Turkey's born-again farmer 
By Fazile Zahir , Asia Times, August 29, 2006
FETHIYE, Turkey - Organic food might change your life, but organic farming can change the lives of thousands. Nazmi Ilicali, born in 1953, grew up in the east of Turkey in the province of Erzurum, famous for its scorching summers and hard winters. Erzurum, one of Turkey's poorest districts, is where Nazmi's life has been spent enriching the barren lives of those around him.
First he trained as a teacher, and then he spent 25 years working in schools in and around his home town. After his retirement he found himself bored and at loose ends, and inactivity soon developed into such a serious drinking problem that his nickname around town became "Alcoholic Nazmi".
>> More Details | created on: 09/08/2006
Coffee, and Hope, Grow in Rwanda
By Laura Fraser, The New York Times, August 6, 2006
OVER the last dozen years, the view from Gemima Mukashyaka’s small coffee garden in the lush emerald-green hills of southwestern Rwanda has changed. In 1994, after the genocide that killed 800,000 people, it was a site of devastation, chaos and abandonment. Five years ago, when worldwide coffee prices spiraled downward, her neighbors in the densely populated region near Butare were uprooting their coffee trees and planting quick-growing food crops to survive.
But today, there’s a clean coffee processing station nearby, and sprouted around it are two restaurants, a pharmacy, a bank, six hair salons, and just last week, the village’s first Internet cafe.
>> More Details | created on: 08/08/2006
Nigeria: FG to Build Biogas Plants to Convert Cow Dung to Fertilizer
By Emmanuel Ulayi, allAfrica.com, July 3, 2006
The federal government is to construct two pilot biogas plants for the conversion of abattoir wastes to biogas and organic fertilizer in Oyo and Kano states. The project, which would involve the use of an appropriate technology for treating abattoir waste, will also be implemented through public/ private partnership.
In addition to the production of a cheap source of domestic cooking gas and organic fertilizer, the plant will generate employment opportunities and mitigate the effects of green house gasses.
>> More Details | created on: 07/05/2006
Kenya: Get Paid for Planting Your Own Trees
By Kimani Chegea, May 12, 2006
A group of farmers in Nanyuki have now joined the global carbon trade. They are being urged to plant trees, not for firewood , timber or electricity poles, but for absorbing excess carbon from the environment - And they are being paid for it.
Through this new concept, 45 members of Rongai Development Programme have each received Sh700 as motivation to join the trade by establishing carbon sinks (forests and tree planting projects).
>> More Details | created on: 05/12/2006
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
Making the market work for the poor 
By Ann Bernstein & Paul Zille , Business Day, April 6, 2006
AS a new development approach, making markets work for the poor (MMW4P) can have a big impact in SA because it is about changing the circumstances that prevent the poor from participating more effectively and extensively in the market economy.
>> More Details | created on: 04/11/2006
HK explores new ways to help poor people
China View, April 6, 2006
More than 300 participants from various sectors on Thursday attended the Conference on Social Enterprise to discuss new approach to helping the poor.
>> More Details | created on: 04/07/2006
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
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
The Business of Giving
By The Economist, February 23, 2006
Philanthropy is flourishing as the number of super-rich people keeps growing. But the new donors are becoming much more businesslike about the way their money is used, says Matthew Bishop.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
The Birth of Philanthrocapitalism
By The Economist, February 23, 2006
RELATIVE to the corporate environment, we are in the 1870s. But philanthropy will increasingly come to resemble the capitalist economy, predicts Uday Khemka, a young Indian philanthropist and a director of the SUN Group investment company owned by his family.
>> More Details | created on: 02/28/2006
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
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
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
Can Africa Join the Investment Revolution
By Africa Business, November 29, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/09/2006
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
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
Pennies from the poor add up to fortune
By David Ignatius, The Korea Herald, July 1, 2005
>> More Details | created on: 01/03/2006
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
Senegalese Villagers are Learning to Use their Natural & Cultural Heritage to Make a Living
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, January 1, 2005
It is in partnership with the Nicolas Hulot Foundation (NHF), and the Ademe, the French agency for the environment and energy efficiency, that EDF has begun to engage in projects where local communities in developing countries take responsibility for the protection of their natural and cultural heritage, and turn it into an opportunity for growth.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
The Akassa Community Development Project in Nigeria: Statoil and BP
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, January 1, 2005
Reviews how corporate social responsibility programs are helping to build and sustain livelihoods in the Niger Delta.
