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As it struggles to contain a growing insurgency, Pakistan has aroused concern that it is a failing or fracturing state. One aspect of the international community's response has been to place new focus on Pakistan's economic weaknesses. On completing his first hundred days in office, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that the Pakistani government was "fragile" and lacked capacity to deliver basic services to its people, making it difficult for them to gain support of the population. "So we need to help Pakistan help Pakistanis," he said.

The Obama administration is seeking a strong economic aid package, and joined an international donor conference in April that pledged more than $5 billion in aid and loans to Pakistan. In November 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saved the country from defaulting on international debt with a $7.6 billion loan. Yet the private sector is seen as essential to any effort to shore up the Pakistani state. Experts say special emphasis should be placed on boosting trade with Pakistan; investing in developing its energy, water, and transport infrastructure; and making economic aid programs more transparent. But an uncertain political climate and unwillingness to risk long-term investments have so far limited engagement with the private sector.

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A significant difference between those of us fortunate to be living above the poverty line and those unfortunate enough to be at the "bottom of the pyramid" is that the 'wealthy' can afford to consume. Being a "useful" member of a consumer society requires the consumption of products and services not directly necessary to survival. The very poor do not generally have that choice.

I never really appreciated that distinction until I began to understand what was so powerful about the concept behind organizations like Kickstart.

Founded by Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, Kickstart designs and distributes hand and foot-operated water pumps in West Africa. Unlike many organizations dedicated to alleviating poverty in struggling areas, Kickstart does not give the pumps away: it sells them.

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Max New York Life will now tap the rural and semi-urban markets across the country with its innovative and specially designed policy — Max Vijay, riding on the Peerless’ network. Peerless General Finance and Investment Company (PGFIL), on its part, will take in 30,000 fresh “smart advisors” in the present year to sell Max Vijay. Max New York Life will also help grooming these smart advisors. PGFIL, at present has 50,000 smart advisors across the country.

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Mumbai: A recent state government lottery for about 4,000 low-cost apartments in Mumbai drew more than 430,000 applications, underlining the need for affordable housing in a country where housing is also a top election issue.

Political parties of all hues have seized on affordable homes as a vote getter in India’s ongoing general election, plugging in to the frustration of millions priced out of a real estate boom fuelled by a robust economy and a six-year bull market.

Developers too, stung by the credit crunch and sagging demand for offices and premium residences, have turned to a middle class segment that may be more immune to the economic slowdown.

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The Nano has more than lived up to its nickname — the people’s car. Judging by reports that the car has attracted bookings of close to a million, the market has now confirmed that the car has been a stupendous achievement for Tata Motors and its chairman, Ratan Tata, who conceived of just such a vehicle and marshalled his forces to deliver what most auto-makers had declared would be an impossible task. It is a tribute to India’s achievements in low-cost innovation that the global automobile giants have been forced to sit up and take notice of Tata Motors’ ability to design, develop and sell a sub-compact car at the lowest possible cost. Consider this: even a DVD player in some US cars is priced at over Rs 1 lakh. At the heart of the innovation was obviously Mr Tata and his team’s ability to think out of the box and dream beyond the obvious in manufacturing and designing a product with the right mix of parameters. The cost factor — Rs 1 lakh, defined finally as ex-factory and not cost to the consumer — meant that the company had to adopt a clean-sheet-of-paper approach, which meant all components of the car had to be designed from scratch, with nothing carried over from Tata’s other vehicles, or any models of competitors. However, the biggest reason why Nano is a great innovation is because it thinks about the next decade and not just the next quarter.

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Managers of business ventures that work with the world’s poor need more than financials and feel-good stories to measure success. They need to know exactly who’s benefiting and how.

Rama was a seamstress by trade, not an optician. Before she connected with VisionSpring, a venture providing vision care to the poor, she sold hand-sewn clothes and blankets from her home and used her earnings to help support her husband (a farm worker who was often between jobs) and their two children. She took home about $44 a month—not nearly enough to make ends meet. Despite Rama’s outgoing personality and strong work ethic, she was unable to drum up increased demand for her handiwork. Then, several years ago, she was trained to be one of VisionSpring’s “vision entrepreneurs.” Now she is selling eyeglasses and offering vision screenings in her rural Indian community, consistently earning around $100 a month.

Rama’s economic turnaround is featured on the website of VisionSpring, which, like a growing number of ventures doing business with the base of the economic pyramid (BoP), shares success stories to demonstrate its results to funders and other stakeholders. These ventures often use anecdotes to highlight how they’re helping families build houses in Latin America, providing health-related products to children in Africa, or linking farmers in rural Asia to new markets.

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The global financial crisis has led to serious questions, about the state of world capitalism. Anger is still running hot and strong against what's perceived as the selfishness and greed of those in big Western banks and corporations.

But there are some entrepreneurs who believe now is the time for another kind of capitalism to grow and flourish - a more kind and compassionate form which has social good as its goal, the betterment of the lives of the world's poorest people, and of the environment.

The founder of Microsoft, arguably the world's biggest philanthropist, Bill Gates, talked last year about his new vision for capitalism.

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Forty percent of the world's population lives on less than $2 per day, according to the World Bank. Yet even in the midst of the current economic meltdown, there is reason for new optimism in the fight to reduce global poverty.

The optimism starts with the evolution of microfinance, which has proved not only that the poor are credit-worthy, but that banking institutions serving the poor are investment-worthy. In addition, microfinance is tapping into a technological revolution that enables areas with deficient land phone service to leapfrog ahead to cellphones and broadband. And, as this takes place, both philanthropy and capital markets are paying careful attention.

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Only those who can convert today's crises - like massive urbanisation and global warming - into opportunity will be tomorrow's leaders.

Reading my morning newspaper over the weekend, I was struck by one of the stories describing how crises have frequently been the trigger for some of the most outstanding developments in medical sciences — they made researchers look for out-of-the-box solutions for problems that, till then, appeared unsolvable. As a management consultant, I am frequently asked to help clients think about major trends or mega-trends around the world. Both crises and mega-trends affect many aspects of human development and even alter the competitive landscape of industries; they’re often two sides of the same coin.

Today, we are faced with not one, but several crises of different durations and urgency. These will change our world of tomorrow. Do they lead business leaders to become risk-averse, or do they make them freeze like rabbits caught in the headlights of a passing car? Or do business leaders see them as emerging mega-trends that open up opportunities to think out of the box and enable them to achieve industry-leadership?

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For Rama Devi, a seamstress in Mahabubnagar, the Rs 1,000 a month that she earns through sale of her handiwork was insufficient to support her husband and two children. Her husband, who worked in agriculture, endured long gaps of unemployment. Today as ‘vision entrepreneurs’, they together earn about Rs 5,000 a month. They recently made their first major investment – a motorcycle – which they use to reach more villages to host eyecare campaigns.

Rama Devi is one of the 150 vision entrepreneurs in Andhra Pradesh groomed by VisionSpring, a New York-based non-government organisation laser-focused on correcting an unmet need for working eyeglasses in the developing world.

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