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When I recently attended The Second Annual Conference on Public Policy and Management at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, I had not imagined that it will be difficult to summarize it in a blog post. Discussed at the conference - current thinking on the proposed National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, papers on increasing financial inclusion and other issues on policy in practice.

I particularly liked a key note address by Usha Thorat, Deputy Governor - Reserve Bank of India. She spoke of different methods in which financial inclusion could be promoted - providing easier, affordable access to financial services. These include encouraging GCCs (generalized credit cards) for rural customers and recognizing microfinance institutions.

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I really like Tom Friedman - I have since high school, when a summer program I attended assigned his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. I've also seen him sitting in DC cafes, running to catch cabs, and even met him in person at WRI's 25th Anniversary Dinner. Nice guy. Smart, too.

Despite all this goodwill, I usually find at least one thing in his columns or his books that irks me. Maybe he's exaggerating, or hasn't gotten it quite right, or his sources are a little off. The point is, I usually take issue with him, just a little bit.

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Microcapital reports (via Auctionbytes) that eBay has moved into the peer-to-peer lending space with the purchase of MicroPlace.  This is significant because eBay is far from the first to enter this space - which is currently dominated by Kiva, Zopa, and Prosper.

How will a big company like eBay succeed in the nascent world of P2P lending?  Will this affect the way Kiva or Propser works?  More on the acquisition, from Microcapital:

MicroPlace will soon launch an eBay style online marketplace where individuals will be able to make microfinance investments, most likely in the form of notes offered by microbanks.  The transaction will be hosted by eBay working through an intermediary like the US Calvert Foundation in order for such investments to clear regulatory hurdles. It will be in the same vein as current sites such as prosper.com (for-profit), where individuals list and bid on loans within the US market, and Kiva.org (non-profit) where individuals can lend to specific micro-businesses in the developing world through links with microfinance institution (MFI) partners.

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Well it appears as if last week was “conference week” here at NextBillion, so it’s my turn to dish on my recent attendee experience. Ready? Here I go.

I was fortunate enough to attend 'Financial Inclusion, Innovation, and Investments,' a symposium organized by the Emerging Markets Program of the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. In a happy bit of serendipity, a professor with whom I had corresponded informed me about the event just in time for me to change my itinerary. (I had planned to be in Ithaca the week before.)

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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 "Chatham House" rules, which means that I can't report on who said what, but allow me to share with you a few general observations, and a bit about one talk.

First, no surprise here, it's remarkable how many of the issues that are of concern to these quite small enterprises (and intermediaries helping them) are exactly those that big organizations must contend with —finding and succeeding in markets, managing for growth, balancing objectives. It's no solace to these small, struggling social entrepreneurs, but things don’t get easier when you get bigger.

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In my old age I’ve come to understand that points of ideological contention can be very eye-opening. My friend Akwasi and I considered each other relatively liberal, like-minded urbanites until we had the “gender role” conversation. Yes, that one —the quintessential Mars/Venus debate. According to Akwasi, women have certain roles such as housekeeping and child-rearing and that they are obliged to fulfill. My view is somewhat more fluid: each party should perform the duties to which he or she is best suited, traditional expectations notwithstanding. I will spare you the details of the tete a tete, but I will share my rather rudimentary analysis of the subject.

After much hand-wringing and a rather ad-hoc consultation with my uncle in Lagos, I concluded that from a “historical” perspective, gender roles had (what I considered to be) relatively unambiguous utility. I reasoned that early man was suited to hunting and gathering due to his greater physical strength and size while early woman, as the child bearer, remained at home out of harm’s way. In my narrow rendering of the world, gender roles were simply a sensible expression of the division of labor. As the capitalist system developed, however, traditionally male roles became recognized by the market and female roles did not. Because we are pushing the boundaries that dictate gender roles, who does what, when, and for whom is now a much more complex question.

