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
July 24, 2007 — 11:26 am
Venture Finance and Small Business Development in Central America - International Private Enterprise Group August Meeting Featuring Ricardo Teran
On August 2, please join us for a discussion on micro venture capital and development from one of Latin America's leading social entrepreneurs.
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July 24, 2007 — 10:43 am
NextBillion posted three recent news stories yesterday; the three of them address the fact that the four billion people in the world living in poverty are indeed an excellent market. Investing in the BOP has proven to work for multinational corporations. More than ever, the BOP hypothesis is gaining momentum:
Microfinance Draws Mega Players
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July 20, 2007 — 02:33 pm
I'm happy to introduce our newest staff writer, Ana Escalante, to the NextBillion community.
Ana has joined our team as a summer intern. She has a long-held interest in international development, having observed first hand the effects of poverty and inequality in her community in Mexico. During her time as an undergraduate, she spent six months at the Commission of Natural Protected Areas in the Yucatan, Mexico, where she helped to manage and implement a small-scale microfinance development project in the Celestun National Reserve. The project trained local women in the sustainable harvest of blue crabs and provided them with the skills and training to handle the export of this product.
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July 18, 2007 — 03:35 pm
Ashoka's Changemakers competition, "Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care" closed today, and it looks to be a treasure trove of business model innovations that are bringing health solutions to the BOP. There are entries from microinsurance, franchising, direct selling, telemedicine, and biotechnology projects, among many other project types. Projects focused on improving healthcare in the US are interspersed with those that focus on healthcare for the BOP, raising interesting possibilities of North-South knowledge sharing.
A number of the business models have been mentioned on NextBillion in the past--e.g., Living Goods, Abhay Clinics, Medicine Shoppe India--and their competition entries provide tantalizing details on their operations and financials. Three entrants, Mi Farmacita, Scojo Foundation, and CFWshops Kenya, have been the subjects of our full-length What Works case studies. There are also several projects that have not been explored on NextBillion, such as Freedom From Hunger's MicroBusiness for Health, and MicroClinic in Ghana, among many promising others.
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July 17, 2007 — 06:27 pm
The debate that Rob touched on last week rages on: Are biofuels bad for the BOP?
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July 12, 2007 — 12:31 pm
We've talked a lot about the excellent Doing Business reports that the World Bank Group produces every year. A quick reminder:
The Doing Business database provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement. The Doing Business indicators are comparable across 175 economies. They indicate the regulatory costs of business and can be used to analyze specific regulations that enhance or constrain investment, productivity, and growth.Well, they've taken it a step further. In partnership with Google and Google Maps, the Doing Business web site now features a link to a mash-up of the Doing Business indicators on a map of the world. You can scroll around and get a great idea about regional trends. Clicking on an individual balloon seamlessly transitions into a pop-up with the Doing Business data. There are even special balloons for the top 10 reformers of last year.
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July 12, 2007 — 12:04 pm
In response to some demand from readers and suggest-ers (not a word, I know), I'm posting the article that Al, Bill, Julia, Cory and I wrote in Innovations. Click "read more" for access to the PDF. Here are the first few paragraphs.
Full review of the journal coming soon -- perhaps after I return from vacation. Is it bad that I want to read the whole journal while on holiday? Phil Auerswald, don't let me down now!
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July 11, 2007 — 06:42 pm
I'm very happy to announce the release of the WRI business case study, What Works: Mi Farmacita Nacional, authored by Enrique Coronado ('08), Christina Krettecos ('07), and Yvonne Lu ('07) of Columbia Business School.
Mi Farmacita Nacional, a fully for-profit pharmacy franchise, is among the first retailers of generic medications to serve low-income communities in Mexico. Mi Farmacita was launched in 2003 and has since more than doubled its number of outlets every year to reach 57 outlets as of March 2007. Outlets in operation for a minimum of 22 months are now processing an average of 2,400 transactions/month in sales of affordable medications, doctor consultations, filtered water, telephone access, and other essential products and services.
What Works: Mi Farmacita Nacional analyzes the business strategies that have enabled Mi Farmacita's rapid growth and success in serving low-income communities.
This case study was made possible through the generous support of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Social Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School.
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July 11, 2007 — 04:34 pm
You are invited to a special Networking Happy Hour to support entrepreneur-driven models of development.
Come learn about leading organizations working to bring innovative, market-based solutions to global poverty. Network with others committed to unleashing the potential of small business entrepreneurs to become true catalysts in the development of their communities.
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July 10, 2007 — 03:24 pm
New Ventures Intern Jesse Last muses on pub trivia and a conversation with one of the most innovative entrepreneurs in the personal care products market.
I got an interesting pub trivia question the other night - what is the body's largest organ? I promptly shouted "liver" and repeatedly pounded my fist on the bar until my teammates relented. Needless to say, I was wrong (it's number two). The body's largest organ is the skin. Fact check me, and play a terribly enthralling round of "The Organ Game" courtesy of the British while you're at it.
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