 03/22/2006
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
Power to the people
Economist, March 11, 2006
AS A young boy in rural Bangladesh in 1971, Iqbal Quadir walked ten miles to collect some medicine for a sibling who was unwell. But when he arrived at his destination, the medicine man was not there, so he had to walk home empty-handed, having wasted an entire day. Many years later, having moved to America and become an investment banker, Mr Quadir was reminded of this episode when the network at his New York office stopped working.Mr Quadir was seized by the idea that "a telephone is a weapon against poverty". He decided to dedicate himself to making telephones more widely available to the poor in his homeland.
>> More Details | created on: 03/10/2006
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
Keya Sarkar: Micro finance awards tell a story
By Keya Sarkar, Business Standard, February 28, 2006
India is taking small steps as a nation to address the lack of access to financial instruments of nearly 600 million people, but also the mainstream financial sector has suddenly discovered a new asset class.
>> 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
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
Fancy Phones to Clash with Low Cost PCs
By Pragya Singh , Financial Express, February 20, 2006
Here is something the bottom of India’s mobile user pyramid can cheer about. If 2005 was the year of the cheap PC, 2006 will see the dawn of entry-level smart phones in rural parts.
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2006
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
Intel's Hiring Spree
By Michael Fitzgerald, Technology Review, February 14, 2006
Why is Intel, the giant chip maker, in the process of hiring more than 100 anthropologists and other social scientists to work side by side with its engineers? While the success of this strategy will become clearer over the next 12 to 18 months, it's obvious Intel is betting that sales will rise and new markets will emerge because of this nonintuitive pairing.
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2006
The Profit of Creativity
Global Envision, February 11, 2006
Thousands of rural innovations exist in rural India, and if nurtured and enabled as microenterprises, they can contribute in a significant way to the reduction of poverty.
>> More Details | created on: 03/01/2006
Q&A: C.K. Prahalad
Red Herring, February 6, 2006
>> More Details | created on: 02/17/2006
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
All They Need is a Fair Chance to Compete
By Heather Stewart , The Observer, January 22, 2006
Hilary Benn tells Heather Stewart that, far from being the enemy, the global private sector is the one certain way that poverty can be made history.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
India's mobile giants battle it out in the villages
By Shailendra Bhatnagar , Yahoo News, January 21, 2006
Mobile phone companies are taking cheap handsets and life-time prepaid services to India's hundreds of millions of low-income earners in a bid to expand market share and maintain their break-neck rates of growth.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
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
World Bank committed to invest USD 1 billion in India for Rural empowerment
By Michael Carter, Confederation of Indian Industry, December 21, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/05/2006
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
A Proposition to Eradicate Poverty
By Jesse Moore, November 11, 2005
This article takes an in depth look at the pros and cons of eradicating poverty through profit. The author notes we need to rebuke the idea that we are playing a zero-sum game and embrace the possibility that growth and poverty reduction, done right, are mutually reinforcing pursuits.
>> More Details | created on: 12/21/2005
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
India's phone-to-farmers operator
Financial Express, October 19, 2005
The idea was to connect India's farms with the world by modernising a clapped-out supply chain that allows most produce to rot long before it gets to market.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
AMD to jointly sell cheap personal computers in India
Agence French Presse, October 14, 2005
US-based semiconductor maker AMD said it would enter a joint venture with an Indian firm to sell personal computers for the same cost as cellphones.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
For the Poor, Help from MBAs
By Francesca DiMeglio , Business Week Online, August 1, 2005
This article discusses how many MBAs are bringing microfinancing, business development—and eventually a consumer economy—to many impoverished Third World areas.
>> More Details | created on: 01/05/2006
Calling an End to Poverty: Mobile Phones and Development
By The Economist, July 7, 2005
Discusses how mobile phone firms have found a way to help the poor help themselves.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
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 Richer Future for India
McKinsey Quarterly, July 1, 2005
Analyzes Indias growth potential beyond IT and outsourcing services.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Trickle-Up Economics
By David Armstrong & Naazneen Karmali, Forbes.com, June 20, 2005
How low-tech, low-cost designs are helping the poorest farmers on Earth grow their way out of poverty.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Selling to the Poor: There is a Surprisingly Lucrative Market in Targeting Low-Income Consumers
By Kay Johnson & Xa Nhon, Time Magazine, April 25, 2005
Identifies the lucrative market in targeting low income consumers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
MIT Team Seeks to Seed Developing World with $100 Laptops
By Mark Jewell, The Detroit News, April 4, 2005
Addresses MIT's efforts to bridge the digital divide by bringing laptops to children in the developing world.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Selling to the Poor: Mobile Firms Plan Cheap Handset
BBC News, February 1, 2005
An alliance of mobile phone firms has launched an ultra-cheap handset in the hope of connecting millions more customers in developing countries.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
A Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
By Edward Luce, Financial Times, January 1, 2005
Identifies the market in private education by highlighting the proliferation of private slum schools in India.
