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 17, 2008 — 10:47 am
Like any business, base/bottom of the pyramid ventures fail - often. I have neither the space nor the inclination to list those I know of - besides, writers from Erik Simanis to Aneel Karnani to Anand K. Jaiswal have done some of the heavy lifting for me.
We don't talk enough about failed bottom of the pyramid ventures. After all, what CEO wants to risk his company by talking about all the things they did wrong?
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July 16, 2008 — 11:58 am
Position: Investment Officer(s), Opportunities for the Majority Initiative
Location: Washington, DC
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July 16, 2008 — 08:25 am
After a few weeks of non-blogging, I'm happy to write my first post on NextBillion. I've spent some time over the last few weeks updating the Resources section of the site, complete with additions to the case study, reports, books and articles sections. A couple of highlights are summarized below, but we'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on what's particularly valuable and what you think we're still missing in our virtual library. The entire list of resources can be accessed here.
Happy base of the pyramid reading!
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July 15, 2008 — 02:19 pm
Guest blogger Karen Bennett is a Research Program Coordinator at the World Resources Institute. Her current work focuses on mainstreaming an ecosystem services approach to assure ecosystems' capacity to provide humans with needed goods and services. She also provides support to projects in the People and Ecosystems Program.
In Central America, the Maya Nut is making it clear that trees are worth more standing than cut down. Trees are critical to the well being of forest inhabitants in Central America. Ironically though, many forest dependent communities find it pays more to cut trees down than to keep them standing. That's because timber can be used for firewood, building material, or sold internationally, and cleared land can generate income from agricultural products. Unfortunately, deforestation eliminates other ecosystem services that forests provide, such as climate regulation, soil retention, and water regulation. As current deforestation rates attest, many of these forest benefits have received little recognition.
That is starting to change, however, as local communities discover the financial potential of the forest's often overlooked services. For the past few years, 56 women in Ixlu, Guatemala, which is located on the border of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, have operated a business to market the Maya Nut, also known as the Breadnut or Ramón. Dried and roasted, the Maya Nut can taste like chocolate or coffee and can be used to make cereal, cookies, cakes and other foods.
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July 14, 2008 — 12:10 pm
Guest bloggers Shaila Parikh and Biju Mohandas work for Acumen Fund, based out of Hyderabad. Shaila is a Summer Associate and a Master of International Affairs candidate at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Biju is Acumen Fund's India Business Manager. Before joining Acumen Fund, he served for five years in the Indian Army's Medical and Dental Corps. Later, Biju completed his Post Graduate Program in Management with a dual major in analytical finance and strategic marketing from the Indian School of Business.
By Shaila Parikh and Biju Mohandas
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July 10, 2008 — 02:05 pm
This is part 4 of our series reviewing Michael Edwards' Just Another Emperor and the concept of 'philanthrocapitalism', which will conclude next week with remarks from other members of the NextBillion.net team. Follow the links to read part 1, part 2 and part 3.
The close-knit community of development-through-enterprise professionals in Hyderabad woke up a couple of weeks ago to a series of e-mail forwards of an interesting article in the Financial Times. Michael Edwards, author of "Just Another Emperor", had raised a series of points that the development sector was driven by misguided calls for business thinking, leaving this community with hard questions: Were they working passionately, but in the wrong direction?
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July 9, 2008 — 09:20 am
This is part 3 of our series reviewing Michael Edwards' Just Another Emperor and the concept of 'philanthrocapitalism'. Follow the links to read part 1 and part 2.
Recently, there has been some debate surrounding business involvement in philanthropy and its usefulness after the publishing of “Just Another Emperor?” last March by Michael Edwards. Michael Edwards, Director of Governance and Civil Society at the Ford Foundation takes a critical look for the first time at a relatively new phenomenon: using sustainable business tools and models to solve poverty problems. NextBillion.net’s core content (and passion!) deals exactly with these issues.
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July 8, 2008 — 11:19 am
This is part 2 of our series reviewing Michael Edwards' Just Another Emperor and the concept of 'philanthrocapitalism'. Read part 1 here.
Michael Edwards' recent book on "philanthrocapitalism" reminds me of a recent conversation I had with my sister, a social worker. Over dinner one day, she started going off on business types:
Why is it that business people think they are the answer to all the world's problems? You guys come off so arrogant! Somehow, we, who have been working in the civil sector for centuries, struggling to solve social issues, are completely inept, and you guys, who have all the money, are going to solve all the problems.I think many people have a similar perspective. And perhaps rightly so.
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July 7, 2008 — 04:20 pm
Every good story begins with a witty insight, a forceful statement - something to grab the attention of the reader. This one, unfortunately, begins with shrimp. Before I visited Northeastern Brazil, I had only known the tasty kind - the ones that are served on small platters or served over pasta, that are fantastic with a little butter and lemon.
A year ago, on a trip to the town of Tibau do Sul to research the aquaculture industry in the region, I encountered the much less pleasant type of shrimp - the alive kind that swim up and thrash you furiously with their little legs as you nervously wade through murky shrimp ponds. Some days the only sound that would penetrate the heat-induced silence of the farms I visited was the occasional shriek from another victim of an unexpected shrimp attack.
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July 7, 2008 — 01:38 pm
"The profit motive could be the best tool for solving the world's problems, more effective than any government or private philanthropy,"
-Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison
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