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I have to admit, when I first encountered Karnani’s initial critique of BoP, entitled “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage” I was beside myself with excitement. Although I had read much of NextBillion’s content with interest and hope, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where is the other side of the debate?” Karnani introduced a dissenting opinion, which is invaluable. However, Karnani’s use of inductive reasoning via case study method, while illustrative, limits the degree to which his assertions are generalizable.

As a result, I’ve decided to dedicate my blogging activities to constructing, facilitating and fomenting (heavy emphasis on the latter), a multi-faceted debate. I truly believe that BOP business development is on to something. But defining that “something” is a continual process to which I intend to contribute. Right now, the “who, what, where, why and how” of BOP thinking is coming into focus, due in no small part to the work of your friendly neighborhood NextBillionaires. What I’d like to explore are alternate forms of those questions: “What for, who for, why so, and how the heck is that possible, really?”

“How will you do that?” you ask. Great question! I knew that you readers were a smart bunch. There are several questions that I’d like to tackle over the course of this blogquest, but I am not foolhardy enough to believe that I have the answers. That’s where you come in. Each week I will pose a question and attempt (note the word ATTEMPT) to answer it. I welcome those of you who have an opinion, an insight, a complaint, or a completely random yet witty comment, to chime in. With no further ado, the questions are as follows. Let’s get ready to rumble.

• How do you define success in the BoP? Increase in GDP per capita? Access to $3600 plasma TVs? Winning the Millennium Challenge?
  
• How do you quantify it? Are the benefits of BOP regarding MNC profitability, environmentally sustainable technologies, scalable, replicable business models real? New technologies for environmental sustainability, new business models, etc.?
• To produce or to consume? That is the question, now what is the answer? Can the consumption element of BOP really contribute to the reduction of poverty?
• Is BOP MNC neocolonialism all over again? Will MNCs behave differently in this space than they have in the past? Can power be successfully decentralized and distributed?
• Must there be a trade-off between doing well and “doing good”? How close does BOP come to closing that gap?
• What skill sets are critically needed in BOP business development? Consumer insight? Operations management? Investment management?
• Where does BOP fit along the public/private sector continuum? Does CSR, PPP, social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy = BOP
• Is this really about devising a hybrid system that works better for everyone?

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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 [and, Jane, I beg your forgiveness in advance for this shallow and truncated version of your presentation] that the activities fall in three general categories: core business activities, competence-led philanthropy, and influence on the enabling environment for business.

On Core Business: Two broad areas: First, practice responsible business (human rights, environment, labor, compliance, accountability, etc); second, increase economic opportunities -- innovate for new markets. How? By leveraging global value chains, increasing local content purchases, creating business linkages, creative financing mechanisms which draw on core businesss knowledge and skills, and perhaps most promisingly, through more and more effective collective business initiatives -- industry-wide efforts that both set standards and create healthy and friendly competition to succeed within these new standards.

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Sunday's New York Times featured an extra-large insert on design.  Most of the articles therein dealt with uber-modern furniture, clothes I would never dream of wearing, chic buildings on the Upper West Side, etc.  Not my speed.

As I leafed through it anyway (it was a lazy, rainy Monday in Boston where I was staying), I came across a short article on an upcoming exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.  Design for the Other 90% will open on May 4 and run through the summer.  If you're in New York this summer (and I mean the city, not the Hamptons), be sure to check it out.  From the web site:

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Ironically enough, I found myself reading this article in the New York Times on an New Jersey Transit express train this morning.  The irony is that I was on my way to a meeting with the Acumen Fund, talking about ways WRI and Acumen might work together.  

Why ironic (cue Alanis Morrissette)?  The article, Entrepreneurs Can Earn Their Stripes in the Minor Leagues, Too, profiles a Baruch College professor who has developed a minor leagues for aspiring entrepreneurs.  For those who aren't baseball fans, the system is analogous to a player development system that Major League Baseball uses.  Young rookie players start in development leagues, and then move up through Class A, AA, and AAA on their way to the big leagues (also known as "The Show").

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