Blog

If you're between the ages of 18 and 29, and have founded a social or BoP enterprise, check out the description below.

Launched in 2001 by the International Youth Foundation, YouthActionNet strengthens, supports, and celebrates the role of young people in leading positive change in their communities. Each year, 20 exceptional young social entrepreneurs are selected as YouthActionNet Global Fellows following a competitive application process. The yearlong Fellowship program includes:

Continue reading this article

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.

Continue reading this article

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:

1. Continue to improve and implement more of the independent, small-scale systems that currently require extensive upkeep and are limited in terms of capacity and duration of service.
2. Work towards designing and promoting larger capacity biomass gasification systems that would be more efficient and reliable and could contribute power to the national grid.

Continue reading this article

The Social Equity Venture Fund (S.E.VEN) has just invested $100,000 to research the age-old question of what factors lead some entrepreneurs to success and others to failure, only this grant is one of the few to support research on this topic in the developing world.

S.E.VEN has awarded this money to Harvard poverty expert Michael Kremer, as a part of a total of $400,000 that it has invested in researchers working on enterprise based solutions to poverty. Kremer’s study will look at entrepreneurs in both Kenya and India to "understand who these individuals are, what in their environment contributes to their development as entrepreneurs, and social, institutional and personal barriers to further growth." These two countries were chosen because "most of those subsisting on less than a dollar a day live in South Asia and Africa."

Continue reading this article

Position: Associate

Location: South Norwalk, CT

Organization: SeaChange Capital Partners is an entrepreneurial nonprofit finance firm established by former leaders of Goldman Sachs. Our mission is to enhance the flow of growth capital from wealthy donors to select high-performing nonprofits, to contribute to the vital long- term effort of creating more efficient financial capital markets for the social sector. We will identify nonprofits with records of measurable success and present opportunities for supporting them to a network of potential donors, including wealthy individuals, foundations, and other funders.

Continue reading this article

I like late March. Here in New York - and in Washington, where I used to live - late March is when spring starts to take hold, bringing longer, warmer days. It's also when the annual Skoll World Forum takes place, bringing a breath of fresh air to cloudy, rainy England (apologies for the weather metaphor). For a review of Forums past, check out Jacqueline's blog post from 2006 and Kevin Jones' guest post on NextBillion from 2007.

I sincerely hope for good weather in Oxford this week, since a number of my Acumen Fund colleagues (and numerous allies from throughout the 'base of the pyramid' community) will be attending the Forum. Then again, rain might be for the best - that way, no one is tempted to spend time outside, away from the excellent sessions. I am particularly impressed with this year's lineup, and its theme: social entrepreneurship: culture, context and social change.

If I had to choose, here are some of the sessions I would mark on my planner as "must-see". Unfortunately, some of them are being held simultaneously...so be sure to check out posted synopses online (see below for more info on blogging at the Skoll World Forum.)

On March 27:
Morning -

• The Internet, Mobile Technology and Cross-Cultural Communications
  (when Victor d'Allant, Katrin Verclas, Ami Dar, Premal Shah and Bruno Guissani are in the same room at the same time, you should be there too.)
• Hybrid and For-Profit Business Models
  (related to my recent post; panelists include Acumen Fund investee WaterHealth International (represented by CEO Tralance Addy) and ally Liza Kimbo as well as BoP celebrity Priya Haji)

Continue reading this article

Position: Research Associate, Growing Inclusive Markets (UNDP)

Location: New York

Duration: Two-month consultancy, early April through the end of May 2008.

Organization: "Growing Inclusive Markets" is a new multi-stakeholder initiative, led by the United Nations Development Programme, which strives to identify and examine the vast unmet potential at the base of the world economic pyramid. Growing Inclusive Markets seeks to gather information, disseminate knowledge and inspire action. It uses the UN’s convening power and presence around the world to move the agenda of the poor and concomitant business opportunities into a new space. Our network of partners—from Southern business leaders and policy makers, to local entrepreneurs, multinational corporations, academic communities and development organizations—will champion the messages and opportunities for action on the ground.

Position Description: A key work stream of the Initiative is the creation of an initial corpus of data and information that will underpin further analysis for the GIM Report and will be included in a web-based storehouse of data. Under the over-all supervision of the Programme Manager of the Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative, the Research Associate will be working with key experts and members of the Initiative Team in the gathering, production and online presentation of data and information for the Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative; UNDP’s most visible strategic and sustained global advocacy tool for the important role of the private sector in achieving the MDGs. The Initiative will launch two specific knowledge outputs/products in 2008: a Case Studies Bank, and an Innovations Bank.

Continue reading this article

TToday's main headline in the online version of El Tiempo, Colombia's largest newspaper, reads as follows: "Government abandonment and malnutrition ramble in Chocó, where 17 children starved to death"

In a couple of hours, another headline will replace Chocó's tragedy and few will remember these events and, more importantly, acknowledge the pressing challenge that they represent. I can't let these news go by without at least sharing my thoughts with a community that discusses precisely what is needed in such remote and often forgotten areas: active involvement of the private sector to build creative and sustainable solutions to the urgent needs of the poor.

Continue reading this article

Via NextBillion ally Reuben Abraham, I was pointed to James Surowiecki's recent article, What Microloans Miss in The New Yorker.

Surowiecki points out that while microfinance does a tremendous amount of good, there are also real limits to what it can accomplish. With over $25 billions of loans and websites to lend to the poor, microloans are increasingly being viewed as a panacea for all issues of poverty.

An excerpt:

The idealized view of microfinance is that budding entrepreneurs use the loans to start and grow businesses—expanding operations, boosting inventory, and so on. The reality is more complicated. Microloans are often used to “smooth consumption”—tiding a borrower over in times of crisis. They’re also, as Karol Boudreaux and Tyler Cowen point out in a recent paper, often used for non-business expenses, such as a child’s education. It’s less common to find them used to fund major business expansions or to hire new employees. In part, this is because the loans can be very small—frequently as little as fifty or a hundred dollars—and generally come with very high interest rates, often above thirty or forty per cent. But it’s also because most microbusinesses aren’t looking to take on more workers. The vast majority have only one paid employee: the owner.

Continue reading this article

Guest blogger Mallika Ahluwalia works for ACCESS Development Services, an Indian firm providing inclusive and innovative livelihood solutions enabling the poor to ovecome poverty and live with dignity.

By Mallika Ahluwalia

Yakalakshmi lives in Nekkunda village, part of the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh, with her husband and two children. Though she has water piped to her house by the village panchayat, her entire family fell ill for a month last monsoon season by drinking water directly from the tap. "We all got high fever and severe diarrhea," and as a result, "we had to spend around Rs. 4000 ($100) on health care, which was very difficult for us." So, when Yakalakshmi got the opportunity this past January to buy an effective water purifier through her Self Help Group (SHG) on an installment basis, she was one of the first to sign up.

Continue reading this article