Position: Senior Researcher, BoP Energy Sector Analysis, Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR)

Location: Chennai, India

Organization: The Centre for Development Finance of the IFMR is a development economics research and action centre. It was formally established in February 2006 with a mission to support development finance - the conversion of finance into development. We primarily focus on sustainable models for financing infrastructure and services, as these are essential inputs into any vision of equitable development.

Description: The senior researcher will be responsible for research and related activities analyzing the Base of the Pyramid energy sector in India. The senior researcher would be expected to undertake a comprehensive study to quantify BoP energy needs and existing uses, conduct stakeholder and expert interviews, conduct focus groups, and perform a competitive analysis of emerging and established off-grid and household energy technologies in order to develop a strategy and series of projects for improving access to clean, sustainable energy at the BoP.

For more information, see the full job description. To apply, send a cover letter, writing sample, and resume to shaanti.kapila@ifmr.ac.in.

The debate around SME finance is rapidly maturing. Development professionals and socially-minded investors are well aware of the difficulty entrepreneurs in emerging economies have in securing capital larger than microloans.

A World Bank conference to be held next Monday and Tuesday in Washington, DC takes the conversation forward - from acknowledging the challenges of SME finance to getting into the specifics of how to make SME finance work. Speakers including:

• Thorsten Beck - World Bank
• Allen Berger - U. South Carolina and Wharton; and
• Meghana Ayyagari - George Washington University

will discuss best practices and new mechanisms for channeling capital to this sector. See the IFC site for more details.

Via PSD Blog

We blog frequently on this site about the importance of large multi-nationals finding ways to tap into BoP markets. This often comes in the form of discussions on reaching the BoP directly as consumers (ie projects like the OLPC or microcredit initiatives).

But what about small and medium enterprises as BoP intermediaries? Those of us who support these enterprises in our work are familiar with the list of benefits often attributed to SMEs - they raise employment, they are correlated with a reduction in income inequality, they reduce the size of the informal economy.... - but what about SMEs as middlemen for engagements between large corporations and the BoP?

The WBCSD explores exactly this topic in a recently published informal survey of some of its member companies and SMEs in their supply chains. According to WBCSD, SMEs "usually have extensive local knowledge of resources, supply patterns and purchasing trends."

Their competitive advantage is an ability to quickly and efficiently innovate new technologies and services that meet the specific needs of BoP markets in different regions. New Ventures enterprise Big Tree Farms is an example of this in reverse, where they are offering Whole Foods value as a partner by supplying exclusive access to authentic Indonesian foods. In other words, SMEs are a perfect channel for MNCs based in Europe and the US to intelligently connect with new markets and producers in emerging economies.

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So it seems KickStart has something else going for it, as if a viral video featuring Maasai rapper Mr. Ebbo weren't enough...

The CEO of the San Francisco-based social enterprise, Martin Fisher, won the Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability this week for his innovative and affordable including the MoneyMaker Pumps, portable and easy-to-use devices that allow farmers to draw water when they need it without having to travel long distances.

Fisher joins a prestigious group of Lemelson-MIT award winners, including Dean Kamen, creator of the Segway and Amy Smith, a creative BoP technology innovator. It's good to see inventors working in the BoP space recognized for their accomplishments - this is an acknowledgement of the priority we should be placing on technologies that benefit the underserved majority. Congratulations to Fisher on this major accomplishment!

Who else would readers flag as a potentially award-winning innovator of BoP technology? I'm leaning toward the folks behind the People's Phone...

"What poor countries need most is not more microbusinesses. They need more small-to-medium-sized enterprises, the kind that are bigger than a fruit stand but smaller than a Fortune 1000 corporation."

These were the words of James Surowiecki last month in his New Yorker piece What Microloans Miss. Now another mass media hit for the SME cause - the Miami Herald interviewed Root Capital founder Willy Foote this week about the basics of his enterprise development organization.

Root Capital identifies and supports SMEs in countries where the private sector is dominated by micro-enterprises and large corporations. This structure represents a dearth of businesses in the investment range of roughly $100,000 - $3 million - the infamous "missing middle"

Willy, a key player in this space, believes that providing success stories of SME finance can help set off a rising tide of investment in this sector - very similar to the New Ventures approach. In his words: "...we can really do what microfinance did. That is, show local financial institutions that this is an asset class they can penetrate profitably."

Reading this, it occurred to me that this is already happening - take the case of Brazil, where in the past several years, a number of funds have sprung up focusing on SMEs in environmental sectors, including Axial Par, the Stratus VCIII fund, Rio Bravo Investimentos and a new fund to be launched soon by Rio Bravo veteran Luiz Maia.

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All of us at NextBillion.net were both humbled and thrilled to see the New York Times Sunday Magazine draw on our work - and the work of many colleagues - to write an extended piece on the impact of cell phone usage in emerging economies.

