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Friday, June 07, 2013 — Latin America

Argentina builds first-ever solar neighborhood to fight energy poverty

Source: Deutsche Welle
A solar power project in Buenos Aires is providing electricity for some of the city's poorest households. Volunteers are hoping to create Argentina's first green community - one rooftop at a time.
TAGS:energy, Poverty, rural development, solar, sustainability
Tuesday, May 28, 2013 — Latin America

How an iPad in a corner store can spell success in Mexico

Source: The Christian Science Monitor
On the outskirts of Mexico City, just past the dusty plateau of a defunct landfill, the cinder block houses of Chimalhuacán crowd a hillside. It’s a city beyond a city, made up of nearly 1 million residents including surrounding areas, yet it lacks many of services and stores one might expect of a city ­– like banks.
TAGS:business development, financial inclusion, mobile banking
Friday, April 26, 2013 — Latin America

Assured Labor Raises $5.5M To Find Jobs For Workers Across Latin America

Source: Tech Crunch
Assured Labor, a New York, Mexico City and São Paulo-based startup that helps low- and middle-income workers across Latin America find jobs through their mobile phones, just closed $5.5 million in funding led by Mexican private equity firm Capital Indigo.
TAGS:impact investing, social enterprise
Wednesday, April 10, 2013 — Latin America

Looking for a Latin American Seed Fund? Try the Colombian Government

Source: The Atlantic
Grooveshark creator Andres Barreto is placing a bet on Colombia.
TAGS:social enterprise, social entrepreneur
Thursday, March 28, 2013 — Latin America

Root Capital Tops $500 Million in Cumulative Lending to Rural Enterprises in Africa and Latin America

Source:

The nonprofit agricultural lender Root Capital announces today that it has hit a major milestone, topping $500 million in cumulative lending to more than 425 small and growing businesses providing some 750,000 small-scale farm families (3 million individuals) with better livelihoods in poor, environmentally vulnerable locations in Africa and Latin America.
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 — Latin America

Questioning the TOMS Shoes Model for Social Enterprise

Source: The New York Times
After visiting Argentina and seeing the impact of poverty on some of its children, Blake Mycoskie was inspired to create a philanthropic “for-profit business that was sustainable and not reliant on donations.” The result was Toms Shoes, which promised that for every pair of shoes it sold, it would give away another pair to a child in need.
TAGS:social enterprise
Friday, March 08, 2013 — Latin America

From Andrew Square, taking on the UN for Haiti

Source: The Boston Globe
Fights against entrenched and powerful forces are sometimes waged from highly improbable places. As a case in point: Brian Concannon is taking on the United Nations from the sanctuary of a quiet former convent in Andrew Square.
TAGS:Poverty, public health
Wednesday, February 20, 2013 — Latin America

Brazil's Rousseff says extreme poverty almost eradicated

Source: Reuters
President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday raised the monthly stipend of 2.5 million people living below the poverty line to make good on her promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Brazil, a nation with enormous income gaps between rich and poor.
TAGS:Poverty, poverty alleviation
Friday, February 15, 2013 — Latin America

If you build it

Source: The Economist
A scheme to promote working-class home ownership is off to a good start
TAGS:affordable housing
Monday, January 28, 2013 — Latin America

Killer quinoa? Time to debunk these urban food myths

Source: The Globe and Mail
Twenty years ago, quinoa was pretty much unknown. Now, it’s in everyone’s cafeteria. Its price is going through the roof. And that, in the confused minds of Western foodies, is somehow a bad thing.
TAGS:agribusiness, nutrition, public health, rural development
Thursday, January 24, 2013 — Latin America

SAP Invests in Emerging Entrepreneurs to Drive Innovation

Source: Press Release
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced an initial three-year, EUR 2 million commitment to Endeavor Global, Endeavor Brazil and India's National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), organizations with a comprehensive focus on high-impact entrepreneurs. As part of a new emerging entrepreneurs initiative, SAP and its partners will help accelerate job creation and responsible and sustainable business growth for emerging entrepreneurs, who will be selected via the Endeavor and NEN networks. With an initial focus on Brazil and India, SAP and its partners plan to expand into additional emerging markets.
TAGS:technology
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 — Latin America

The unpalatable truth about quinoa

Source: The Guardian
Ethical consumers should be aware poor Bolivians can no longer afford their staple grain, due to western demand raising prices.
TAGS:farmers, nutrition, public health
Tuesday, January 08, 2013 — Latin America

New Partnership to Develop Business Models for Providing Basic Services to the BoP in Latin America

Source: IDB Press Release
IDB’s MIF, OMJ to provide grants and technical assistance for businesses seeking to provide health care, education, energy and water for poor and low-income communities
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, business development
Wednesday, January 02, 2013 — Latin America

Paying with 'kisses' as Brazil’s social currencies spread

Source: BBC
Shopkeeper Heraldo Rodrigues da Silva, 55, owns a small store in Sao Benedito, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Vitoria, the capital of the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo.
TAGS:financial inclusion, Microfinance, sustainability
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 — Latin America

Ban joins Hispaniola effort against cholera

Source: Devex
Ban Ki-moon has announced a new initiative that will support a 10-year effort against cholera in Haiti. This comes amid mounting calls for the United Nations to take responsibility over the spread of the disease in the country.
TAGS:public health, sanitation, water
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 — Latin America

Bolivia Invests $20 Million in Waste Management

Source: Environment News Service
WASHINGTON, DC, December 10, 2012 (ENS) – Bolivia will improve municipal solid waste management services such as collection, transportation, and disposal, with a $20 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank, the bank announced today.
TAGS:IDB, impact investing, sanitation
Thursday, November 01, 2012 — Latin America

In the pipeline: $300M worth of AFD, IDB projects

Source: Devex
The French Development Agency, or AFD, and the Inter-American Development Bank have signed a three-year “action-oriented” agreement that will expand the two agencies’ development efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean.
TAGS:IDB, sustainability, urban
Thursday, November 01, 2012 — Latin America

QMágico’s co-founder talks social entrepreneurship and education in Brazil

Source: The Next Web
Thiago Feijão was one of the panelists speaking at Entrepreneur Week Brazil, which took place for the first time in Rio de Janeiro last week. As the co-founder of edtech startup QMágico, he talked about social entrepreneurship and education opportunities in Brazil.
TAGS:education, social entrepreneur, technology
Wednesday, October 24, 2012 — Latin America

Lessons from Rio: the talking points from SEWF2012

Source: The Guardian
In a converted 1871 grain storage facility near Rio de Janeiro's old waterfront docks, I joined my fellow NESsT staff from 11 different countries to transform an empty historical building to a sustainably designed venue in a matter of days.
TAGS:conferences, investment fund, social enterprise
Monday, October 15, 2012 — Latin America

Muhammad Yunus announces financing in Haiti

Source: Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Nobel peace laureate Mohammad Yunus announced Saturday that his pro-business development group is financing several endeavors through a mix of loans and equity.
TAGS:Microfinance, social enterprise
Wednesday, October 10, 2012 — Latin America

How Entrepreneurs Can Fight Drug Traffickers

Source: Forbes
There’s nothing like attending the heady, exhilarating Clinton Global Initiative to get me out of the operational trenches of entrepreneurship for social change. But this year, I was distracted by a conversation taking place just down the street at the UN General Assembly—on drug trafficking.
TAGS:agribusiness, social impact
Thursday, October 04, 2012 — Latin America

Accion Invests $3 Million in Mobile Services Provider Tiaxa

Source: Press Release
Accion announced today that its Frontier Investments Group has invested US$3 million in Zonamovil Inc. (“Tiaxa”), a Chilean provider of managed services for the wireless telecom market. For more than 10 years, Tiaxa has provided mobile network operators globally with billing and rating services for prepaid mobile phone users, as well as innovative financial and business intelligence services that increase operator revenues and improve user satisfaction and loyalty.
TAGS:impact investing, Microfinance, mobile banking
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 — Latin America

Jeff Skoll's Billion-Dollar Plan To Save The World

Source: Forbes
Four years ago Jeff Skoll arrived via small plane in the depths of the Brazilian Amazon region, just in time for the Waura people’s festival of the pique fruit, where he sipped from a bucket of its bitter, bright-yellow brew.
TAGS:social entrepreneur, sustainability
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 — Latin America

Venture Capital Is Taking Off in Mexico

Source: CNBC
Mexico has a large, stable and growing economy, currently the 14th largest economy in the world and, according to Goldman Sachs, will be the fifth largest economy by 2050.
TAGS:business development, investment fund, small and medium enterprises, venture capital
Monday, September 17, 2012 — Latin America