>> 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
China and India: The Race for Growth
McKinsey Quarterly, September 1, 2004
Analyzes the different economic growth patterns of India and China.
>> 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
Deutsche Bank: microcredit development fund
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
Global Community Investment
Business for Social Responsibility, December 1, 2003
As companies expand their operations globally, deriving ever-larger shares of their revenues and profits from international operations, they are finding business value from expanding their community involvement activities internationally as well.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Sonae: Delta Cafés socially responsible coffee
World Business Council on Sustainble Development, September 26, 2003
Delta has since successfully developed a “socially responsible” coffee brand, Delta Timor, creating competitive communities at the beginning of the supply chain, in the plantations of East Timor, and establishing a “solidarity market” for the brand among Portuguese consumers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
eBusiness and Sustainable Development
Digital Europe, 2003
This article investigates the changing nature of business, society, and information technology.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
A recipe for job creation in India
By Khozem Merchant, Financial Times, December 29, 2002
This article from the Financial Times details the origins and operations of the cooperative organization Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad and of Jashwantiben Popat who won India's top business award for her work in helping rural women gain economic enfranchisement through democratic participation, application of life skills, knowledge of the Indian market place and distribution channels, and market-driven lending practices.
>> More Details | created on: 05/16/2006
Business and Poverty: Bridging the
Gap.
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
The Corporate Key: Using Big Business to Fight Global Poverty
By George C. Lodge, Foreign Affairs, July 1, 2002
The authors analyze a new approach to global development addressing a global corporate alliance that brings business know-how and profit motive into play.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Let's Focus on the Digital Dividend
By C.K. Prahalad, European Business Forum, 2002
Disucusses the idea that in the new economy, where access to knowledge is critical for economic success, the increasing importance of the internet will further accentuate the differences between the rich and the poor.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
The Global Information Technology Report 2001-2002: Readiness for the Networked World
Center for International Development, 2002
A report on the current and future state of information and communication technology.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Information Communications Technology for Development
UNDP Evaluation Office, September 1, 2001
Addresses Information Communication technology as a key player in development.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Information and Communication Technologies and Poverty
By Charles Kenny, World Bank, July 1, 2001
This article address the importance of "Digitally enabled Development" as one of the keys to third world development.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Strategic Innovation: Hindustan Lever Ltd
By Rekha Balu, Fast Company, June 1, 2001
Highlights Hindustan Lever's success through soap marketing and distribution at the BOP.
>> 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 Vision
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
Improving Health, Fighting Poverty: The Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
The Exchange, 2001
Addresses the power of technology in alleviating poverty but the risk of marginalizing the poor through this process.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
India's Growth Chase: High Aspiration, Low Aspiration
By Narendra Jhaveri, Economic and Political Weekly, 2001
Discusses the governanace of India and its implications for further growth.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Alleviating Poverty Through Technology
By Muhammad Yunus, Science Magazine, October 1, 1998
This article discusses ways of alleviating poverty through the spread of technology to the developing worlds.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Academic Research
A Dime a Day: The Possibilities and Limits of Private Schooling in Pakistan
By TAHIR ANDRABI, JISHNU DAS & ASIM IJAZ KHWAJA , World Bank, November 1, 2006
This paper looks at the private schooling sector in Pakistan, a country that is seriously behind schedule in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Using new data, the authors document the phenomenal rise of the private sector in Pakistan and show that an increasing segment of children enrolled in private schools are from rural areas and from middle-class and poorer families.
>> More Details | created on: 12/07/2006
Food Policy and Poverty in Indonesia: A General Equilibrium Analysis
By Peter G. Warr, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Vol. 49, No. 4, December, 2005
Rice is Indonesia's staple food and accounts for large shares of both consumers' budgets and total employment. Until recently, Indonesia was the world's largest importer, but rice import policy is now highly protectionist. Since early 2004, rice imports have been officially banned. Advocates of this policy say it reduces poverty by assisting poor farmers. Opponents say it increases poverty, stressing negative effects on poor consumers. This paper uses a general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy to analyse the effects of a ban on rice imports.
