My friend David, NextBillion reader and BOPreneur, pinged me last night and rightly asked why NextBillion.net has been slower than usual these days, missing a few of big news pieces that relate to the base of the pyramid and development through enterprise. He's right. The truth is Rob and I have been with our hair on fire testing and working on what will very soon be the new face of this website.

In fact, if everything goes according to plan, this will be the last post I publish in NextBillion as it looks and feels now! Anyhow, it's Friday and I do want to take the opportunity to point you to a couple of relevant media pieces for you to catch up with this weekend, in case you haven't yet.

The first (hat tip, David) is a 14-page special report about the middle classes published in The Economist last week. Why is this relevant to our readers? Well, NextBillion.net is based on the premise that business, enterprise and the profit motive can serve the poor enhancing their dignity and choice so they can climb the ladder up to that level of the pyramid.

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Last Friday Rob wrote news about new Base of the Pyramid conversations taking place, this time in Davos. Great news indeed. For those who can attend, venues like that of Davos (or the one starting tomorrow in Long Beach) are the time of the year when they allow their brains get picked by new trends, challenges and ideas. Connections take place, not only in the form of business card exchanges but most importantly inside their minds, among concepts and issues, dots that previously seemed somewhat disconnected.

Rob also promised a more in depth analysis of the content of the Next Billions reports on our behalf. However, I've decided not to focus my scarce bandwidth on that tonight. The reports are available for everyone to read and I encourage you to do so. I encourage interested readers to leave their comments and raise particular aspects of interest for discussion.

I don't think the impact of WEF's reports (or any book/ report for that matter) will come from their detailed contents, hence my choice not to write detailed analysis tonight. They are valuable but not how-to manuals. The reports become significant as long as they're able to spark curiosity in readers, which may eventually drive them to continue exploring relationships between seemingly disconnected dots --development and enterprise in this case-- by reading further into them, looking for other sources, or taking action.

Just as part of the Davos-and-beyond WEF audiences are beginning to explore the connection between development and enterprise (and food security and enterprise through their second report), I am myself starting to to wonder and explore into what I think will be the defining "connection" during our generation and for the development community in particular: that between climate change and poverty.

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The American Enterprise Institute recently convened a two-day symposium on the future of U.S. development policy and foreign assistance. The nexus between development and enterprise was a recurring theme at the event, and participants discussed how entrepreneurial philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and base-of-the-pyramid approaches to development will influence U.S. engagement in the developing world. We invite NextBillion.net readers to join the dialogue about foreign assistance under a new U.S. administration.

Guest blogger Apoorva Shah is a research assistant in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C.

By Apoorva Shah

Jenara Nerenberg's timely post on President Obama and the NextBillion.net agenda reminded readers that the new administration will make substantial changes in America's foreign assistance policies. Obama and his colleagues in Congress, most prominently Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, have promised an ambitious and large-scale reform of the U.S. foreign aid system.

In this effort, will they consider the growing influence of entrepreneurial philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and private sector based development in U.S. policies for engagement with the developing world?  And what role can the NextBillion community play in influencing these decisions?

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Guest Blogger Lesley Pories is a Deshpande Foundation Sandbox Fellow, working with the Water Literacy Foundation in India.

Before taking on this role, Lesley worked as a Research Analyst with the People and Ecosystems Program at the World Resources Institute. A graduate of Emory University, she double-majored in International Studies and English and minored in French.

By Lesley Pories

The real "meat" of the action kicked off this morning in Hubli, when the 250+ participants separated into small groups to read and discuss case studies that highlighted challenges faced by the participating NGOs.  While each NGO prepared their case study based on their own challenges, the problems brought forward were indicative of many other organizations. 

The one I had prepared for WLF, for example, outlined the difficulties in management of an organization as it tries to make the important step from small to medium-size.  Each case study has 2 opportunities to be the topic of a small-group discussion, and note-takers are provided to capture all the feedback.  I wasn't there last year, but this "case study session" idea was a direct result of suggestions from last year's conference.

After the first session, participants returned to the auditorium for the official "lighting of the lamp" ceremony (a tradition in India) and opening remarks from Desh.  It seemed like he was reading my mind, as the bulk of his speech was about the management challenges faced by many of the NGOs that the Deshpande Foundation supports. 

"Innovation is the lifeblood of an organization," he emphasized, and advocated for infusion of corporate-style management into the social sector. "[We need to] combine the passion of the NGO sector with the discipline and Darwinian nature of the for-proft sector," Deshpande commented.

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Guest Blogger Lesley Pories is a Deshpande Foundation Sandbox Fellow, working with the Water Literacy Foundation in India.

