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NextBillion News vol.22 February 28, 2008 =============================================================

Rob Katz's Change in Latitude, How to Go From the Top to the BoP, the Green-BoP Connection, and More...

[Contents]

1. Change in Latitude, Not in Attitude: Rob Katz transitions to Acumen Fund

2. Featured Blog Posts:

From the ToP to the BoP
Moses Lee

Can Carbon Offsets Provide Livelihoods for the BoP?
Grace Augustine

Book Review: The Power of Unreasonable People - How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World
Rob Katz

3. Exploring the Green-BoP Nexus: How We Work at the Intersection of Poverty and Environment

4. Featured Event: The 2008 Emerging Markets Private Equity Forum: New York

5. Jobs/Careers: Communications Officer and Web Editor, CGAP

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1. Change in Latitude, Not in Attitude: I'm Going to Acumen Fund

As the week winds down, I have some exciting news to share: in a few weeks, I will be leaving World Resources Institute (NextBillion's parent organization) to take a full-time position with the Acumen Fund, a NextBillion ally and major player in the BoP movement.

I am excited to be moving to New York and to be working with Acumen, an organization I have long admired. I will be working on Acumen's Portfolio Strategies team, researching and writing about the Fund's investments, strategy and other activities. As I get acquainted with my new job (I start March 3), I will be sure to post updates here on NextBillion.

This brings me to some other exciting news: though I am leaving WRI's employment, I will remain the Co-Managing Editor of NextBillion.net. That's right: Co-Managing Editor. I am pleased to announce that Derek Newberry, a long-time Staff Writer and Research Analyst with New Ventures, has been named NextBillion.net's new Co-Managing Editor.

Derek and I will be working in the coming months to extend the depth and scope of our BoP coverage, with the goal of taking NextBillion.net to the 'next level'. We are glad to have a cadre of talented Staff Writers working with us on this goal, and we are in the early stages of a site re-development and re-design plan.

We'll have more updates in the coming weeks and months. In the mean time, please join me in congratulating Derek on his new role. If you have questions about these changes or anything else related to NextBillion.net, please post a comment below or contact us directly.

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2. Featured Blog Posts

From the ToP to the BoP

Moses Lee

In 2007, I had the opportunity to consult for a newly formed NGO trying to establish a BoP venture in South East Asia. The NGO's management team had years of experience running small-to-medium sized businesses, had raised a sizable amount of capital, and had formed an all-star team of advisers. To the management team, South East Asia's economic potential was on the up-and-up; they felt that this was a great opportunity to leverage their professional expertise and capital for a social good. I traveled with the team to the region on a short trip and we developed a business plan – we identified specific unmet needs across a range of communities, created a pricing structure whereby customers who had higher disposable income effectively subsidized the poor, and found local partners to help scale up the venture. Everything was set to go.

However, at the end of the day, the project didn't launch because no one from the management team wanted to move full-time to the region to live among the people the NGO wanted to serve. In other words, no one wanted to do the heavy lifting of starting a BoP venture. The management team thought, incorrectly, that it could simply manage the venture from the States – parachuting in and out of the region multiple times a year. There were a variety of reasons for this approach: family, comfort, lifestyle, and finances – to name a few.

The idea was great, but the commitment wasn't there to make it a reality. If I had actually known that this was plan early on, I probably wouldn’t have traveled with them overseas, saving them time and money. If the NGO wanted to succeed, it needed its own personnel on the ground, working with the local people. There are many in the business community who are eager to do something good for the world, but what they don’t see, at least initially, is the cost involved in making it happen. It goes well beyond writing a check for charity. Check writing: that is the old model.

Read more

Can Carbon Offsets Provide Livelihoods for the BoP?

Grace Augustine

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions – and, therefore, global warming – will require a suite of solutions. The scope of traditional conservation efforts is limited, since most of the world is adopting developed-world lifestyles and consumption habits as their incomes rise. Experts and politicians cite technological advances as a primary source of long-term reductions, but they also realize that technology alone cannot solve the problem overnight.

In light of these challenges, much of the world has adopted market-based cap-and-trade systems to control greenhouse gas emissions. I have been thinking a lot about these systems, and have asked myself the following question: what can a cap-and-trade system, especially one that provides incentives for financing projects in the developing world, do to help the BoP, who are most vulnerable to climate change?

