Grassroots Business Initiative Grows Tall

williamkramer — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:46:42 -0400

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.

Second, there was general agreement that the big issue for these fledgling enterprises is (lack of) access to some hybrid form of capital combined with technical assistance and business mentoring. Solving this problem is critical, not just for the businesses, but also the multilateral development banks who are losing — no, have already lost — their central role in financing big enterprises; there is so much private capital sloshing around the world that the MDBs need to go downstream, and fast. These are, of course, exactly the issues we are focusing on inside DTE for the foreseeable future (more on that as activities unfold).

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Grassroots Business Initiative Grows Tall