12,000 Nicaraguan Families to Benefit From Improved Housing Conditions

Source: Hispanically Speaking News
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a loan of up to $5 million to Nicaragua’s Foundation for the Promotion of Local Development (Prodel), paving the way for the non-profit organization serving the base of the pyramid to expand financing for basic community infrastructure and incremental home improvement projects.
TAGS:affordable housing, IDB, Microfinance, small and medium enterprises, SME finance
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 — Latin America

Haiti insurance firm receives $2 million in equity to expand services to the poor

Source: Montreal Gazette
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A non-profit set up by former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush after the 2010 earthquake has given $1 million in equity to an insurance firm based in Haiti.
TAGS:IDB, microinsurance, poverty alleviation
Tuesday, September 04, 2012 — Latin America

Making housing more affordable in Mexico

Source: Marketplace.org
In many parts of the world, if families outgrow their homes they simply add on to them. They grow 'em, piece by piece, room by room, brick by brick, when they get some extra cash. But, turns out, that's not very efficient. It wastes money, supplies, and lots of time. Alex Goldmark reports from Mexico, on a new way to build affordable housing -- and I mean really affordable.
TAGS:microcredit, Opportunities for the Majority
Tuesday, August 07, 2012 — Latin America

A Look Inside Pipa, Brazil’s First Start-Up Incubator

Source: Fast Company
Pipa (Portuguese for “kite”) is an incubator, or to be more specific an accelerator, focused on supporting entrepreneurs looking to create long-term sustainable value through business. We aim to support these entrepreneurs in their quest to create positive social, environmental and financial impact, something Brazil is engaging with more and more.
TAGS:business development, entrepreneurship, startup, sustainability
Wednesday, August 01, 2012 — Latin America

Digital Money, Mobile Wallets and Latin America

Source: Huffington Post
A recent wave of global and regional announcements regarding mobile wallets and payment systems has casual and close followers alike asking some the same questions.
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, mobile banking
Monday, July 30, 2012 — Latin America

DBJ pilots mobile solution to microfinancing

Source: The Jamaica Gleaner
In a bid to reduce loan costs for small-scale commercial borrowers, the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) is piloting a mobile money product that was given the green light by the Bank of Jamaica mid-year.
TAGS:Microfinance, mobile banking, mobile phones
Thursday, July 26, 2012 — Latin America

Mexico experiments with the 'branchless' bank

Source: Marketbplace
Tess Vigeland: The FDIC estimates that somewhere around 18 percent of the U.S. population is what's called underbanked -- Ppeople who turn to payday lenders and check cashing services and the mattress because they don't have good access to the banking system.
TAGS:financial inclusion, Microfinance
Friday, July 20, 2012 — Latin America

Bamboo Finance Invests R$7 Million (US$3.6M) in Bille, To Build 1200 Affordable Houses in Sao Paulo State

Source: Press Release
Geneva, Switzerland, July 19, 2012 – Bamboo Finance, a leading impact investment firm with a pioneering history of funding growth stage business models that drive economic viability in low-income markets, has invested R$7M (US$3.6M) in Bille, a Special Purpose Enterprise (SPE) created by Crinale, a Brazilian housing developer, for building and selling 1,200 houses in the interior of Sao Paulo State. Bille uses an innovative and efficient business model to build and sell affordable standard houses, reducing the time from development to sale by more than 50%. To date, Crinale has completed six affordable housing projects in five towns, delivering more than 1,100 low-income houses in the interior State of Sao Paulo.
TAGS:affordable housing, investment fund
Monday, June 18, 2012 — Latin America

Rio+20: Are We There Yet?

Source: Forbes
No, we are not yet there, but we may be getting closer. On Saturday, the Brazilians took over the once again informal negotiations on the outcome document. The world is fortunate in this regard, as Brazil has one of the best diplomatic corps in the business.
TAGS:sustainability
Thursday, June 07, 2012 — Latin America

VisionSpring Sells Its One Millionth Pair Of Eyeglasses In The Developing World

Source: PRWeb
For many in the developing world, the lack of access to affordable eyeglasses leads to the unnecessary loss of educational and employment opportunities. VisionSpring works to ensure that everyone in the developing world has access to eyeglasses. Founded in 2001, by Dr. Jordan Kassalow, VisionSpring has developed proprietary distribution channels in India and El Salvador to deliver high-quality, affordable eyeglasses and comprehensive eye care to the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) consumer.
TAGS:social enterprise
Thursday, May 24, 2012 — Latin America

Brazil's historically poor northeast finally gets its boom

Source: Los Angeles Times
RECIFE, Brazil — The Brazilian state of Pernambuco was once known for its vast plains of parched dirt and roving bandits called cangacos, who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. For later generations, escaping the widespread poverty of the northeast customarily meant moving to livelier southeastern cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, though many migrants still ended up living in favelas, or slums.
TAGS:social development
Thursday, May 24, 2012 — Latin America

A Middle Man Could Bring Smartphones to Millions of Mexicans for the First Time

Source: GOOD
After two years of intentionally losing money in a very smart way, a Mexican cell phone company is set to change the way the country’s consumers use mobile phones to access the internet. If their plan works, it could transform not only the Mexican phone industry, but consumer finance systems in developing countries around the globe.
TAGS:mobile phones
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 — Latin America

First Fund to Help Smallholder Farmers with Long-Term Loans

Source: Microfinance Focus
Incofin Investment Management, Fairtrade International (FLO) and Grameen Foundation will establish a ‘First Fund’ to focus on the unmet demand of smallholder farmers for long-term loans.
TAGS:agribusiness, financial inclusion, smallholder farmers
Tuesday, April 24, 2012 — Latin America

B Corps Go Global: Sistema B Certifies South American Social Enterprise

Source: GOOD
Last fall, a small group of social entrepreneurs from South America met to discuss how to foster more social enterprise in the region and create more bang for the buck at existing enterprise. The result was Sistema B, the first effort to adapt the American system of B Corporations—which ease operations for companies that combine profit and social good—to a foreign setting.
TAGS:business development, social enterprise, social impact
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 — Latin America

Study: OLPC Fails Students as a Tool for Education

Source: PCmag.com
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program of low-cost laptops for developing countries has not led to any measurable impact in academic achievement, according to a recent report.
TAGS:academia, Base of the Pyramid, Impact Assessment, technology
Monday, April 09, 2012 — Latin America

Daniel Izzo on Brazil's First Impact Investing Venture Capital Firm

Source: Forbes
Recently, the Opportunities for the Majority (OMJ) Initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank hosted Daniel Izzo, co-founder and partner of Vox Capital, Brazil’s first impact investing venture capital firm, which focuses on high potential businesses that serve the Brazilian low income population through products and services with the potential to improve their lives.
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, impact investing, social enterprise
Tuesday, April 03, 2012 — Latin America

In Chile’s Slums, A Lesson in How to Make Apps for Social Good

Source: The Washington Post
How many of the hundreds of thousands of mobile phone applications seek to do truly great things, such as lift people out of poverty or improve health care for the poor?
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, mobile applications, social impact
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 — Latin America

Tigo Helps Remittances Go Mobile

Source: Fast Company
In countries like Guatemala, remittances from migrant workers in the U.S. are critical to the economy. Tigo, an international telecom, has a unique plan to use mobile banking to simplify a trying process.
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, financial inclusion, mobile banking
Thursday, March 08, 2012 — Latin America

Tiny Loans, Tremendous Returns: Tales from the Microlending Frontier

Source: DailyFinance
Sometimes, small gestures can make huge differences in people's lives and livelihoods. That's the premise -- and the power -- of microlending.
TAGS:entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, microcredit
Tuesday, February 07, 2012 — Latin America

Empowering the Haitian People

Source: UVU Review
Sustain Haiti is a non-denominational, independent group of Haitians, development specialists, students, social entrepreneurs, and concerned citizens based in Provo, UT. It was created and began sending volunteers and aid to the country of Haiti after a 7.0 earthquake rocked the country in January of 2010.
TAGS:entrepreneurship, social enterprise, social impact, sustainability
Monday, January 16, 2012 — Latin America

Howard Weinstein Named Social Entrepreneur of the Year

Source: CSRwire
NEW YORK, Oct. 27 /CSRwire/ - Solar Ear founder and CEO Howard Weinstein was selected as social entrepreneur of the year by World Technology Network. The announcement was made at the awards banquet held at the close of the World Technology Summit and Awards in New York City Wednesday night. Weinstein's award was accepted by Nick Laperle, CEO of Solar Ear's technology partner Sonomax. Solar Ear designs and manufactures a solar-powered, battery rechargeable, inexpensive hearing ai...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, January 04, 2012 — Latin America