Before taking on this role, Lesley worked as a Research Analyst with the People and Ecosystems Program at the World Resources Institute. A graduate of Emory University, she double-majored in International Studies and English and minored in French.

By Lesley Pories
 

Small excited confusion abounds as people scan the collection of buses for the signs that designate which program each bus is going to see: livelihoods, education, health or agriculture.  But soon enough, people are generally settled in and the still-inevitable puffs of smoke let everyone know the buses are moving and the day has officially begun.

I write from Day 1 of Deshpande Foundation's Development Dialogue, their second annual collection of NGOs, academics, businesspeople and socially-minded others who share an interest in the development of Northern Karnataka (nicknamed the "Sandbox" by the Deshpande Foundation), India.  In an earlier guest blog post, I described the work of the Deshpande Foundation and its commitment to promoting development through entrepreneurship. 

As a Sandbox Fellow working at local water conservation NGO Water Literacy Foundation (WLF), courtesy of the Deshpande Foundation, I'd been hearing about this event for months. It was both exhilarating as and exhausting to help it take off.

The morning started with the 250+ participants piling into buses that spent the morning visiting one or two sites of Deshpande-funded NGO work in the nearby area.

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Guest Blogger Sergio Guzmán currently works for the Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION International from Bogota, Colombia. He graduated from the George Washington University with majors in History and International Affairs.

A Spanish version of the following post can also be found in NextBillion en Español.

By Sergio Guzmán

Nearly 2,000 people convened at the International Symposium on Microfinance as a Tool for Peacebuilding last week in Cali, Colombia, to discuss how microcredit could be used to rebuild the social and economic fabric in post conflict areas of the country.  When it comes to financial services many of the rural municipalities in Colombia are either completely lacking (67 municipalities) or have only the most rudimentary services.  

The country's ongoing political, social and economic conflict, which has lasted over 45 years, has severely damaged the country's social tissue and broken trust between people. This makes it hard for any endeavor, microfinance included, to be successful.

Sponsored by the Alvaralice Foundation, the symposium highlighted various state projects, public-private partnerships, and private projects working on many of these issues, funded by domestic and foreign sources. A myriad of NGOs and regulated financial institutions like WWB Colombia, Finamérica, Banco Caja Social and Bancamía provide financial services to the poor.  From the director of a small NGO in conflict ridden Barrancabermeja to a Miami based NGO called Give to Colombia that channels funding for projects in Colombia from US-based companies who invest there, participants analyzed what it takes to succeed in tough conflicted areas.

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The major players of the Microfinance industry will convene in Colombia this year, not once but twice. Two major venues are set to take place in the country quite soon.

The first is the Microfinance as a Tool for Peace Building conference, scheduled for next week in Cali and organized by Fundacion Alvaralice, a local NGO. Many of the key actors in the Latin American microfinance community will be part of the discussion, including people like Carmen Velasco from Bolivia's ProMujer, Maria Otero from ACCION and John Hatch from FINCA International.

What's even more interesting about this event is its emphasis on discussing the role microfinance can play in conflict resolution and peace building. The Government Agency in charge of reintegration programs aimed at former guerrilla and paramilitary combatants will play a major role and it will surely be interesting to learn not only about development but also reconciliation through enterprise.

(Side note: While writing the last paragraph, Shurush came to mind. It is a microfinance program aimed at fostering business relationships between Arabs and Israelis thorough small business in the West Bank and Gaza. Talk about timeliness. It was founded by Uri Pomerantz, a former Stanford GSB/ KSG dual degree student whom I met a while ago.)

Later in the year the Microfinance Summit Campaign will also touch ground in Colombia, this time in Cartagena. The exact details and registration are not yet available but delegates from over 50 countries are expected to attend, including Dr. Muhammad and representatives from novel and increasingly relevant organizations like Unitus.

We won't be able to head over there but will do our best to cover both venues through guest posts. Stay tuned for that.

We received the following story via e-mail from guest blogger Gretchen Ruethling, a first year Master of Public Administration student focusing on international development at Cornell University. She has worked as a journalist and for an environmental organization and an agricultural research organization in the U.S. and Latin America. She is interested in the private sector's role in development and capacity building among small and medium enterprises.

By Gretchen Ruethling

Entrepreneur and self-described "ideas man" Frank Taylor moved from Cape Town, South Africa to Botswana seeking a challenge, trading game skins and leading archaeology, ethnology and botany exhibitions for a museum in South Africa. "I was living on the smell of an oil rag," Taylor said. "A jack of all trades, master of none."