Sara Corbett's article follows Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase as he navigates the human terrain of countries like Ghana, Brazil and Uzbekistan, trying to figure out why a farmer in Kenya or a prostitute in Brazil is finding unique value in their cell phone. The article uses Jan's experience as a device for sparking a broader discussion on the potential for the booming cell phone market to increase incomes and quality of life among the BoP.

What was most interesting about the piece is that the author poses her central theme as a question, not an assertion: "Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?" In her narrative, while laying out the case that cell phones increase productivity, she does not present this technology as a silver bullet development solution.

Rather, we get a very rich, on-the-ground account of how technology is changing people's lives in BoP markets everywhere.

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BiD Network is announcing a "one time only" Photo Contest. The contest will gather photos from around the world on the theme of "Entrepreneurship for Development".

The Competition: In this Photo Contest, BiD is focusing on entrepreneurs around the world who are working for innovative changes towards sustainable economic growth in developing countries. You can submit your photos to the competition by simply uploading your image on www.bidnetwork.org. To do so, you must be registered as a member of bidnetwork.org first.

Awards: The winning photos will be announced in mid-May and receive prize money. Prize money will be divided into 3 categories: 1st prize (€200), 2nd prize (€100) and 3rd prize (€50). Winning photos will be featured in several productions (like flyers, folders and posters) that will be released and distributed in 2008.

Deadline: April 30th 2008

More details can be found here.

Unitus Equity Fund is currently seeking applicants for the position of Senior Associate.

Location: Bangalore, India

Organization: The Unitus Equity Fund is a leading global private equity fund established in 2006 with a focus on microfinance institutions (MFIs). We provide equity capital primarily to high growth MFIs and secondarily to social entrepreneurs providing products and services (insurance, housing, education etc.) to the poor and unserved in developing countries. We believe that MFIs and companies providing greater access to opportunity for the unserved 4 billion represent both attractive investment opportunities and meaningful vehicles by which to raise income levels for the global poor.

Position Description:

We seek a dynamic, passionate and experienced team player to be a part of a small and focused investment team making equity investments in entrepreneurially driven microfinance institutions and related businesses that aim to create opportunities for the poor and unserved. The successful candidate must have significant transaction experience gained in a venture capital or private equity fund or in a top-tier investment bank. The ideal candidate will have a true passion for thinking creatively and using his/her finance skills and strategic-thinking to bring about meaningful improvements in the world. This position is based in Bangalore and reports to the Managing Partners of the Unitus Equity Fund.

To see more details and apply for this position, visit the online job posting.

The World Bank recently released the April edition of Development Outreach, which happily addresses head-on the connections between development and climate change. I was pleased to see articles on topics as diverse as development for climate change adaptation and environmental considerations in China's growth, but NextBillion readers might want to check out a piece called "Microfinance: Climate Change Connections" in particular.

I was surprised and maybe even a little disappointed to see that most of the article by CGAP's Katharine McKee focused more on the possibilities of using microfinance to provide renewable energy to BoP households and businesses rather than financing microenterprises working in environmental sectors.

Still, Katharine does a good job of summarizing current challenges and opportunities for creative partnerships that utilize microfinance to expand the consumer base for renewable energy. These include:

• Generating BoP demand for low cost, renewable energy sources and
  
  
• The conflict between the large-scale, long-term investment needed for these projects vs. the short-term, small-scale nature of microfinance.

The article is certainly worth a read and importantly pushes forward dialogue between the microfinance community and sustainable development practitioners.

Some links for you to kick the post-lunch work

slump:

• BP innovates for the BoP
  Via Perspective 2.0, an article on Oorja - a BP stove that runs on biomass pellets instead of wood, which is a more common fuel source for cookstoves in rural India... sounds very much like that of an SME in China; our own New Ventures entrepreneur Yunnan Zhenghong. Read and compare for yourselves!
  
• Going green as a strategic risk
  Via PSD Blog - E&Y reports on the risk companies face in not going green right now - not inherently BoP related, but it made me wonder whether major reports exist on the business risk of not productively engaging BoP markets...
  
• Purchasing patterns on unpredictable incomes
  Another hit from Perspective 2.0: Niti Bhan gives a rundown of the four types of buying patterns at the BoP.
  
• Is Africa misbranded?
  Brandchannel.com wonders whether the intense focus on Africa as a destination for charity has negatively branded it as a basket case, and explores possibilities for rebranding the continent.
  
• Social entrepreneurs seek new investment to reach a ‘tipping point'
  Via Rob's post at Acumen Fund Blog a Chronicle of Philanthropy article on the tipping point entrepreneurs are looking for in terms of widely available investment capital - similar to the tipping point microfinance is reaching today.