It's Time for Sustainable Development

Source: The Guardian
Bill Clinton was set to enter the White House, the European Union was born and China had its first taste of a double cheeseburger with fries when McDonalds opened its doors in Beijing. That was 1992. A lot can happen in 20 years. In June 2012, two decades after the groundbreaking Earth summit, which put climate change and biological diversity on the global political agenda, attention will turn once again to Rio de Janeiro for the UN conference on sustainable development, or ...
TAGS:business case
Thursday, December 08, 2011 — Latin America

Ecuador Expanding Access to Microcredit for Low-Income Women

Source: Hispanically Speaking News
Ecuador will expand access to microcredit, particularly among low-income women, through a $50 million loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) aimed at increasing employment opportunities and reducing poverty. The National Program for Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Solidarity (PNFPEES) will be the executing agency for the program, which will contribute to its strategy for fostering economic inclusion with particular emphasis on financing for women entrepreneur...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, December 07, 2011 — Latin America

Mining Proves a Test of Mettle for Peru's Ambitions of Economic Development

Source: Guardian.co.uk
The resignation of Peru 's deputy environment minister amid violent protests against the country's largest ever mining project has highlighted how weak institutions, unable to ensure decisions are made on the basis of robust information, undermine green policymaking in Latin America. José de Echave quit in late November, calling environmental impact studies on the $4.8bn (£3.1...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, November 28, 2011 — Latin America

Rural Peru Gets Connected

Source: Guardian.co.uk
The connection was not of crisp video quality, but the chorus of schoolchildren from San José de Huamaní, near Ica in the south, could be heard loud and clear: "Good morning," they chanted. Hundreds of kilometres away, they were greeted with applause, through video link, by a brightly lit conference room full of Peruvian and European Union officials. They were meeting in Lima to announce the completion of an ...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 — Latin America

Uruguayan Farmers Tackles Climate Change

Source: Microfinance Focus
The World Bank approved a US$49 million loan to support Uruguayan farmers tackle climate change. In their efforts, farmers are adopting environmentally sustainable practices to improve the resilience of their production systems in response to the effects of climate variability. The program is called the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and Climate Change. This will benefit 16,000 Uruguayan farmers through co-financing of land projects to improve their production systems, the ...
TAGS:business case
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 — Latin America

ANDE Releases Report on Social and Inclusive Businesses in Brazil

Source: Press Release
Data from new research coordinated by the Brazil Chapter of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), the AVINA Foundation, and Potencia Ventures demonstrates significant growth for social and inclusive businesses in Brazil. The purpose of the study was to identify which regions and groups are fueling the most economic and social change. The report, released this week in English in time for Global Entrepreneurship Week, reveals a changing lands...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, October 21, 2011 — Latin America

Trashy TV with a Message: Soap Opera Attempts to Teach Women About Finances

Source: Fast Company
Entertaining as they may be, soap operas are not generally thought of as learning tools--unless you want to learn whose evil twin is having an affair with whose sister. But as parents can attest from hours of sitting through shows like Sesame Street , television is an effective teaching mechanism when used correctly. And where children may be attracted to a learning program by giant yellow birds and monsters living in trash cans, adults can be swayed by dramatic plotlines and engaging...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, October 21, 2011 — Latin America

Pro Mujer Announces $1 Billion Dollar Milestone at Annual "Giving Women Credit" Benefit

Source: PR Newswire
Pro Mujer, a non-profit, women's development and microfinance organization dedicated to alleviating poverty and empowering women in Latin America, held its annual "Giving Women Credit" Benefit at Cipriani 42nd Street on Wednesday evening in New York City. Kathleen A. Corbet, Founder & Principal of Cross Ridge Capital, was recognized as "Humanitarian of the Year" and Manuel Medina-Mora , C...
TAGS:No Tags
Thursday, October 20, 2011 — Latin America

Green Businesses in Developing World Get $60M Boost, Along With Microfinance

Source: SustainableBusiness.com
The International Finance Corp. (IFC), a member of the World Bank group, is launching a $60 million equity financing mechanism to "promote homegrown green innovation in developing countries while encouraging the transfer of clean technologies from developed countries to developing countries." The Cleantech Innovation Facility will help small, highly innovative start-up companies that offer products or services that mitigate carbon emissions. It will n...
TAGS:sanitation
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 — Latin America

International Medical Corps Helps Haiti in its Long Haul

Source: Fast Company
International Medical Corps is a model for global not-for-profits, with a plan that goes way beyond drop-in disaster relief. In Haiti, IMC is training locals, building communities, and doing everything it can to put itself to pasture. Dan Khodabakhsh doesn't require a whole lot of sleep. It's perfectly normal, in fact, for the 33-year-old doctor to work a double shift bandaging up drunks and pulling bullets from teenagers in the emergency room of UCLA's Harbor Medical Center...
TAGS:No Tags
Thursday, October 13, 2011 — Latin America

Seattle Microfinance Nonprofit Looks Beyond Loans to Education

Source: Puget Sound Business Journal
Global Partnerships , a Seattle-based nonprofit that provides microfinance to the developing world, has shifted its strategy in recent years to expand its focus beyond the traditional microloans that it started with 17 years ago. ...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 — Latin America

Peru Has Best Environment for Microfinance in Global Ranking

Source: Andina
Lima, Oct. 11 (ANDINA). Peru has finished atop the Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment 2011 for a third straight year, buoyed by an excellent legal framework, sophisticated regulators and a government commitment to use microfinance to expand financial access to the poor. This annual study, prepared by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), ranks the business environment for microfinance in 55 countries and provides a perspective on both country-sp...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, October 04, 2011 — Latin America

Banmujer: Benefitting Over 300,000 Venezuelan Families Since 2001

Source: venezuelanalysis.com
One of Venezuela's most important public institutions created to assist impoverished women through micro- credit lending celebrated its 10-year anniversary last week. Banmujer first came into existence on September 21, 2001 as government run bank with the specific purpose of funding socio-productive business initiatives for women in particularly dire economic conditions. Since that time, the women's bank has granted more than 138 thousand micro-credits, benefiting over 300,...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, October 03, 2011 — Latin America

Global Partnerships Makes First Investments in Colombia

Source: Global Partnerships
Global Partnerships (GP), a nonprofit social investor based in Seattle, Washington, and Managua Nicaragua, announced today that it has made its first loans to two partner organizations based in Colombia: Fundación Amanecer and Contactar. With the addition of these two partners to its portfolio, GP is supporting the work of 33 microfinance organizations and cooperatives in eight countries in Latin America, including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua an...
TAGS:No Tags
Thursday, September 22, 2011 — Latin America

Loan Ranger

Source: The New York Times
On a hot summer day in Manaus, Brazil, Diana Taylor, the former banking superintendent of New York and longtime companion of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, was strolling through a slum. A city of about two million in the middle of the Amazon, Manaus is where the Boston-based microfinance group Acción International started an ambitious lending operation in February, and Taylor, who is chairwoman of the group's board, had flown down with a delegation...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 — Latin America

Grameen Foundation and USAID Providing $3 Million for Peruvian Microfinance Institutions

Source: MarketWatch
Grameen Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced that they are jointly providing a $1.5 million credit guarantee to the Peruvian savings and credit cooperative Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito (ABACO) to support approximately $3 million for local currency financing to two socially-focused Peruvian microfinance institutions (MFIs). Peru has an established microfinance sector, with mature institutions having relatively easy access to internationa...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 — Latin America

In Pockets of Booming Brazil, a Mint Idea Gains Currency

Source: The Wall Street Journal
SILVA JARDIM, Brazil-After school and on weekends, Carlos Leandro Peixoto de Abril sells ice cream made by his grandmother from a stoop alongside the family's cinder-block home. Instead of Brazilian reais, though, the 11-year-old prefers payment in capivaris-a local currency emblazoned with the face of a giant rodent. Bills in hand, Carlos then heads to a local grocer and buys ingredients, at a special discount, for another batch of grandma's goods. The capivari circulates...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, September 19, 2011 — Latin America

A Lesson in Social Entrepreneurship: Fundacion Paraguaya

Source: Forbes
Recently, I interviewed Martin Burt, founder and CEO of Fundación Paraguaya , an NGO devoted to the promotion of entrepreneurship among the world's poor. A pioneer in microfinances and youth financial literacy in Paraguay, Burt developed one of the world's first financially self-sufficient agricultural schools for the rural poor - creating a radical new model for education. In ad...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, September 07, 2011 — Latin America

Omidyar Network and IGNIA Lead $13.75 Million Series B Round in Finestrella

Source: PR Newswire
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network and IGNIA announced today they are leading a $13.75 million Series B round of financing in Finestrella, a provider of innovative mobile telephony services to low-income and unbanked populations in Mexico. Finestrella will use the funding to rapidly expand the availability of its current offerings while developing new products and services, including smart phones and data plans that address the needs of its customers. Th...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, August 26, 2011 — Latin America

