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I recently received an e-mail update from Acumen Fund's CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz.  It is interesting to hear updates from Acumen, whose operations include offices in Pakistan and Kenya - two countries that have been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. 

Often, those of us in the BoP community shy away from talk of failure or hardship, because we don't want the BoP concept to be marred by such negative thinking.  But I think it is important for us to talk about the tough times just as much as we talk about the success stories. BoP ventures and initiatives, as with any other, do not have a 100 percent success rate.  Nor does everything go as planned.

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Guest blogger Bill Kramer is principal of The Global Challenge Network, LLC, an executive education and training company. From 2001 through mid-2007, he worked on pro-poor business strategies with WRI. Previously, Bill founded a non-profit focusing on the relationship of knowledge to economic development and enjoyed a long career in the private sector, founding a dozen companies, most of which were in the book business.

By Bill Kramer

This week's Economist magazine has a story, which also appeared in The New York Times last Sunday, about a new "energy harvester" invented by Max Donelan of Simon Fraser University.

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I had an interesting meeting today, during which one of the people I was speaking with brought up a talk given by Jonathan Schwartz last August. Schwartz - the CEO of Sun Microsystems - delivers a fascinating talk over about 25 minutes during which he relates important demographic and development trends to Sun's need to develop and implement a "base of the pyramid" strategy.

(Full disclosure: during the speech, Schwartz mentions NextBillion writer and WRI Vice President Al Hammond by name, and cites data from The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid. What can I say - I'm proud that Fortune 500 CEOs are looking to Al and to our report in support of their emerging markets strategies.)

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“What Makes an Entrepreneur?” asks a World Bank study released last month. The authors found answers by conducting interviews with 400 Brazilian entrepreneurs, non-entrepreneurs and “failed” entrepreneurs on a variety of subjects that range from the obvious (Parents' level of education?) to the somewhat bizarre (Can you justify taking a bus ride without paying the fare?).

The results reveal some fascinating insights through a nature vs. nurture type lens. The authors claim that entrepreneurs tend to have better educated parents and more childhood friends/siblings that eventually became entrepreneurs. In other words, their personal influences and environment play a significant role (nurture).

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Guest blogger Bill Kramer is principal of The Global Challenge Network, LLC, an executive education and training company. From 2001 through mid-2007, he worked on pro-poor business strategies with WRI. Previously, Bill founded a non-profit focusing on the relationship of knowledge to economic development and enjoyed a long career in the private sector, founding a dozen companies, most of which were in the book business.

By Bill Kramer

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Lemelson Foundation announced the first winners of their Leapfrog Fund competition at the annual summit of Schwab social entrepreneurs on January 22 in Zurich, Switzerland. 

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In 2007, I had the opportunity to consult for a newly formed NGO trying to establish a BoP venture in South East Asia. The NGO's management team had years of experience running small-to-medium sized businesses, had raised a sizable amount of capital, and had formed an all-star team of advisers. To the management team, South East Asia's economic potential was on the up-and-up; they felt that this was a great opportunity to leverage their professional expertise and capital for a social good.

I traveled with the team to the region on a short trip and we developed a business plan – we identified specific unmet needs across a range of communities, created a pricing structure whereby customers who had higher disposable income effectively subsidized the poor, and found local partners to help scale up the venture. Everything was set to go.

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Position: Communications Officer / Web Editor

Location: Washington, DC

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If you believe that Africa is indeed open for business, consider attending the launch of the Africa Entrepreneurship Platform at the Harvard Club of New York on Thursday, February 28th. The quarterly forum, supported by the Clinton Global Initiative and administered by the South African Chamber of Commerce (SACCA), aims to connect South African entrepreneurs with U.S. investors in the pursuit of "sustainable job creation and economic development."

Keynote speakers include:

• Nancy Barry - President, NBA - Enterprise Solutions to Poverty, Former President, Women's World Banking 1990-2007
  
  
• Tom Barry - CEO of Zephyr Capital

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Reducing greenhouse gas emissions – and, therefore, global warming – will require a suite of solutions. The scope of traditional conservation efforts is limited, since most of the world is adopting developed-world lifestyles and consumption habits as their incomes rise. Experts and politicians cite technological advances as a primary source of long-term reductions, but they also realize that technology alone cannot solve the problem overnight.

In light of these challenges, much of the world has adopted market-based cap-and-trade systems to control greenhouse gas emissions. I have been thinking a lot about these systems, and have asked myself the following question: what can a cap-and-trade system, especially one that provides incentives for financing projects in the developing world, do to help the BoP, who are most vulnerable to climate change?

This may not be a new question, but it is one that deserves ongoing attention. One provision of the Kyoto Protocol has been established to clearly address the BoP – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM allows developed countries to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by paying poor nations to develop clean energy projects or to create carbon sinks that cut global emissions.

Emerging markets are seeing an influx of investment from these offset payments. According to Scientific American, the market for clean development mechanism credits accounts for about $4.4 billion annually. In theory, this investment should lead to job creation and opportunities for the BoP to develop clean wind, hydropower and biomass projects from India to Brazil.

Despite the influx of capital, a Reuters article posted on NextBillion in August 2007 highlights an unfortunate reality: CDM financing is not going where it is supposed to go:

"Evidence is emerging that while brokers stand to make enormous profits, least developed nations, especially in Africa, will get next to nothing -- raising questions over whether Kyoto is fulfilling its social as well as environmental goals."

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As the week winds down, I have some exciting news to share: in a few weeks, I will be leaving World Resources Institute (NextBillion's parent organization) to take a full-time position with the Acumen Fund, a NextBillion ally and major player in the BoP movement.

I am excited to be moving to New York and to be working with Acumen, an organization I have long admired.  I will be working on Acumen's Portfolio Strategies team, researching and writing about the Fund's investments, strategy and other activities.  As I get acquainted with my new job (I start March 3), I will be sure to post updates here on NextBillion.

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