This may not be a new question, but it is one that deserves ongoing attention. One provision of the Kyoto Protocol has been established to clearly address the BoP – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM allows developed countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by paying poor nations to develop clean energy projects or to create carbon sinks that cut global emissions.

Emerging markets are seeing an influx of investment from these offset payments. According to Scientific American, the market for clean development mechanism credits accounts for about $4.4 billion annually. In theory, this investment should lead to job creation and opportunities for the BoP to develop clean wind, hydropower and biomass projects from India to Brazil.

Despite the influx of capital, a Reuters article posted on NextBillion in August 2007 highlights an unfortunate reality: CDM financing is not going where it is supposed to go:
"Evidence is emerging that while brokers stand to make enormous profits, least developed nations, especially in Africa, will get next to nothing -- raising questions over whether Kyoto is fulfilling its social as well as environmental goals."

Read more

Book Review: The Power of Unreasonable People - How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World

Rob Katz

Upon finishing The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, three words came to mind: it's about time. Lately, I've felt that the social entrepreneurship movement has grown too large, encompassing too many sub-topics that don't necessarily relate to each other. With their new book, however, authors John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan manage to unite the wide-ranging discipline of social entrepreneurship, using sharp analysis, compelling anecdotes and an eye towards future study. Simply put, this book is a must-read for the 'social entrepreneurship' crowd – one that transcends the aforementioned sub-topics.

As I read The Power of Unreasonable People, I decided to mark pages on which something unique appeared. Rather than summarize the book – go to Amazon for that – my review will concentrate on these unique elements, listed in no particular order.

Page 2: A growing number of companies, like Accenture, say that offering the opportunity to work alongside accomplished entrepreneurs factors into staff retention. This indicates a new trend among Generation Y employees (those born after 1982) – they want meaningful careers as well as well-paying jobs. Can’t have your cake and eat it too? Maybe you can – and companies need to get on board if they are to continue to attract top talent.

Read more

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3. Exploring the Green-BoP Nexus: How We Work at the Intersection of Poverty and Environment

Two recent posts by Derek Newberry explore the controversy over environmental and social goals in development and how the New Ventures project works at the intersection of these two issues. Excerpts follow:

A Nano-Sized Car Reveals Macro-Level Rifts

The launch of the Tata Nano, the ridiculously low-priced car that could open a floodgate of new drivers in India and elsewhere, is undoubtedly one of the milestone innovations marking the early years of the 21st century. This is not just because of the unprecedented feat of technological and design innovation it represents but because of the huge rift it exposes in the public debate over the linkages between two crucial concepts, poverty and environment.

Read more

 

Businesses Bridging the Divide

Last week, I discussed the rift the Tata Nano has exposed between environmentalist and poverty-alleviation focused professionals, academics and activists - a car that at once represents aspirations of new material wealth for millions of BoP consumers and a potentially enormous source of new CO2 emissions. But there is another story worth telling here - far away from the Nano controversy, out in the rural Yunnan province of southwestern China, there is Hao Zheng Yi.

Read more

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4. Featured Event: The 2008 Emerging Markets Private Equity Forum: New York

Date: March 27, 2008

Location: New York

Background:
EMPEA and Private Equity International
announce the launch of The 2008 Emerging Markets Private Equity Forum: New York.

Building on the success of three previous emerging markets events in London - where over 450 delegates from 50 countries attended last week - the New York Forum will focus on the following key themes:

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5. Jobs/Careers: Communications Officer and Web Editor, CGAP

Location: Washington, DC

Organization: CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) is a consortium of 33 public and private funding organizations - bilateral and multilateral development agencies, private foundations, and international financial institutions - working together to expand poor people's access to financial services.

Position Description: CGAP seeks a Communications Officer with high energy and fresh thinking who can generate innovative ideas for communicating CGAP's work to a wide range of audiences as well as implement these ideas for strategic results. The ideal candidate will be an experienced Web editor with knowledge of Web marketing techniques, the ability to write well and a track record in effective Web campaigns.

For more details or to apply, visit the CGAP website or contact webeditor@collab.cgap.org

Read more

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NextBillion News vol. 21 February 28, 2008

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