How a Pharmaceutical Giant is Battling Malnutrition on the Ground in Haiti

Source: Fast Company
All too often, corporate philanthropy involves dropping a wad of money on organizations that are doing work on an issue that the corporation "cares" about, and then saying goodbye. But sometimes, corporations actually bring their know-how and human capital to bear on a problem, in addition to just giving money. The global pharmaceutical company Abbott is taking the second path, focusing on long-lasting initiatives that can grow local economies in struggling areas. Case in point: Abbott's ...
TAGS:multinational corporation
Monday, August 22, 2011 — Latin America

Funding Sustainable Agriculture in Latin America

Source: Microfinance Focus
Recently, the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) through its Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) approved a loan and technical assistance of $4.9 million to Root Capital, a non-profit social investment fund. Root Capital provides finance for cooperatives, producers' associations, and small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas producing under sustainable agricultural schemes in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. This project is aimed at providing an innovative financin...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, August 19, 2011 — Latin America

Bolivia's First Crop Insurance Scheme Promises to Empower Farmers

Source: Guardian.co.uk
Natural disasters can come with six-digit figures of damage and debt attached, even in Latin America's poorest country. Bolivia 's rural areas, still dependent on rain cycles, are the most financially vulnerable to drought, frost, hail, floods and other weather adversities. Lose your crops, farmers say, and you're left with nothing but your debts. Luis Alvaro Toledo, who's wo...
TAGS:nutrition
Friday, August 19, 2011 — Latin America

Microfinance Records Lowest Investment Growth in Six Years ? MicroRate

Source: Microfinance Focus
According to MicroRate's 'The State of Microfinance Investment 2011' report, the lingering effects of the economic crisis led to the lowest microfinance investment growth rate observed in the past 6 years, with total Microfinance Investment Vehicle (MIV) assets growing 12% in 2010. Rating agency MicroRate has been doing annual survey and analysis of MIVs for the last six years and this year it received information from 80 MIVs covering 92% of global assets under management. ...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, August 03, 2011 — Latin America

Haitians Return to Africa, Bringing Solar Energy

Source: IPS
SEATTLE, U.S., Aug 2, 2011 (IPS) - Jean Ronel Noël, a young Haitian engineer, stood in a centuries-old fort on a small island just off Dakar and looked out at the Atlantic through a portal that once led enslaved Africans to the ships of the Middle Passage. "Finally we come to 'the door of the voyage of no return'," he wrote in a blog . "My blood wouldn't stop boiling, wave after wave of...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 — Latin America

How a 100-Year-old Tortoise Helped Build a Scalable Social Enterprise

Source: Guardian.co.uk
There is no shortage of people with a vision to change the world. But how? Strategy without the proper execution is simply a dream. When met with environmental and societal issues, organisations tend to use linear thinking (give a man a fish) to identify a solution to the problem instead of taking a circular, sustainable approach (teach a man to fish) by investing in the prevention of certain situations. Take Lonesome George for example. As the last surviving tortoise of its kind, many ...
TAGS:consumer products
Monday, July 25, 2011 — Latin America

IFC to Invest USD 4.6 Million in Peru?s Microfinance Institution

Source: Microfinance Focus
IFC, a private sector arm of the World Bank Group, is contributing to the capital increase of microfinance lender, Caja Nuestra Gente with an investment of US $4.6 million. The investment will help Caja Nuestra Gente expand its operations in rural areas and among low-income urban communities in Peru. Caja Nuestra Gente is owned by Spain's BBVA Microfinance Foundation (FMBBVA). In addition to this investment, IFC has also opened a medium-term local-currency loan facility to support C...
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011 — Latin America

Root Capital Makes Money By Investing Where Wall Street Won't: Poor, Rural Farmers

Source: Fast Company
Small money, big change. That, in essence, is what William Foote was banking on when he ditched Harvard Business School to start what is now Root Capital , a "nonprofit social investment fund" that lends to small and medium rural businesses in developing countries. Root Capital's business model is to go where other banks will not --the agricultural sector of poor countries --and loan rural businesses as much as $500,000 to expand or improve t...
TAGS:poverty alleviation
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 — Latin America

7.5 Lakh Families to Benefit from Cemex?s Housing Microfinance Program

Source: Microfinance Focus
Patrimonio Hoy, the housing microfinance program of CEMEX, is expanding its lending program to low-income families in Mexico and four other Latin American countries with a partial credit guarantee of up to $10 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). As many as 750,000 families are expected to benefit over the next five years through this project. Patrimonio Hoy is one of Latin America's social enterprises that provide low-income families earning of less than four tim...
TAGS:Acumen Fund
Monday, June 27, 2011 — Latin America

Rio Reborn: The Favela Where Cosmetics Reps Have Replaced Drug Gangs

Source: Guardian.co.uk
Miriam Pereira da Lima, 29, sheds tears as she watches her daughter dancing in the square while children ride past on bikes and fly kites. "Until a few months ago kids didn't play out on the streets," she says, still adjusting to life after the pacificação, when the Brazilian army and police moved into the Complexo do Alemão, one of Rio de Janeiro's infamous favelas, and drove out the drug gangs. With peace on the streets, business opportunities are on the r...
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Monday, June 20, 2011 — Latin America

IDB Offers $25 Million Loan to Raise Farmer?s Productivity in Peru

Source: Microfinance Focus
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) recently offered a $25 million loan to increase productivity and exports of farmers in Peru. The program will directly benefit about 14,000 producers participating in the Program of Compensation for Competitiveness, over the next four years, of which an estimated 42 percent are women. The program aims to raise farmers' productivity by 10 percent and increase the value of their products in domestic and foreign markets by 20 percent by the end...
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Wednesday, June 08, 2011 — Latin America

ACCION Brings Microfinance to Manaus, Brazil

Source: Microfinance Focus
ACCION International inaugurated on Tuesday a new microfinance institution, ACCION Microfinancas in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas in Brazil's northern region which is a largely underserved microfinance market. ACCION Microfinancas, which launched unofficially when it began lending operations on February 1st of this year, has Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) among its co-investors....
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Tuesday, June 07, 2011 — Latin America

Former U-M Students Help Honduran Farming Community Make Coffee More 'Local'

Source: AnnArbor.com
After several service trips to the mountainous villages of La Union, Honduras, former University of Michigan student Andrew Boyd was inspired. He wanted to do more, but wasn't sure how he could make an impact. His passion led to a microfinance organization that focused on something the people of La Union already knew - coffee. And now thanks to his efforts, the Honduran farming community gets a rebirth, and Ann Arbor is d...
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Monday, June 06, 2011 — Latin America

Brazil Launches Drive to Lift 16 Mln from Poverty

Source: Reuters
BRASILIA, June 2 (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff launched an ambitious plan on Thursday to eliminate dire poverty in Brazil within four years by lifting more than 16 million people from conditions of "misery." The "Brazil Without Misery" program is the signature policy of the former leftist guerrilla's first term, her advisers said, fulfilling one of the key promises she made in her campaign for ...
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Wednesday, June 01, 2011 — Latin America

Major Microlaboratory Against Poverty

Source: IPSnews.net
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 31, 2011 (IPS) - Microcredit in Brazil still has huge potential for expansion, even though microloans have already grown much more than traditional credit in the last eight years. Microcredit has formed a successful part of anti-poverty programmes since left-wing former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January 2003 and immediately launched the National Productive Microcredit Programme, targeting low-income households. ...
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Monday, May 23, 2011 — Latin America

IDB Creates SME Lending Facility

Source: Devex News
The Inter-American Development Bank has set up a $100 million facility to strengthen lending to small and medium-sized enterprises in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a May 19 press release, IDB called its SME Financing Facility as the first of its kind. The facility will channel resources through financial institutions in IDB borrowi...
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Monday, May 23, 2011 — Latin America

MIF invests $3 MN in Columbian Fondo de Capital Privado Inversor

Source: Microfinance Focus
The Multilateral Investment fund (MIF) is investing $3 million in the Fondo de Capital Privado Inversor, a venture capital (VC) fund investing in companies with scalable business models that cater to the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) population in Colombia. The fund involves support from 10 founding institutions representing people from the social and financial sector,...
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Friday, April 15, 2011 — Latin America

Empowering Women With Microfinance: From Oxford, England to Lima, Peru

Source: The Huffington Post
One week ago, I was on stage for the opening plenary of the Skoll World Forum in the scholarly, well-ordered university town of Oxford, England. Today, I am in the ramshackle home of an able, but very poor, businesswoman in the impoverished, raggedy outskirts of Lima, Peru. The connection? The Skoll World Forum is the preeminent global gathering of social entrepreneurs. Over 1,200 of the smartest, most...
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011 — Latin America

