NextBillion brings together the community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGOs, policy makers, and academics who want to explore the connection between development and enterprise.
Our Staff Writers and Editors offer insights on the latest news, events, interviews and other happenings from the development through enterprise and base of the pyramid universes
October 5, 2009 — 01:01 pm
The Financial Times (US) published a full-page article October 2 entitled "To feed a need" that brought to mind research that WRI generated back in 2003 on the Indian conglomerate, ITC, and its rural engagement strategy called e-Choupal. The article and the case study document the benefits of direct market access by poor rural farmers in India.
May 14, 2007 — 11:20 am
One of my regular news feeds brought this item to my attention, and it struck me as perhaps a meaningful watershed. Red Hat, the Linux software/middleware company, just announced last week the launch of its "Global Desktop" -- enterprise software at affordable prices. Red Hat has...
April 20, 2007 — 09:22 am
Jane Nelson, who wears many hats (IBLF, Kennedy School, Brookings), spoke yesterday at a meeting of the Global Poverty Roundtable at the GlobalWorks Foundation here in Washington. Jane offered a wide-ranging, yet concise summary of all of the ways business can engage in development. Jane said ...
April 17, 2007 — 11:46 am
I attended an all-day workshop at the IFC yesterday on their Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI). A half dozen of the Initiative's enterprises from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and 30 or so GBI partners also attended, along with their program staff. The meeting was conducted under...
March 27, 2007 — 12:37 pm
The Next 4 Billion includes a whole chapter on a topic for which we were unable to present a single, real number from our analysis of household surveys. Not surprisingly, the chapter is short. So, why did we include it, if we couldn’t report any numbers? And why do we recommend it to you?...
December 11, 2006 — 03:51 pm
Let me add my thoughts to Bal Joshi's fine post of 12/6 and AnnaLee Saxenian's reply of 12/8. I couldn't agree more with most of the points made in both. The notion of remittances as a development platform is just right, in my view, and Ms. Saxenian strikes a fair balance on...
November 27, 2006 — 01:19 pm
NB's Chapel Hill NC correspondent, Jacob Kramer-Duffield, has sent an interesting job posting our way. Jake, a former sometime WRI staffer, and now a PhD student at UNC's School of Information and Library Science, keeps close tabs on the goings-on at Google. Google.org, the...
November 20, 2006 — 11:00 am
NextBillion has spoken with 50x15 project management, and has been told that the press report of the project's demise is not correct. AMD representatives claim that the report was generated due to a misrepresented SEC filing. AMD says that the PIC will continue, 50x15 is still a goal, and...
November 13, 2006 — 04:03 pm
Oxfam International has just published a report, "In the Public Interest: Health, Education and Water and Sanitation For All." One can hardly dispute some its assumptions - it's a scandal that people go without basic services, the money is theoretically there to solve problems, aid...
November 10, 2006 — 10:33 am
Of the MNCs with which we have worked, none goes to greater lengths than Vodafone to create opportunities to listen to its "stakeholders" - and the company counts us as one. I attended such an occasion in New York Wednesday evening, linked to the publication of a new Vodafone report,...