43 years later, Taylor still lives in Botswana and recently started a natural food products company called WildFoods that he says is the only company in southern Africa to produce dried snacks made from native foods that are grown in the wild including nuts, fruits and melons on a commercial scale.

With a staff of 11 that has no formal training in marketing or management and no financing but plenty of passion and business acumen, Taylor aims to market these products to the country's burgeoning tourism industry to improve the livelihoods of rural communities in Botswana.

For the next week, three students and an applied economics and management professor from Cornell University will be working with Taylor on developing marketing strategies to increase distribution of the company's products locally. Cornell's Emerging Markets program has been organizing such trips for students who are interested in hands on business development experience in southern Africa for the past few years.

Currently, another group of students is working with a chemical inputs company in Kenya on developing strategies to better reach smallholder farmers.

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Position: Development Officer

Location: Bloomfield, New Jersey, USA; international travel to Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Organization: E+Co, a non-profit investment firm focusing on clean energy enterprises in developing countries, is seeking a qualified graduate level (Masters) student for research and writing assignments. The internship will last 3-6 months with flexible degrees of workload. E+Co cannot offer any remuneration. The intern can be based near one of E+Co's offices in Amsterdam (NL) or Bloomfield, New Jersey (USA) or the work can be conducted remotely supported by e-mail and phone calls.

E+Co is non-profit investment company that invests business support services and capital in energy businesses in Africa, Asia and Latin America. With almost 15 years of experience and offices in 10 countries, E+Co's innovative business model provides lasting solutions to climate change and poverty.

Position Overview: The Development Officer will manage E+Co's fundraising programs, working closely with and reporting directly to the Executive Vice President.

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Like Rob mentioned in his post yesterday, I do think this is the year of ANDE. More precisely, I believe that thanks to forums like ANDE this will be a year in which companies and intermediaries serving low income markets will start to work in a more collaborative and coherent way, leveraging each other's innovations, successes and failures, and finding effective distribution mechanisms so that a more effective "knowledge brokerage" across boundaries is possible.

This may be the first step in building global supply chains for products aimed at low income markets, connecting the dots between existing supply (known to work at addressing specific needs) and existing demand. As far as the supply side is concerned, it is easy to see that most of the business models highlighted in BoP/ social enterprise literature, conferences and forums like this one are usually concerned with the design and commercialization of products and services that address very specific needs of the poor. Kickstart or IDE are examples in the case of irrigation. They have both developed products that work and serve their purpose in the context of small scale agriculture.

The quality and effectiveness of their products have been commented time and again; stats and success stories of their use abound. However, neither KickStart nor IDE have reached a truly global scale, the way, say, iPods have. Lack of demand for their products is not the reason, of course -- whether The Next 4 Billion or Aneel Karnani is right about the size of the markets at the base of the pyramid. Demand exists. The reason is that the marketing and distribution infrastructure to make a global reach and scale possible is not (yet) in place for the markets at the base of the pyramid. In other words there isn't someone that, like a retail outlet, aggregates products of several manufacturers (those that address needs like water management or energy or health), markets and makes them available and accessible to local communities.   

This is the opportunity that PowerMundo identified. Mike Callahan, its founder, traveled extensively through the poorest regions of Peru after learning that a vast portion of the population lacked electricity and/or used expensive, dirty and unhealthy fossil fuels for cooking and lighting.

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Following is the second of a Two-Part Series written by guest blogger Ryan Gunderson after a recent trip to rural Zambia.

Ryan is a business professional with Medtronic, the world's leading medical technology company.  He earned a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and an MBA from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. He writes about sustainable, scalable solutions to end global poverty on his blog Riches For Good and is actively pursuing his goal to help 1 million people out of poverty during his lifetime.

By Ryan Gunderson

I met Blessings and Francis in October 2008 when I visited the church they both attend in Lusaka, Zambia.  Although some 90 people were in attendance, Blessings and Francis stood out to me for the obvious reason that they were the only two speakers in the main meeting that day. Before Sunday school I introduced myself to all who were present, and I told them I was traveling with a non-governmental organization (NGO) and would be visiting rural farmers in Zambia to help them increase their incomes. 

Intrigued by the purpose of my trip, Francis invited me to his house after church, and I gladly accepted.  Blessings separately invited me to his house; the three of us traveled to Francis' house, where we spoke for about an hour.  I'm pictured below with Blessings (suit) and Francis, and several members of Francis' family.

I shared my goal to help 1 million people out of poverty and asked Blessings and Francis for any suggestions.  They each shared their opinion that many people have ideas for small businesses, but they lack startup capital. 