UNHCR Assists Microcredit Projects for Sex Workers in Ecuador

Source: Microfinance Focus
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR is providing support to a microcredit project in Ecuador to help the country's 'vulnerable' refugees break out of poverty and exploitation. Over the last year, the agency has been working with several organizations to set up self-reliance programmes for Colombian refugees and their hosts in Ecuador, which is home to the largest number of refugees in Latin America. Of the 53,342 recognized refugees, 73 per cent are wome...
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Monday, March 28, 2011 — Latin America

Haitian-made Crafts Land at Macy?s

Source: The Globe and Mail
With its tin roof and tiny façade hemmed in with razor wire, the shambling structure sitting on the edge of Cité Soleil - Port-au-Prince's most notorious slum - is not what you'd imagine a toy factory to look like. The one-room shack doubles as the home of Reggie Jean-François, a muscle-bound Haitian man in his mid-30s who has first-hand experience of a U.S. federal prison, the U.S. deportation system and the rehabilitative power of Jesus Christ. Jean-Fran&c...
TAGS:consumer products
Monday, March 21, 2011 — Latin America

PepsiCo Foundation Announces $5 M Grant to IDB's AquaFund

Source: Microfinance Focus
The PepsiCo Foundation recently announced a $5 million grant to the AquaFund, launched by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to facilitate investment in water supply and sanitation, water resources, solid waste management and wastewater treatment. The AquaFund agreement was signed by Luis Montoya, President of PepsiCo Latin American Beverages, and Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the IDB, at the International Environment Summit in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The grant will fund a...
TAGS:pharmaceutical industry
Thursday, March 17, 2011 — Latin America

Microcredit's Quiet Revolution Takes Root in Brazil

Source: AFP via Google News
SOROCABA, Brazil - When people talk about Brazil's economy, figures numbering in the billions of dollars are usually bandied about to underline the success -- and the potential -- of this vast Latin American market of 193 million people. But for one 25-year-old woman, Alessandra Franca, just a handful of cash is all it takes to make a difference for the 40 percent of Brazil's population who are still poor. A year ago, Franca founded Banco Perola, a lending institution spec...
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Tuesday, March 01, 2011 — Latin America

Patagonia, Adidas, Walmart Join Sustainable Apparel Coalition

Source: Fast Company
What happens when you put executives from Walmart and Patagonia in a room? This isn't the start of a bad joke--it's how the Sustainable Apparel Coalition was born. The seeds of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition were planted in 2009 when Patagonia and Walmart teamed up to help the latter company create a sustainability assessment tool for its supply chain (Patagonia was also working o...
TAGS:business case
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 — Latin America

For Pepsi, a Business Decision With Social Benefit

Source: The New York Times
SAN GABRIEL, Mexico - In the past, farmers would make the dangerous trek north from this tiny town hidden in the rugged folds of the Jalisco mountain range to the United States, hoping to earn enough money doing odd jobs to cover debts incurred while cultivating the small plots of land that have been in their families for generations. But more recently, many have managed to avoid the trips, staying home as the result of a new venture with ...
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Thursday, February 17, 2011 — Latin America

IDB, Oikocredit, Incofin and Calvert Foundation Back Credit Cooperative in Ecuador

Source: iadb.org
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has closed a $9 million syndicated loan with Jardin Azuayo, a community-based savings and loan cooperative in Ecuador . The loan will fund the co-op's Credits for Community Development project, which channels funds to municipalities, community organizations and other local entities to finance improvements in social infrastructure such as schools and roads. Th...
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011 — Latin America

With Mobile Technology Vodafone and the U.N. Improve Health in Brazil's Remote Communities

Source: Fast Company
The Vodafone Foundation and the United Nations are working together again on a mobile initiative for social good --this time in Brazil and with an eye on ...
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Friday, February 04, 2011 — Latin America

In A Shift, Cubans Savor Working for Themselves

Source: The New York Times
BAUTA, Cuba - Marisela Álvarez spends much of the day bent over a single electric burner in her small outdoor kitchen. Her knees are killing her. Her red hair smells of cooking oil. "I feel useful; I'm independent," said Ms. Álvarez, who opened a small cafe in November at her home in this scruffy town 25 miles from the capital, Havana. "When you sit down at the end of the day and look at how much you have made, you feel satisfied." Eagerly, warily, Cubans are tak...
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011 — Latin America

Colombia: For the Poor, a New Way to Protect Against Disaster

Source: Global Post
BARRANQUILLA, Colombia - Before a sales team for Liberty Mutual fanned out into a crime-infested slum to sell insurance, the venders bowed their heads, asking god to bless their work and protect them from thieves. A ramshackle neighborhood where horse carts ply the streets and the floors of many houses are made of dirt might seem an odd place to peddle insurance. After all, insurance companies have historically ignored the poor. But the Liberty team was offering something new to l...
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Monday, January 24, 2011 — Latin America

Jamaicans May Bank on a Mobile Future

Source: Jamaica Observer
JAMAICA can choose a mobile phone-based financial services delivery system which targets those persons who currently do not have easy access to the established banking network. Carl Rosenquist, a Chartered Information Technology Professional with the British Computer Society, was one of several industry experts trumpeting the development during the Mobile Financial Services Conference at the Terra Nova All Suites Hotel in Kingston in December, which aimed to develo...
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011 — Latin America

$2.5 Million Prize for Transforming Banking Sector in Haiti

Source: PR Newswire
SEATTLE and PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced today that Haitian mobile operator Digicel won a $2.5 million award from the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI). Digicel was recognized for being the first to launch a mobile money service in Haiti, Tcho Tcho Mobile, that meets the competition's stringent criteria. This award,...
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Wednesday, January 05, 2011 — Latin America

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor

Source: The New York Times
The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world. Today, however, Brazil's level of economic ineq...
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Tuesday, December 21, 2010 — Latin America

Fighting Poverty Can Save Energy, Nicaragua Project Shows

Source: National Geographic
In two small villages on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, a project to improve electricity service had a remarkable side benefit-household energy use actually dropped nearly 30 percent. When efficient compact-fluorescent (CFL) lightbulbs were added to the mix, energy savings surpassed 40 percent. The effort cut costs and brought longer hours of daily electricity service to the people of ...
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Friday, November 19, 2010 — Latin America

Brazil's Cash Transfer Scheme Improving the Lives of the Poorest

Source: The Guardian
Rumour has it that when senior civil servants at the Department for International Development (DfID) tried to interest the development secretary Andrew Mitchell in cash transfers, they couldn't get anywhere. One morning he came across a column by my colleague Aditya Chakrabortty and was converted. Within a short space of time the "must rea...
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Friday, November 12, 2010 — Latin America

Brazil bank oversight under fire

Source: Financial Times
Brazil's central bank is being urged to strengthen its oversight of the banking sector after it alleged that Banco Panamericano, a medium-sized bank by assets, had concealed losses of about R$1bn (US$580m), apparently resulting from high rates of customer default at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Shares in Panamericano fell by 30 per cent on Wednesday after the bank's difficulties became public and its management was replaced. But they rallied by 8 p...
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010 — Latin America

IGNIA Fund Invests MX$38.1 million in Barafon, a BoP Public Telecommunications Provider

Source:

MONTERREY, Mexico , Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- IGNIA Fund I, LP, the first impact investing fund in Latin America , announced today that it has invested MX$38.1 million ( US$3.1 million ) in Servicios Caseteros S.A.P.I. de C.V. ("Barafon"), a provider of public telephony and related services to low income populations in Mexico through a networ...
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Thursday, July 29, 2010 — Latin America

The New Normal: Haiti After the Earthquake

Source: Benzinga.com
It's amazing how quickly things can return to normal. You wouldn't know it from watching CNN, but big segments of life in Haiti, including in the capital, Port au Prince, which suffered the greatest damage, have returned to what would have been considered normal in the days and months before the quake. There is plenty of destruction still evident, and tens or even hundreds of thousands of people living in tents or under blue plastic tarpaulins throu...
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 — Latin America

The Candy Bar at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Should Big Food Be Delivered to the Amazon?