>> 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
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
Beating Doubts, Droughts & Debt: Re-shaping the Economic Landscape
By Shannon Walbran, Changemakers.net, May 1, 2002
Discusses the success of Orgape in alleviating poverty by providing financial services to low income people in Brazil.
>> 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
After the W.T.O.: Creating Jobs for the Next Millenium
By Derek Brown, Changemakers.net, February 1, 2000
This article looks at how three social entrepreneurs – in Asia, Latin America and Central Europe – are helping these small producers compete in the global economy.
>> View Article | created on: 11/18/2005
Cases
Natura
By Brazil BCSD, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2005
Natura’s Ekos Challenge aims to create a model to allow the sustainable use of natural resources, generating good business opportunity and social development for traditional communities and for Natura and its partners.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
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
Helping small-scale pyrethrum farmers in Kenya: SC Johnson
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, December 15, 2004
A unique partnership between SC Johnson, the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya and ApproTEC is helping Kenyan farmers to improve their livelihoods by efficiently farming pyrethrum, a unique daisy that is the source of a naturally occuring insecticide.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
A sustainable livelihoods approach to industry challenges: The South African Sugar Industry
World Business Council for Sustainable Development/ National Business Initiative, October 5, 2004
The South African Sugar Industry is involved in pilot projects using the sustainable livelihoods approach to doing business with these growers.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
The forestry partners program: Aracruz Celulose
World Business Council on Sustainable Development, May 11, 2004
Aracruz's partnerships with local farmers to develop new, sustainable timber plantations that provide alternative planted sources of timber for the company’s pulp mill, and a new source of income for the farmers and local communities.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Insuring fair prices for farmers in developing countries: Rabobank International
World Business Council on Sustainable Development, April 16, 2004
This partnership between private and public sector organizations explores new market-based approaches for assisting small-scale producers in developing countries to better manage their vulnerability to commodity price fluctuations.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Businesses Are Helping to Overcome Global Poverty
By Stern N, Richard Ivey Business School, January 1, 2004
The facts today point to a decline in global poverty and to the reality that global economic development is working. These positive developments are due to policies pursued by both public organizations and the international business community. But as the Chief Economist of the World Banks says, business can do even more to help the world's poorest countries.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
CARE Kenya
By Ewart, Tom and Pratima Bansal, Richard Ivey School of Business, October 13, 2003
On October 14, 2003, George Odo was finally asked the question he most feared: "What will happen to the farmers when CARE leaves?" George was the sector manager for Commercialization of Smallholder Agriculture for CARE Kenya. His vision had seeded the Rural Entrepreneurship and Agribusiness Promotion (REAP) project. By securing export contracts, financing and training farmers, REAP had successfully pulled farmers in Kibwezi, Kenya, over the poverty line. However, CARE financed the projects with grants from Western governments, and George knew that CARE's donors would ultimately withdraw their support. Without the subsidies, the farmers risked returning to their old lives. George had spent many long hours and sleepless nights dwelling on how CARE's involvement in REAP could be commercially viable. George had to identify and implement a business model that was economically sustainable in order to prevent the farmers from falling back into poverty.
>> More Details | created on: 03/31/2006
Academic Research
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
Farm Productivity and Market Structure: Evidence from Cotton Reforms in Zambia
By Irene Brambilla & Guido Porto, Yale Working Papers on Economic Applications and Policy Discussion Paper No. 2 , July, 2005
This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an outgrower scheme, whereby firms provided extension services to farmers and sold inputs on loans that were repaid at the time of harvest. There are two distinctive phases of the reforms: a failure of the outgrower scheme, and a subsequent period of success of the scheme. Our findings indicate that the reforms led to interesting dynamics in cotton farming. During the phase of failure, farmers were pushed back into subsistence and productivity in cotton declined. With the improvement of the outgrower scheme of later years, farmers devoted larger shares of land to cash crops, and farm productivity significantly increased.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
Globalization and Complementary Policies: Poverty Impacts in Rural Zambia
By Jorge F. Balat & Guido Porto, NBER Working Paper No. W11175 , March, 2005
In this paper, we have two main objectives: to investigate the links between globalization and poverty observed in Zambia during the 1990s, and to explore the poverty impacts of non-traditional export growth.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
Rural Finance, Poverty Alleviation, and Sustainable Land Use: The Role of Credit for the Adoption of Agroforestry Systems in Occidental Honduras
By Ruerd Ruben & Luud Clercx, Journal of Microfinance, Vol. 6, No. 1; , June, 2004
This paper analyzes the relationship between financial services provided by different agents, the adoption of agroforestry systems, and the implications for food security and sustainable soil management. Attention is focused on the role of rural finance in reducing risk and stabilizing household income and yields. We conclude that credit provision performs critical functions for reinforcing the resilience of rural livelihoods in less favored areas. Rural development programs in the Occidental region of Honduras have been rather reluctant to provide rural financial services.