>> More Details | created on: 01/23/2006
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
Credit Constraints as a Barrier to Technology Adoption by the Poor: Lessons from South-Indian Small Scale Fishery
By Gine, Xavier, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, June, 2005 (No. 3665)
The paper studies the diffusion of plastic reinforced fiber boats in a fishing village in Tamil Nadu and the dynamics of income inequality during this process
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
At the Bottom of the Pyramid: Responsible Design for Responsible Business
By Nirmal Sethia, Design Managment Review, June 1, 2005
In this article, Nirmal Sethia, a professor of management and director of the Center for Business and Design in the College of Business Administration at California State Polytechnic University, in Pomona, calls our attention to what he calls "a pressing business responsibility that is a significant new business opportunity." The opportunity he refers to is what he calls "the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP)-almost four billion people, or nearly two-thirds of humanity, who live at the bottom of the economic pyramid, with a vast majority of them struggling to survive on less than two dollars a day."
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Scaling-Up Microfinance for India's Rural Poor
By Priya Basu & Pradeep Srivastava, World Bank Policy Research Working Papers No. 3646, June, 2005
The paper reviews the current level and pattern of access to finance for India's rural poor and examines some of the key microfinance approaches in India, especially looking at the Self Help Group (SHG) Bank Linkage initiative.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2006
Winning the Indian Consumer
By V.T. Bharadwaj & Gautam M. Swaroop, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
India will be a critical growth market for many multinational consumer goods companies. But several distinct Indias now coexist. Global players must define which of them to target—the biggest opportunity is the rapidly growing middle class—and then design the right business model. While the journey will not be easy, the reward will be a share of the world's last big untapped consumer market.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Premium Marketing to the Masses: An Interview with LG Electronics India's Managing Director
By Pramath Raj Sinha, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
In this interview, Kwang-Ro Kim shows how LG Electronics India has built a dominant position in India's consumer electronics and white-goods markets.
The company has overcome India's notorious distribution challenge, in the process pushing deeper into rural territories than have most competitors. Indian consumers, LG has found, will pay a premium for quality and service.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
The Right Passage to India
By Kuldeep P. Jain & Nigel A. S. Manson, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
Multinational companies are often successful precisely because they can replicate products and processes and even market-entry strategies across multiple markets. In India, however, that approach can bring disappointing results.
The multinationals with the most success in India are those that tailor their products and practices to the idiosyncrasies of this market—even when that means starting from scratch.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
India's Economic Agenda: An Interview with Manmohan Singh
By Rajat K. Gupta, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
In an interview, India's prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, discusses his country’s prospects and challenges, saying that the ultimate goal is to wipe out poverty, ignorance, and disease.
To him this can be accomplished by increasing foreign direct investment, particularly in infrastructure and by opening up the retail sector.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Fulfilling India's Promise
By Rajat K. Gupta, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 (Subscription Required)
The article discusses how India must take steps to boost its economic prospects, lift its living standards, and improve opportunities for the multinational companies that do business there.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
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
The Transformation of the Microfinance Sector in India: Experiences, Options, and Future
By M.S. Sriram & Rajesh S. Upadhyayula, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 2; , December, 2004
This paper discusses the growth and transformation of microfinance organizations (MFO) in India. Issues that have triggered transformation include size, diversity, sustainability, focus, and taxation.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Microleasing: The Grameen Bank Experience
By Asif Ud Dowla, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 2; , December, 2004
This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of Grameen's leasing program. Instead of providing a full-fledged impact assessment study, we examine the terms and conditions of the leasing program and evaluate its success in terms of outreach, repayment rate, and asset ownership. Analysis of program level data shows that the program is successful in terms of outreach and repayment performance. The success of leasing suggests some important lessons for MFIs. It shows that poor people have diverse credit needs and that to help the poor borrowers to graduate out of poverty, MFIs have to provide different and flexible products.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
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
Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh: Is it Reaching the Poorest?