Source: CSR Newswire
Last week, Nestle, the world's largest food company, launched a barge called Nestlé Até Você a Bordo - or Nestlé Takes You Onboard - on an 18-day voyage up the Amazon River in Brazil. This so-called floating supermarket will bring more than 300 well-known Nestlé brands, including Ninho (packaged milk), Maggi (soups and seasonings) and Nescafé (instant coffe...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, June 25, 2010 — Latin America

IGNIA Completes Closing of Fund I at US$102 Million

Source: PR Newswire
MONTERREY, Mexico, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- IGNIA Fund I, LP Latin America's first and largest impact investing fund, announced today that after seven rounds, it has concluded its fundraising process having reached US$102 million to serve businesses at the base of the socio-economic pyramid. This last round was led by J.P. Morgan with a US$5 million commitment and by Corporacion Mexicana de Inversiones de Capital (Fond...
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010 — Latin America

Nestle to Sail Amazon Rivers to Reach Emerging-Market Consumers

Source: Bloomberg.com
Nestle SA will begin sailing a supermarket barge down two Amazon river tributaries tomorrow as it competes with Unilever to reach emerging-market customers cut off from branded goods. The world's largest food company will send a boat with 100-square meters (1,076 square feet) of supermarket space on a journey to 18 small cities and 800,000 potential consumers on the Para a...
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010 — Latin America

Slim, Gates Team Up on Health in Mexico, Central America

Source: Forbes
Carlos Slim and Bill Gates are working together to fight poverty in Mexico and Central America. The two richest men in the world announced the $150 million 2015 Meso-American Health Initiative today at a press conference at the Museo National de Antropologia in Mexico City. Slim and Gates, who will each donate $50 ...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, June 09, 2010 — Latin America

Gates Foundation, USAID Announce Innovative Fund for Mobile Money Services in Haiti

Source: PR Newswire
SEATTLE and WASHINGTON, June 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced a $10 million incentive fund to jumpstart financial services by mobile phone in Haiti and expedite the delivery of cash assistance to victims of the country's devastating earthquake by humanitarian agencies. This initiative lays the foundation f...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, May 21, 2010 — Latin America

Chiapas Farms Raises $6.5 Million from IGNIA Fund

Source: peHUB
IGNIA Fund I, LP, the first impact investing fund in Latin America, announced today an investment of US$5 million in Chiapas Organic Holdings, Inc. ("Chiapas Farms"), a leading Mexican producer and trader of export-grade fruits and vegetables. This investment is part of a US$6.5 millionequity financing round that includes a US$1.5 million investment from existing shareholders. "Chiapas Farms integrates the Me...
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Thursday, May 13, 2010 — Latin America

Ambitious Brazil Housing Plan Would Replace Slums

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Cristina Silva dos Santos is close to realizing a dream she has had for 28 years, since giving birth to the first of six children: a home big enough for her entire family. For now, she and her five youngest are squeezed into a four-room, rough-brick house the size of most garages, where they all sleep in the same room. But a new government housing program, the largest in Latin America aimed at cutting overcrowding in slums, will give Silv...
TAGS:Acumen Fund
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 — Latin America

IGNIA Fund Leads US$7 Million Financing of Finestrella

Source: PR Newswire
MONTERREY, Mexico, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- IGNIA Fund I, LP, the first impact investing fund in Latin America, announced today that it has invested US$4 million in Finestrella S.A.P.I. de C.V. ("Finestrella"), an innovative pioneer in mobile telephony services to the low income and unbanked populations in Mexico. The investment is part of a US$7 million Series A financing round that includes, among others, Silicon Vall...
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010 — Latin America

Microlender Responds Nimbly in Haiti

Source: Globe and Mail
One evening in late January, an armoured car carrying $2-million in U.S. cash packed into non-descript office supply boxes rolled onto an Air Force base in Miami. With the White House's approval, the boxes were loaded on to a C-17 transport plane, which touched down with the load in darkened Port-au-Prince around 3 a.m. A pair of Black Hawk helicopters took over from there, flying in formation to deposit the cash at 10 drop sites spread acr...
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Saturday, March 13, 2010 — Latin America

Private Sector Eyes Opportunity in Haiti Rebuilding

Source: Reuters
Rebuilding Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake should generate major contracts for private companies specializing in construction, logistics, transport and security, but U.S. executives say they need a clear reconstruction strategy to shape their business plans. Private sector firms that focus on post-conflict or disaster relief operations gathered at a meeting in Miami this week to consider the business opportunities offered by Haiti's recovery from the January 12 quake that de...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, February 05, 2010 — Latin America

IGNIA Fund I Invests MXN$63 Million in MeXvi, Mexican Provider of Self-Construction Solutions

Source: PR Newswire
MONTERREY, Mexico, Feb. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- IGNIA Fund I, LP, the first impact investing fund in Latin America, announced today that it has invested MXN$63 million in Mexicana de Servicios para la Vivienda S.A.P.I. de C.V. ("MeXvi"), a leading provider of integral solutions for self-construction of low-income homes in rural and semi-urban settings. "MeXvi provides the end user with accessible construction materials, design and technical assistance, so that the cli...
TAGS:Acumen Fund
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 — Latin America

Trinidad and Tobago: SMEs Have Borrowed $225 million

Source: Trinidad and Tobago Guardian
Even as Gerard Talbot-Paul, acting chairman, National Entrepreneurship Development Company (NEDCO), called for a smoother system to be put in place to foster the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), he said they have borrowed $225 million in the last seven years. He said ...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 — Latin America

Pioneers of Prosperity Select 2009 Winners

Source: Press Release
The 2009 Pioneers of Prosperity Caribbean program is pleased to announce that Bulkan Timber Works of Guyana has taken the competition’s grand prize. Alternative Insurance Company of Haiti and Totally Male Ltd. of Jamaica were also recognized. On September 11, 2009, ten finalists from seven countries across the Caribbean competed for a grant of US $100,000 to invest in the growth of their company, and the prestigious title of Pioneer of Prosperity. The Honorable Orette Bruce Goldin...
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Monday, July 27, 2009 — Latin America

Three noted businesswomen team up to help microentrepreneurs

Source: Business Mirror
The dynamic troika of Chit Juan, Jeannie Javelosa and Reena Francisco has given a new definition to social enterprise, which is a response to the current conditions. The Environment and Community Hope Organization—or Echo—Store is a business enterprise operating for a profit “but with a social cause,” said Juan, who heads the marketing component of Echo Store. Founded six months ago, the Echo Store has become the hub of product...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 — Latin America

IGNIA Fund I Invests US$3 Million in Pro-Organico

Source: Earth Times
IGNIA Fund I, LP announced today that it has committed US$3 million to Pro-Organico S.A.P.I. de C.V. in the Company's first round of equity financing. Pro-Organico is a leading grower and exporter of a broad line of USDA-certified organic produce. Pro-Organico links Mexican farmers to the rapidly-growing North American organic produce market by managing agricultural operations and coordinating logistics with distributors and retailers across the United States, Canada and Me...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, June 29, 2009 — Latin America

Bolivian Microfinance

Source: RGE Monitor
Bolivia has been the success story in microfinance in Latin America in the last twenty years. I decided to spend one week in La Paz to better understand the business model of the Bolivian microfinance institutions. During the six day stay in La Paz I had the privilege of meeting the Executive Director of Bolivia’s Financial Services Supervisory Authority (ASFI) Ernesto Rivero, the former President of Bancosol and Prodem Fernando Romero Moreno, the President of the Bolivian Academy of Ec...
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Monday, June 15, 2009 — Latin America

Waste disposal in Colombia: Muck and brass plates

Source: The Economist
Entrepreneurs, not scavengers FOR more than 20 years Carmen Lasso has scrabbled a living of sorts for herself and her eight children by scavenging at a rubbish dump in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city. Her life has brought the occasional pleasant surprise, such as the silver ring crowned with a tiny light-blue stone that she ...
TAGS:No Tags
Thursday, June 04, 2009 — Latin America

Banco Real: Brazilian lender focuses on both profit and growth

Source: Financial Times
Jeronimo Ramos, a director at Banco Real in São Paulo, sounds like a man with a mission. “You have to operate inside local communities. You have to know your customer’s story at first hand. Because by giving people credit, you are creating well-being. About 70 per cent of people that get credit are lifted out of poverty as a result.” Yet as Mr Ramos insists, Banco Real is not in the business of delivering social services. “We are not a philanthropic organi...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 — Latin America

Suman Bery: Mexican Surprises

Source: Business Standard
Mexico tends to be in the news for all the wrong reasons: financial crisis, illegal immigration, drug-lords, and most recently as the apparent origin of the H1N1 virus. A recent visit there allowed me the privilege of seeing a very different side of Mexican life. It also stimulated reflection as to what lies ahead for India as it gets richer and urbanises further. Mexico’s population of 105 million makes it the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Its p...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 — Latin America

Getting Microfinance Right

Source: Forbes
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 ...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, April 06, 2009 — Latin America

MicroPlace Offers 6 Percent Return on Microfinance Investment

Source: Press Release
MicroPlace (www.microplace.com), a website that enables everyday people to invest in the world's working poor, announced today the launch of the first microfinance investment opportunity that offers a 6 percent annual return for everyday investors. This investment offering comes at a time when Americans are examining the best ways to use their tax refunds in a tough economy. According to a recent poll by Taxsoftware.com, 58 percent of Americans planned to either save or invest ...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, March 30, 2009 — Latin America