>> More Details | created on: 01/24/2006
Food Aid for Market Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
By Awudu Abdulai & Christopher B. Barrett, March, 2004
This study explores how food aid might be used for domestic food market development to facilitate poverty alleviation and economic growth.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
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
The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa: Implications for Agrifood Systems and the Rural Poor
By Weatherspoon, Dave D. & Reardon, Thomas, Development Policy Review, May, 2003 (Vol. 21 pp. 333-355)
Supermarkets are proliferating beyond middle-class big markets into smaller towns and poor areas. Supplying supermarkets presents both potentially large opportunities and big challenges for producers. Supermarkets' procurement systems involve purchase con
>> 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
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
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
Food for West Africa
By Claudio Aspesi & Bernard Loyd, et al, McKinsey Quarterly, 1998 (Subscription Required )
West Africa uses scarce resources to import food. Western companies can now play a big role either through direct investment or via alliances. A market of 225 million people.
>> More Details | created on: 03/20/2006
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
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
Agricultural Growth for the Poor: An Agenda for Development
World Bank ISBN: 0-8213-6067-1 , June, 2005
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.
>> More Details | created on: 03/13/2006
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
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
Poverty Reduction and Agricultural Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa
By Nathan Associates Inc. TCB Project, USAID, May, 2004
The paper describes a path for trade-led sustainable economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa that will directly benefit the rising numbers of poor people who live primarily in rural areas.
>> More Details | created on: 02/07/2006
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
Agriculture and Pro-Poor Growth
By Peter C. Timmer, USAID Bur. for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, July, 2003
The paper argues that when a country's income distribution is relatively equal, agricultural growth stimulates the rest of the economy at the same time that it strengthens the connection of the poor to that more rapid growth. In such settings, agriculture is truly the "engine of pro-poor growth".
>> More Details | created on: 02/13/2006
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
Access to Credit and Its Impact on Welfare in Malawi
By Aliou Diagne & Manfred Zeller, International Food Policy Research Institute ISBN: 0-89629-119-7, April, 2001
>> View Article | created on: 03/13/2006
Development as Freedom
By Amartya Sen, Anchor Books, August 15, 2000
Development as Freedom is a general exposition of the economic ideas and analyses of Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. This brilliant and indispensable treatise compellingly analyzes the nature of contemporary economic development from the perspective of human freedom. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of economic life and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. It is a good to be enjoyed by the world's entire population. Drawing on moral and political philosophy and technical economic analysis, this work gives the nonspecialist reader powerful access to Sen's paradigm-altering vision and vividly shows how he, in the words of the Nobel Prize committee, has both "restored an ethical dimension to the discussion of economic problems" and "opened up new fields of study for subsequent generations of researchers."
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
Whose Reality Counts?: Putting the First Last
By Robert Chambers, ITDG Publishing, 1997
In this sequel to Rural Development: Putting the Last First Robert Chambers argues that central issues in development have been overlooked, and that many past errors have flowed from domination by those with power. Development professionals now need new approaches and methods for interacting, learning and knowing. Through analyzing experience – of past mistakes and myths, and of the continuing methodological revolution of PRA (participatory rural appraisal) – the author points towards solutions.In many countries, urban and rural people alike have shown an astonishing ability to express and analyze their local, complex and diverse realities that are often at odds with the top-down realities imposed by professionals.
>> More Details | created on: 11/30/2005
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