By Dipankar Datta, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
Empirical studies give strong evidence that microcredit has had positive effects on two vital areas of national development; namely, the alleviation of poverty and the empowerment of women. Despite these positive impacts, some critics question the efficacy of microcredit in reaching the extreme poor. Some argue that while microcredit has contributed positively to the well-being of the poor in general, it has failed to reach the poorest of the poor. This paper explores the reasons why microcredit programs rarely reach the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Community-Based Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Nepal: A Sustainable Means for Microfinance Delivery?
By Chris D. Gingrich, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
The paper argues that while savings-led microfinance in Nepali SCCs is a slow process, there is significant long-term outreach potential in local communities. The government and donors should pursue institutionbuilding strategies to strengthen Nepali SCCs and should not provide concessionary funding.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Money Talks: Conversations with Poor Households in Bangladesh about Managing Money
By Stuart Rutherford, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
This paper describes the money management behavior of 42 low income Bangladeshi households, half of them rural and half living in urban slums. They were found to be active managers of their financial resources. Households appear to be using financial instruments of all kinds to build lump sums of money for immediate expenditure rather than to build up long-term, large financial assets or to hold highvalue, long-term debt. These sums were overwhelmingly formed in the informal sector. The role of the MFIs is thus somewhat contradictory. Their outreach into these households is excellent but their share of the total money management activities of the households is small. The paper concludes that both MFIs and poor households would benefit if MFIs achieved a better understanding of current and potential demand for financial services by the poor and tailored products and delivery systems accordingly.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Implications of Financial Innovations for the Poorest of the Poor in the Rural Area: Experience from Northern Bangladesh
June, 2004
Grameen demonstrated that the poor are viable clients for loans and reached them on a massive scale. However, they reach only the upper level of the poor and provide narrow and limited financial services with rigid systems and procedures, which in many ways do not address the needs of the poorest. Despite earning signs of success with their SafeSave innovative approach to serving the poorest in the urban area, this rural adaptation and experiment has faced challenges because of the different social and economical structures of the rural economy and the different pattern of poverty dynamics in the rural area.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
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 Evidence
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 Poor
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
AKASHGANGA Automatic Milk Collection Systems
By Ajay Sharma & Akhilesh Yadav, World Resources Institute, August 1, 2003
Through its AKASHGANGA Automatic Milk Collection Systems (AMCS), SKEPL Pvt. Ltd. is using simple technologies to revolutionize the dairy industry in India.
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2006
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
SHG-Bank Linkage Program in India: An Overview
By Hema Bansal, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 5, No. 1; , March, 2003
The formal financial institutions in India have ventured into microfinance in a massive way by adopting the SHG-Bank Linkage Program model.The present paper makes an attempt to review the performance of the program in different states of India and across three major institutions—commercial banks,cooperatives,and the regional rural banks.The study also presents vital information about the leading NGOs with major credit linkages in Indian states.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
How Corporations and Environmental Groups Cooperate: Assessing Cross Sector Alliances and Collaborations
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
Serving the World's Poor, Profitably
By C.K. Prahalad & Allen Hammond, Harvard Business Review, September, 2002
The authors, in this paper, lay out the business case for entering the world's poorest markets.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
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
PACT's Women's Empowerment Program in Nepal: A Savings- and Literacy-led Alternative to Financial Building
By Jeffrey Ashe & Lisa Parrott, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September, 2002
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Ashrai: A Savings-Led Model for Fighting Poverty and Discrimination
By Brett Matthews & Dr. Ahsan Ali, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 4, No. 2; , September, 2002
Ashrai is getting results with a savings-led model among minority peoples in northwest Bangladesh. These people are mostly landless and illiterate, and earn about $50 a year per person. They are a vital population segment that microfinance institutions in Bangladesh and elsewhere are unable to serve successfully. Ashrai takes an innovative approach based on intensive capacity building to help clients build small, informal financial intermediaries. Savings mobilization,institution-building, and education/literacy interventions work together to support the efforts of some of the world's poorest people to build a base of economic power and self-respect.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Why do the Poor and the Less-Educated Pay More for Long-Distance Calls?