Root Capital Launches 5-Year, $63M Growth Capital Campaign

Source: Press Release
Root Capital announced today that it has launched a comprehensive Growth Capital Campaign that will significantly increase its capacity to serve rural grassroots businesses in developing countries by establishing a sustainable social enterprise and fully self-sufficient lending program by 2013. The five-year $63 million campaign includes a unique combination of Philanthropic Equity and Debt Capital and will accelerate the organization’s ability to impact global poverty by linking rural ...
TAGS:academia
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 — Latin America

Qualcomm Backs Game Console for the "Next Billion"

Source: Associated Press
A startup called Zeebo Inc. is betting that people in emerging markets want to play good video games just as much as people in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan do. Zeebo plans to launch its "video game console for the next billion" in Brazil next month for $199 and in other countries later this year for $179. It was developed using the cell phone technology of Qualcomm Inc., the San Diego company best known for its mobile phone chips. The Zeebo unit is light, and a lit...
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Monday, March 23, 2009 — Latin America

Unveiling Latin America's economic success

Source: Knowledge@INSEAD
A lot of attention has been focused on the remarkable economic success of China, India and other Asian countries. So much so that the rise of Latin American companies as major players on the international economic scene has almost gone unnoticed. “Latin American companies have fallen through the cracks,” says Lourdes Casanova, a lecturer in strategy at INSEAD and author of Global Latinas: Latin America’s emerging multinationals. “While other emerging m...
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Friday, March 13, 2009 — Latin America

Root Capital Director Explains His Company?s Lending Role

Source: The Cornell Daily Sun
Financing typically comes in two sizes for businesses: very large or very small. Large-scale financing caters to the needs of large businesses, while small-scale financing answers the needs of tiny enterprises. In a manner reminiscent of Goldilocks' perfect fit, Root Capital - a nonprofit social investment fund based in Cambridge, Mass. - aims to provide much-needed capital to help such medium-sized businesses grow. Last night, students and faculty alike gathered in the Plant Scienc...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 — Latin America

IGNIA Completes Second Closing, Bringing Fund I to $34M

Source: Venture Capital News
GARZA GARCIA, Mexico, November 25, 2008-- IGNIA Fund I, L.P., Latin America's first social venture fund, announced today it has reached a total of US$34 million in equity commitments by completing its second closing. Investors include the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a US family foundation, and European and Latin American individuals. This round of US$13.6 million builds on IGNIA's initial closing of $20.6 million announced in early Jun...
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 — Latin America

Retailer at Home in the Favelas

Source: Financial Times
The live music is by Exaltasamba and, as it pounds out of stacks of loudspeakers, the singer gets -the several hundred people in front of the store dancing, jumping and waving their arms as if there is no -tomorrow. It is 9.30 am and the show has been put on for the opening of a new S?o Paulo outlet of Casas Bahia, a Brazilian retailer of furniture and electrical goods. The store is one of the chain's 550 in Brazil and its first to open in a favela - one of the sprawl...
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008 — Latin America

Mexican microfinance institution Compartamos breaks silence since IPO

Source: Financial Express
Breaking their silence since their April 2007 IPO, Carlos Danel and Carlos Labarthe, co-founders of Compartamos, the leading Mexican microfinance bank, publish an excerpt of their newly released Letter to Our Peers in the latest issue of the magazine Microfinance Insights. The authors, who have been criticized by members of the microfinance community since their IPO brought in extraordinary returns, acknowledge in the letter that social and economic goals can reinforce each other,...
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Monday, June 30, 2008 — Latin America

Doing good by doing very nicely indeed

Source: Economist
For years Muhammad Yunus reigned as the public face of microfinance. It seemed only right when, in 2006, the Bangladeshi economist cum social entrepreneur and his Grameen Bank shared the Nobel peace prize for a micro-lending revolution that has helped millions to earn their own way out of poverty. Yet for the past year or so, microfinance has had another public face, one that troubles people like Mr Yunus. CompartamosBanco argues that the best way for microfinance to help the poor is for it t...
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Thursday, June 19, 2008 — Latin America

Latin America's Poor Provide Rich Pickings

Source: The Guardian
Peruvian housewife Genoveva Airaconda spends her days visiting neighbours around her shanty town on the outskirts of Lima. It might not sound like a profitable pastime, but her visits provide a steady income for her family as well as adding to the bottom line of Swiss-based multinational Nestl?. Airaconda is one of hundreds of door-to-door salespeople that the food giant has recently employed to sell their nutritional products in the Peruvian capital. By usi...
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008 — Latin America

Latin America: Social innovation ? Giving the majority a stake

Source: Ethical Corporation
Latin American companies are getting to grips with ?bottom of the pyramid? business. Illiterate residents across rural Bolivia have never heard of the academic CK Prahalad. And until recently many had never used modern banking services. They still don?t know who Prahalad is, but now they are withdrawing money from a voice-recognition ATM developed by Prodem, a microfinance institution. In addition to understanding verbal instructions, the specially adapted bank ...
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Thursday, March 06, 2008 — Latin America

Grupo Salinas Founder and Chairman Ricardo B. Salinas Addresses FIU Highilighting Opportunities at t

Source: IT Business Net
With a presentation entitled Selling to the Poor: a 100-Year Success Story, Mr. Salinas shared some of the entrepreneurial and social development opportunities of businesses that focus on low-income consumers, a market referred to by University of Michigan Business School Professor C.K. Prahalad as the Bottom of the Pyramid. The best solution to the problem of poverty is to create wealth, argued Mr. Salinas. We need to look for new entrepre...
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Thursday, February 28, 2008 — Latin America

Hacer negocio con los pobres

Source: Expansion
Suena pol?ticamente incorrecto, pero quiz? la manera m?s efectiva de luchar contra la pobreza sea convertir en ?clientes' a los m?s desfavorecidos. Por su parte, las empresas que lo consigan descubrir?n un mercado de 4.000 millones de personas. En tiempos de globalizaci?n, no hay pieza m?s codiciada por una multinacional que descubrir un nuevo mercado. Para muchos, es posible que no haya que rebuscar tanto para encontrarlo y, de paso, ayudar en la lucha contra la pobreza y el s...
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Monday, November 26, 2007 — Latin America

En el Punto de Mira: Somos Pobres, Pero Somos Muchos

Source: Compromiso Empresarial
Spanish language magazine Compromiso Empresarial (Oct. 2007) has two pieces specifically focused on the importance and growth of BOP markets worldwide: En el Punto de Mira: Somos Pobres, Pero Somos Muchos (Spanish only) Entrevista con Rob Katz (Spanish only) See the attached files, or sign up to ...
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Monday, November 26, 2007 — Latin America

The Base of the Latin American Pyramid

Source: RGE Monitor
By Otaviano Canuto Thomas Trebat was right when he remarked here yesterday an enormous share of the Latin American wealth generated in recent years has piled up in the hands of a privileged few that may or may not be playing a useful role in turning the present boom into self-sustained econ...
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Tuesday, October 02, 2007 — Latin America

Business-friendly Reforms Best Way to Advance Latin America Economies

Source: San Jose Mercury News
What irony! When it comes to cutting government red tape and creating a pro-business atmosphere, communist-ruled China, Vietnam and former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe are moving much faster than most of Latin America. A new World Bank report - Doing Business 2008 - which looks at the ease of doing business in 178 countries around the world, says countries such as Croatia, Georgia, Estonia, China, India and Egypt were the most aggressive last year in adopting pro-business ref...
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Thursday, August 02, 2007 — Latin America

?No es fascinante?