"N=1, R=G" is purportedly the equation that summarizes C.K. Prahalad's new contribution to business management literature. I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but there are good synopses online already, such as this one - all of which report that the new book by C.K. and co-author M.S. Krishnan, The New Age of Innovation, urges companies to become at once more global and more personalized.

The authors essentially argue that the world businesses will have to adapt to is one in which they increasingly co-create value with customers, connecting products and services with their needs on an individual basis (N=1). At the same time, they will have to dramatically strengthen and streamline their global supplier networks to meet these personalized demands (Resources=Global).

The examples I've seen floating around so far seem to relate mostly to MNCs, but I can't help but imagine how many of these ideas C.K. may have extrapolated from his BoP work and of course what these trends mean for smaller BoP businesses. C.K. writes in a recent post on his book that:

"The sources of value are rapidly shifting from products to personalized experiences; from dependence on a firm to a network of suppliers; and from firms deciding unilaterally what consumers can have and should expect to cocreating value with the active involvement of consumers"

This deep listening approach expressed in the notion of cocreating value is the same sort of advice BoP champions have been giving to companies for years.

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Saurabh Lall is a Research Assistant with the New Ventures project.

A quick Friday point of interest from the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference that took place at the Convention Center here in DC earlier this month. The WIREC tradeshow showcased the latest developments in renewable energy technology, some of which have proven extremely successful in developing countries.

While the main panels focused largely on the financing and management of large urban renewable energy projects, there were several fascinating side events that discussed innovative, low cost renewable energy issues for the base of the pyramid.

In particular, an event organized by the Stockholm Environment Institute, featuring experts from UNEP, China, Brazil and Ghana, examined how different actors in developed and developing countries can respond to environmental and socio-economic concerns about the impacts of rapid expansion in Biofuels production and trade.

During this discussion, Gail Karlsson from ENERGIA, the International Network on Gender and Sustainability presented a paper "Engaging Women in Small-scale Production of Biofuels for Rural Energy", an interesting case study of how the collection of bofuels resources was creating an important income generating opportunity for women in developing countries.

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Guest blogger Apoorva Shah, a recent graduate of Rice University, is currently a Wagoner Scholar working with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public to research the influence of social entrepreneurship on public policy. Currently in São Paulo, Brazil, he wrote this post from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Moses Lee's recent post on scaling BoP ventures raised the important and complex issue of defining "scale" in cross-sector approaches to development. What happens when "increasing business transactions that positively impact the lives of the poor" means that BoP businesses begin to enter the realm of government?

For example, many businesses work in fields traditionally relegated to the public sector - public health, education, environmental protection, electrification, etc. To scale, should the BoP venture work with government or proceed without it, and what are the subsequent consequences?

In Sri Lanka, Ashoka Fellow Lalith Seneviratne works with a network of local entrepreneurs to provide small-scale biomass gasification systems to rural villages inaccessible to the national electricity grid. The systems are fueled by the fast-growing Gliricidia wood, which is endemic to Sri Lanka and can be easily grown by villagers. Because the process of entering the national grid was slow and bureaucratic, local private actors such as Seneviratne decided to act independently to provide an environmentally friendly source of energy to rural citizens.

Yet in the past five years, the government electricity grid has expanded by 13% to reach 80% of the country's population, and according to Seneviratne, only about 5% of Sri Lankans will ultimately remain off the national grid. So how should Mr. Seneviratne define scale for his venture? He has two options:

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I ran across this Fair and Lovely ad on YouTube recently. For those who don't know, this product is a skin-lightening cream that was at the center of a debate last year over the value and impact of a BoP approach to poverty alleviation.



The ad is in Hindi, but the message is clear: lightening your skin with this HLL product will open doors for you, leading to a happier more successful future. I support BoP initiatives in general but don't believe that every successful attempt to market to the poor should be lauded.

This ad crosses a line for me and last year I found myself personally agreeing with the BoP critics' point on this specific product. As a consumer who has wasted a few dollars of his own on useless items, I can say that we often get goaded by ad campaigns with empty promises into irrationally buying products that do not serve our best interests.

But it got me thinking about how we draw the line between BoP initiatives that deserve our support, and general market activity involving the BoP that it may not be our place to condemn, but that we should neither hold up as a model example.

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The New Ventures team is proud to welcome Francisco Noguera on board as the latest addition to our pool of talented NextBillion.net Staff Writers.

Francisco, a native of Colombia comes to NextBillion.net with a deep understanding of issues around implementation of BoP initiatives. In addition to founding his own microfinance organization in Bogotá, Francisco was involved in various socially-focused projects during his four year tenure with StratCo consulting.

Francisco holds a degree in industrial engineering from Universidad de los Andes and is eager to continue advancing the dialogue around BoP issues.