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
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
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 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
Vaccines Where They're Needed
By Amie Batson & Matthias M. Bekier, McKinsey Quarterly, 2001 (Subscription Required )
The development of vaccines for these diseases is usually a risky and unprofitable enterprise for pharmaceuticals companies. Thus, by assuming some of the risks borne by the makers of vaccines, governments and international organizations could reduce the cost of bringing them to market.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
A Point of Light in Mumbai
By Rukmini Banerji & Madhav Chavan, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2001 (Subscription Required )
By developing a low-cost distribution channel, an Indian nonprofit organization can deliver child education and nutrition programs for just a few dollars a child per year.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
Do the Poor Pay More? An Empirical Investigation of Price Dispersion in Food Retailing
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
India's Retailing Comes of Age
By Michael Fernandes & Chandrika Gadi, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 2000 (Subscription Required )
As citizens of the world’s largest democracy, Indians are trusted to choose their own government. But, until recently, they were not free to choose what they wanted to buy. A paternalistic regime of control manifested itself in licensing laws that restricted the production of consumer goods
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
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
Are Grameen Replications Sustainable, and Do They Reach the Poor?: The Case of CARD Rural Bank in the Philippines
By Hans Dieter Seibel & Dolores Torres, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 1, No. 1; , September, 1999
The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh is known worldwide for its success in providing credit to the poor. However, subsequent replications of its methodology in other parts of the world have been less successful. Is there really an infallible solution that works everywhere, and is outreach to the poor compatible with sustainability?
>> More Details | created on: 01/25/2006
The Microcredit Summit's Challenge: Working Toward Institutional Financial Self-Sufficiency While Maintaining a Commitment to Serving the Poorest Families
By David S. Gibbons & Jennifer W. Meehan, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 1, No. 1; , September, 1999
Cost-effective identification of the poor and the poorest women is essential to maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of providing microfinance services to them. If the service is not exclusively for the poor and the poorest, it should be operated separately for them to minimize leakage to the nonpoor.
>> More Details | created on: 01/25/2006
Searching for Sustainable Microfinance: A Review of Five Indonesian Initiatives
By R. Marisol Ravicz, World Bank Policy Working Paper No. 1878 , February, 1998
Lessons about the implementation of microfinance operations from five initiatives in rural Indonesia.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
India's Sleeping Giant: Food
By Kito De Boer & Amitabh Pandey, McKinsey Quarterly, 1997 (Subscription Required )
India serves as an example why food producers should worry less about elite consumers
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
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
Narayana Murthy and Compassionate Capitalism
By Bill George, Shailendra J. Singh & Andrew N. McLean, Harvard Business School, July 22, 2005
Narayana Murthy's roles at Infosys Technologies--as a co-founder, longtime CEO, and nonexecutive chairman and chief mentor--has been marked by explosive growth, demanding management challenges, and widely lauded company leadership. His personal leadership philosophy has been articulated through and driven by his philosophy of "compassionate capitalism." Profiles Murthy's philosophy and leadership principles. Traces the development of Murthy as a child, scholar, businessman, and political and social activist. Traces the links between Murthy's principles and the business practices that repeatedly brought Infosys Technologies recognition as one of India's most admired and best managed companies. Raises questions in his mind about the place of philanthropic principles in the management of a business enterprise.
>> More Details | created on: 04/03/2006
The Kuppam HP i-community: Hewlett-Packard
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, May 2, 2005
Hewlett-Packard's Kuppam i-community aims to provide people with access to greater social and economic opportunities by closing the gap between technology-empowered and technology-excluded communities.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
Share MicroFin Limited: India's Largest Microfinance Organization
By R. Meenakshisundaram & R. Fernando, ICFAI Centre for Management Research, March 1, 2005
Within just over a decade, SHARE Microfin Limited (SML) grew from a small society into India’s largest microfinance organisation. During the initial years, the organisation had to face many challenges with regard to customer acceptance, fund mobilisation, government regulation and operational issues. However the organisation had adapted the Grameen model to the local conditions and had even transformed its constitution from that of a society to a public limited company so as to attract funds from private sector banks. The organisation sustained its growth momentum over the years, through innovative fund mobilisation efforts using partnership models with private sector banks and structured deals like securitisation.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
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
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING A
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0266-SSRN, 2005
This series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the bottom of the pyramid is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING
By Werhane, Patricia H. & Gorman, Michael E., et al, December 7, 2004
This series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufactur
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Project Employability: Lafarge India
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, October 6, 2004
Lafarge is working to alleviate high unemployment in rural areas combined with a lack of skilled and qualified masons in the construction markets through its "Project Employability" program.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Enabling Rural India with Information and Communication Technology Initiatives
By Ashok Jhunjhunwala & Sudhalakshmi Narasimhan, Anuradha Ramachandran, International Telecommunications Union, Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion, October 1, 2004
Discusses the impact of digital capabilities throughout rural villages in India.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Simputer: Bridging the digital divide
WBCSD, February 27, 2004
Digital technologies have the potential to tackle social and environmental problems, but for half the world’s population the learning curve will be steep. The Simputer Trust is helping to bridge the "digital divide" with a new computer aimed at people previously excluded from modern communications.