Source: El Universal
LA pobreza es, para algunos agudos analistas socioecon?micos, la riqueza del futuro y empieza a transformarse de problema en oportunidad. Ha empezado a surgir un creciente inter?s alrededor de un tema trascendente para la humanidad: la posibilidad de crear masivamente modelos de negocios rentables que permiten a la vez, generar utilidades y lograr la superaci?n de las comunidades m?s pobres. Lo que es m?s, crear oportunidades de negocio con y para la poblaci?n m?s pobre no ...
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007 — Latin America

P&G's Global Target: Shelves of Tiny Stores

Source: Wall Street Journal
Every day, Martina P?rez D?az spends about five hours sewing 70 pairs of black loafers by hand for a wage of 120 pesos, or about $11. When she wants to wash her hair, she walks to her local tiendita, or small store, to buy a 0.34 ounce, single-use packet of Procter & Gamble Co.'s Head & Shoulders shampoo. The price: two pesos, or about 19 cents. That I usually can afford, she says. [Martina Perez Diaz] Shoppers like Ms. D?az factor heavily i...
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Thursday, April 19, 2007 — Latin America

How Magazine Luiza Courts the Poor

Source: HBS Working Knowledge
Inspiration for a new case can strike at any time. For Harvard Business School professor Frances X. Frei, the time and place was one morning at home while reading The New York Times. An article on the front page of the Business section about an innovative Brazilian retailer prompted an immediate e-mail to Gustavo Herrero (HBS MBA '76), executive director of the School's Latin America Research Center (LARC). Herrero responded promptly, and with the assistance of LARC senior researcher Ric...
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Monday, August 07, 2006 — Latin America

Clinton Speaks on Poverty and Politics in Latin America

Source: IDB America
A highlight of the IDB?s ?Building Opportunities for the Majority? conference in June was a conversation between Luis Alberto Moreno, the Bank?s president, and Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States. Clinton participated in the conference because the IDB?s new initiative dovetails with many of the activities of the William J. Clinton Foundation. Moreno and Clinton discussed a wide range of topics, including inequality, trade, alternative energy, AIDS and the rewards of public serv...
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Monday, July 17, 2006 — Latin America

New business in new markets

Source: World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Excerpt: Despite some progress, the Millennium Development Goals remain elusive. The role of the private sector in helping to deliver these goals is increasingly being recognized, and many are urging the business community to mobilize and strengthen its contribution to poverty-reduction strategies. A partnership between the Netherlands' development organization SNV and the WBCSD aims at helping companies in Central America and the Andean regions do more pro-poor business, especia...
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Friday, June 30, 2006 — Latin America

Peso power brings hope to poor

Source: Financial Times
Excerpt: E very weekend Hilario Amador makes the short journey to the city centre of Zacatecas where he deposits 120 pesos with Patrimonio Hoy, a self-help building scheme run by Cemex, Mexico's largest cement company. The money is equal to about 20 per cent of his weekly wage at a local abattoir and it has allowed the 38-year-old to receive regular supplies of the materials he needs to tile the floor, repair the roof and build two extra rooms...
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Thursday, June 29, 2006 — Latin America

Banco ProCredit looks to boost loan portfolio 57% this year - Ecuador

Source: Business News Americas
Excerpt: Ecuadorian niche bank Banco ProCredit aims to increase its loan portfolio to US$115mn by the end of this year, up 57% on end-2005, CEO Pedro Arriola told BNamericas. The bank's strategy focuses on strong growth in the small and microenterprises segment, a significant increase in its deposits base and development of a wide range of financial products, the executive said. The average loan extended by ProCredit is US$2,500 and its clients typically earn just US$5...
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Monday, June 26, 2006 — Latin America

Development bank seeks new approach to Latin America's problems

Source: Miami Herald
Excerpt: With leftist politicians on the rise throughout Latin America, Washington policymakers are turning their sights on the left-behind majorities fueling the populist surge. It is the latest struggle for the hearts and minds of people in a region swept first by free market reforms favored by the U.S. government and now buffeted by a shift to more home-grown policies that sometimes fly in the face of the United States. Sensing a seismic shift in South American sentimen...
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Friday, June 23, 2006 — Latin America

The World Is Hot

Source: The New York Times
Abstract: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes about climate change and its impact in the developing world. Note: TimesSelect is needed to view this article....
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006 — Latin America

PM to address IDB conference in Washington DC

Source: Radio Jamaica
Abstract: Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller is one of many speakers at the Inter-American Bank's conference, "Building Opportunity for the Majority."...
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006 — Latin America

Too soon to call a turn

Source: Financial Times
Abstract: In an opinion piece, Richard Lapper explores the possibility of shifting political winds in Latin America. He also discusses the BOP and the new agenda of Inter-American Development Bank, which is being pushed ahead in full force by the Bank's new president, Luis Alberto Moreno....
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Monday, May 22, 2006 — Latin America

Source: Foxnews.com
Mary Jo Foley Cut-rate PC/hardware Windows XP Starter Edition bundles aren't Microsoft's only solution for bringing computing to the masses. Microsoft (MSFT) unveiled a new financing program designed to make PCs more affordable to emerging-market customers on May 22, the day before the kick-off of its annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle. The new pay-as-you-go program and associated metering technology that enables it are k...
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Monday, May 15, 2006 — Latin America

Nestl?: Corporate Citizenship and the Value Chain

Source: GreenBiz News
Nestl? is traveling its own road with a proposed new corporate social responsibility model. By Ken Stier Nestl?'s recently unveiled Latin America corporate social responsibility report is the food giant's bear-hug attempt to understand its operational impacts across a vast sourcing, production and distribution chain. It is also a stab at defining a new corporate responsibility model, one that sits more comfortably with the firm's defiantly unap...
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Monday, May 01, 2006 — Latin America

Incubating Entrepreneurs

Source: IDB America
In Chile, a novel training program pairs business-school students with low-income entrepreneurs in a mutually enriching partnership. By Nicole Keller When M?nica Civilo decided to start her own business, she felt disadvantaged because she had no access to financing. (Banks generally require businesses to be up and running, or at least to put up collateral for a loan.) Once she did manage to get the money together, the family toymaker found herself in a complicated situation. ?...
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Thursday, April 06, 2006 — Latin America

Source: PC World
Chip maker moves forward with plans to sell an affordable desktop PC in developing countries. Jeremy Kirk Intel has partnered with a Mexican telecoms company to sell an affordable PC designed for first-time computer users in developing countries. It's the latest effort by technology vendors to develop products for emerging markets. Advertisement Intel said the PC would be a small, energy efficient system with full-featured PC technologies. It will be cheaper than...
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Monday, November 21, 2005 — Latin America

Fonkoze Helps Transform Microfinance to Reach the Poorest of the Poor in Haiti

Source: Socialfunds.com
After convening a summit on how to modify microfinance to serve the extreme poor, Fonkoze adapts a model pioneered by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee. SocialFunds.com -- Marie and Roland may seem like perfect candidates for microfinance, which extends small loans and technical support to the poor to help lift themselves from poverty. Marie sold items at market in Thomonde, Haiti, and her husband Roland worked as a sharecropper planting millet and corn--until they were diag...
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005 — Latin America

Switch to the Low-Income Customer

Source: Financial Times
?We?ve changed our standard of innovation so we can serve more of the world?s consumers. So it?s now a better brand experience for the target consumer and a lower product cost structure than the competition can deliver.? Gilbert Cloyd, Procter & Gamble?s chief technology officer, unfolds a disposable nappy on a table at the company?s Cincinnati headquarters. With a lightly elasticated edge and a basic inner lining, it is a prototype that, if proven commerciall...
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Monday, November 14, 2005 — Latin America

Pro Mujer Launches Integrated Microfinance Program in Argentina, Targets the Most Impoverished

Source: Yahoo! Finance
Pro Mujer, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Latin America's poorest women help themselves through micro-credit, business training and health care linkages announced today the launch of operations in its fifth Latin American country, Argentina. With financial support from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Pro Mujer plans to initiate operations in the province of Salta, Northern Argentina at the beginning of December 2005. An Argentine wine tasting event will be held Nov...
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 — Latin America

Latin American companies find new business partners in unexpected places

Source: WBCSD News
?We need to provide opportunities all the way down to the base of the pyramid to alleviate poverty? International companies in Colombia and El Salvador are learning what it takes to do business with the low-income communities in their own backyards. Sustainable livelihoods is a practical way to do business in Latin America, sa...
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Monday, October 17, 2005 — Latin America

Source: Finance for Development
Banco Uno Panama and Banco Uno El Salvador are granted a seven-year loan totaling USD 27.5 million by the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO) and its German partner DEG. The loan is to be used to extend Banco Uno's credit card services to lower-income households. This will give many such households in Central America for the first time access to financial services. This will allow them to borrow and save money and thus gain access to the formal economy. Grupo Financiero...
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Wednesday, September 01, 2004 — Latin America

Mexico's Cemex Feeds Kilns A Cheap Refinery Leftover Called Petroleum Coke

Source: The Wall Street Journal
Cemex's success in reducing its energy expense offers an unusual lesson in global business, showing what a developing-world company can do when forced to deal with competition from the developed world. In some cases the difficult operating environments of emerging markets -- economic turbulence, high borrowing costs, creaky infrastructure and corruption -- can act as a rigorous corporate boot camp, breeding the kind of innovation that makes for lean competitors on the world stage."...
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Saturday, March 20, 2004 — Latin America

6 Truths about Emerging-Market Consumers

Source: strategy+business
They?re brand-aware, savvy shoppers who like mom-and-pop shops more than modern markets, a new pan-Latin study shows. Selling consumer products to Latin America?s 250 million low-income consumers ? men and women who constitute 50 to 60 percent of the region?s population and wield some $120 billion in annual purchasing power ? is more than an attractive opportunity: It is a necessity for large corporations trying to accelerate their growth. ...
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