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Attending the "VI Inter-American Conference on CSR: The Business of Inclusion" in Cartagena was a great opportunity to draw a parallel between the nascent BoP/ Development through Enterprise movement in Latin America and the one in the English-speaking world, which I've had the chance to dive deeper into in the course of this year.

Following is a brief summary of my impressions and three main takeaways from the conference.

1. Lots of "top down"; not as many "bottom up" approaches

Most of the Latin American examples of business activity tackling the problems of poverty still come from MNCs and big corporations, in general. In fact, most of the panels, sessions and exhibition stands at the conference featured big companies that are the usual suspects of BoP activity in these countries (think CEMEX, Codensa, Colcerámica, etc.)

It is thus understandable that the title of the conference blends the concepts of CSR and BoP activity. Slowly but steadily, CSR is being viewed as a stepping stone towards making low income markets part of the business strategy of corporations. However, the conversations about entrepreneurial solutions to the problems of poverty are still not as strong, which shows that the ecosystem of support for these ventures (investment funds, venture philanthropists, enterprise development organizations, etc.) is still in the process of formation and will hopefully learn from the path walked by its counterpart in countries like the United States or India.

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Following is the first of a Two-Part Series written by guest blogger Ryan Gunderson after a recent trip to rural Zambia.

Ryan is a business professional with Medtronic, the world's leading medical technology company.  He earned a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University and an MBA from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. He writes about sustainable, scalable solutions to end global poverty on his blog Riches For Good and is actively pursuing his goal to help 1 million people out of poverty during his lifetime.

By Ryan Gunderson

Mr. Hakawale is a farmer who lives along the banks of the Magoye River with his family in rural Zambia.  Up until 1997, he cultivated a small plot of land, watering his crops by hand with a bucket.  When I visited Mr. Hakawale in October 2008 as a guest on IDE's annual board trip, he gave us all a great history lesson of irrigation on his farm, starting by holding up a rusted out metal bucket he used years ago, shown in the picture below.

In 1997, Mr. Hakawale met a representative of IDE (short for International Development Enterprises), a Colorado-based non-profit that has been helping rural farmers in the developing world to increase their incomes since the 1980s.

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Guest Blogger Lesley Pories is a Deshpande Foundation Sandbox Fellow, working with the Water Literacy Foundation in India.

Before taking on this role, Lesley worked as a Research Analyst with the People and Ecosystems Program at the World Resources Institute. A graduate of Emory University, she double-majored in International Studies and English and minored in French.

By Lesley Pories

Social entrepreneurship is the key to growth in India.  So believes Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, one of a notable number of Indians who honed their own entrepreneurship skills to profit from India's burgeoning IT sector back in the 1990s.  Co-founder and Chairman of Sycamore Networks, Deshpande is convinced that it is social entrepreneurs who will push India to the next level, and he's doing his part to ensure that this happens.

The Deshpande Foundation, the family foundation of Desh and Jaishree Deshpande, is headquartered near Boston, MA and focuses on promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and growth in the northern part of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, the native region of both husband and wife. The Foundation focuses its efforts on five districts of northern Karnataka, which it has nicknamed the "Sandbox."  This name was not given because of the area's desert composition (it's not a desert), but rather as a symbol of what it hopes to achieve through its programs in the area.

A sandbox (a popular playground structure in America which, ironically, does not exist in India) is a space, defined by four walls, in which children use the sand to create.  In the same way, The Deshpande Foundation strives to nurture local people and organizations to create new structures that can lead to positive development within a confined space. 

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Today we are announcing the launch of NextBillion en Español, a new forum to promote and discuss inclusive business models that enhance and dignify the lives of the poor in Latin America.

As said in my last post, we are launching it with the coverage of the Interamerican Conference on Inclusive Business, whose opening ceremony kicks off in exactly 10 minutes, in Cartagena Colombia. 

Conceptually, it shares the spirit and intention of this site NextBillion.net, although focusing on the specific challenges of Latin America. Visually, you can consider this new blog a modest preview of what the "new NextBillion.net" will look like once we launch it it early 2009. In fact, the Spanish section will be fullly integrated into NextBillion.net under the new website.

A big THANK YOU goes to Rob Katz and and Manuel Bueno for their support and ideas. Also to the members of the Network for Inclusive Markets (AVINA and FUNDES) who are key promoters of this initiative and will be instrumental in the purpose of developing local and relevant content for the site.  

If you are interested in reading more about the thinking that went behind the decision of launching this new effort, I encourage you to read past the break.

Your ideas, suggestions, criticism, etc. are more welcome than ever.

Hasta pronto!