India has approximately 20 million telephones and 500,000 Internet connections for a population of over one billion people. The challenge is to introduce technology for large numbers of people at a low enough cost and at a level suitable for users with little or no formal education.
>> More Details | created on: 07/14/2006
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
Aravind Eye Care System, India
By C.K Prahalad, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, January 1, 2004
Discusses how a world class clinic in India has brought relatively free eye care treatment to the poor in India.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING B
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0267-SSRN, 2004
Set in India in the 1980s and '90s, this series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. The upstart, low-priced Nirma detergent, manufactured by a former chemist, has overtaken HLL in the detergent market primarily because Nirma is being distributed and sold to this previously ignored segment of India's population. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the bottom of the pyramid is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING D
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0269-SSRN, 2004
Set in India in the 1980s and '90s, this series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. The upstart, low-priced Nirma detergent, manufactured by a former chemist, has overtaken HLL in the detergent market primarily because Nirma is being distributed and sold to this previously ignored segment of India's population. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the "bottom of the pyramid" is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING C
By Patricia H. Werhane & Michael E. Gorman, Darden Case No.: UVA-E-0268-SSRN, 2004
Set in India in the 1980s and '90s, this series of cases concerns the attempts by the Unilever division Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) to create, market, and distribute a detergent for India's rural poor. The upstart, low-priced Nirma detergent, manufactured by a former chemist, has overtaken HLL in the detergent market primarily because Nirma is being distributed and sold to this previously ignored segment of India's population. In this war of laundry powders, HLL must revise its traditional practices in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution pursuant to C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond's theory of the worldwide four-tiered market, in which the "bottom of the pyramid" is an untapped and potentially lucrative market.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2006
Hindustan Lever Limited , India
By Mindy Murch & Kate Reeder, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
Discusses how Hindustan Lever Limited created a unique public private partnership while simultaneously making a public helath issue an integral part of their business.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
ICICI Bank , India
By Todd J. Markson & Michael Hokenson, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
Reviews how the ICIC bank experience made customers out of the poor and empowered them at the same time.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Jaipur Foot , India
By Scott Macke, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
Jaipur Foot has been able to create a low cost highly durable prosthetic foot that has enabled many of the poor in India to sustain their livlihoods inspite of a handicap.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
eGovernance - Andhra Pradesh, India
By Praveen Suthrum & Jeffrey Phillips, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
An e-governance experiment in Andhara Pradesh is using business to deliver government services electronically and is fundamentally altering the relationship between the government and its citizens.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Voxiva
By Cynthia Casas & William LaJoie, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, December 12, 2003
Voxiva is bringing critical healthcare information to rural villages by using the already in place telecommunications systems.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Procter & Gamble – PuR Water Purification Sachets
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
AKASHGANDA, India
By Ajay Sharma & Akhilesh Yadav, World Resources Institute Digital Dividend, August 1, 2003
This case dicussess the work SKELPL, a small bussiness in India, which has used innovative solutions to automize the milk collection process at local dairy cooperatives.
>> More Details | created on: 04/13/2006
e-Choupal , India
By Kuttayan Annamalai & Sachin Rao, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, August, 2003
Highlights the success of e-Chopals at connecting subsistence farmers with large firms and the global market through internet information centers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Coca-Cola: The entrepreneur development program
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
Infocentros , El Salvador
By Yacine Khelladi, World Resources Institute Digital Dividend, July 1, 2001
Discusses the El Salvador based Infocentros's model that empowers the poor by giving them access to telecenters in order to gain access to a variety of information and services.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
TARAhaat , India
By Dr. Andrew Lawlor & Vivek Sandell, Caitlin Peterson, World Resources Institute Digital Dividend, July 1, 2001
Discusses TARAhatt how internet portal is providing information and services to many of the rural poor in India.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Books
The India Mobile Development Report
The Center for Knowledge Societies, February 9, 2007
Mobile communication is revolutionizing economic and social life in rural India, spawning a wave of local entrepreneurs and creating greater access to social services according to a new study by The Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) commissioned by Nokia. The research identifies seven major service sectors including transport, finance and healthcare that could be radically transformed through mobile technologies.
