The global cell phone market recently passed 2.5 billion connections, having grown by 500 million in 12 months. A quarter of this growth is attributable to India and China. In the latter country 5 million new connections are added every month.

As a result of this staggering growth rate, of the 2.5 billion users worldwide, the majority (59%) now lives in developing countries. This is the first time in history that a telecommunications technology has more users in developing countries than in the developed world.

George Soros is giving $50 million toward poverty-alleviation programs in Africa- at the same time, the Gates and Rockefeller Foundation are donating $150 million to increase African agricultural production (Read more by Rob Katz on this). Are we seeing a trend here? Development initiatives funded by corporations and wealthy philanthropists are nothing new, but I can’t ever remember seeing this many reports of people at the very upper echelons of the economic pyramid launching major poverty-alleviation programs… it seems like a 21st century guilt complex kicking in.

“It makes good journalistic fodder, but it’s just the same story over and over!” This was fellow blogger Rob Katz’s comment when I called him about posting a story on the Strappity-do-da company. His frustration was similar to that expressed by Ethan when he complained about journalists covering essentially the same microfinance storyline instead of getting to real scalable models at the BOP. So what was the problem with Strappity-do-da, an enterprise that sells beaded bra straps sourced from a group of women in Colombia with handicraft skills?