>> More Details | created on: 02/09/2007
Africa Emerges as China and India’s New Economic Frontier
By Harry G. Broadman, World Bank, September 16, 2006
Chinese and Indian firms are increasingly doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa, and their interest in the continent extends well beyond a hunt for natural resources, a new World Bank study says.
Exports from Africa to Asia tripled in the last five years, making Asia Africa's third largest trading partner (27 percent) after the European Union (32 percent) and the United States (29 percent), according to Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier. Indian and Chinese foreign direct investment also grew, with China's amounting to $US1.18 billion by mid-2006, notes the study.
>> More Details | created on: 09/22/2006
Taxation and Mobile Communications in Bangladesh
By GSM Association, May 12, 2006
Bangladesh's booming mobile phone industry has emerged as a key driver of the cash-strapped nation's economy, creating nearly 240,000 jobs and adding 650 million dollars to gross domestic product.
"The mobile phone industry in Bangladesh employs 237,900 people directly and indirectly. These are well-paid jobs with salaries many times the national average," said the study by the international consultancy firm Ovum.
The study commissioned by the GSM Association (GSMA), a global industry body of 690 operators, found that the mobile services industry contributed 650 million dollars to Bangladesh's GDP annually.
>> More Details | created on: 05/12/2006
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
The Economic Impact of Telecommunications on Rural Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction: A study of rural communities in India (Gujarat), Mozambique and Tanzania
By Prof. David Souter, Dr Nigel Scott, Prof. Christopher Garforth, Prof. Rekha Jain, Prof. Ophelia Mascarenhas & Dr. Kevin McKemey, DFID - UK Department for International Development, October, 2005
Aimed at a policy audience this paper looks at the use of various communications technologies in villages in Gujarat, Mozambique and Tanzania.
>> More Details | created on: 06/06/2006
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
Agricultural Investment Sourcebook: Agriculture and Rural Development (Trade and Development)
World Bank, January 1, 2005
Investing to promote agricultural growth and poverty reduction is a central pillar of the World Bank’s current rural strategy, Reaching the Rural Poor (2003). One major thrust of the strategy outlines the priorities and the approaches that the public sector, private sector, and civil society can employ to enhance productivity and competitiveness of the agricultural sector in ways that reduce rural poverty and sustain the natural resource base. These actions involve a rich mixture of science, technology, people, communication, management, learning, research, capacity building, institutional development, and grassroots participation.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Technology, Globalization and the Poor: Summary of the Global Knowledge for Development Virtual Conference
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
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
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
Building Partnerships: Collaboration Between the UN and Business
The International Business Leaders Forum, June 1, 2002
This book, a joint venture of the UN Global Compact and the UN Department of Public Information in cooperation with The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), provides a comprehensive overview of a very significant, but not widely reported, trend occurring at the United Nations: the opening up of the organization to new types of partnerships with business.
>> View Article | created on: 11/30/2005
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
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
By Paul Hawken & Amory Lovins, et al, Rocky Mountain Institute, 1999
For decades, environmentalists have been warning that human economic activity is exceeding the planet's limits. Of course we keep pushing those limits back with clever new technologies; yet living systems are undeniably in decline. These trends need not be in conflict—in fact, there are fortunes to be made in reconciling them. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, is the first book to explore the lucrative opportunities for businesses in an era of approaching environmental limits.
>> 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
Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus's Mirolending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago
By Alex Counts, Crown, 1996
When Muhammad Yunus returned to his native Bangladesh 25 years ago with an American doctorate in economics, he set out to try and combat the entrenched poverty there. By 1995, his Grameen Bank had made loans totaling $500 million to two million borrowers, mostly women. In spite of the fact that these borrowers were the poorest of the poor, Grameen has had a near-perfect repayment rate.
>> View Article | 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
Ecology and the Politics of Survival
By Vandana Shiva, Sage Publishing, December 1, 1991
"In this volume, through case studies of forest conflicts and water conflicts in India, the authors have exposed the grim situation in a forceful and logical manner. Its logic does not remain confined to the Indian boundaries alone but extends to all over the world in general. . . . Dr. Vandana Shiva and her colleagues deserve profound admiration for their excellent work. It is a prize book, worthwhile to read and possess." --Indian Book Chronicle
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005