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Wednesday, May 01, 2013 — Asia Pacific

We're Not Prepared For China's Deadly Bird Flu

Source: Forbes
In Asia, more than 120 people have been sickened, and 23 are dead, from a potent strain of bird flu that has the frightening markings of a potential pandemic strain.
TAGS:health care, public health
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Coming, ready or not

Source: The Economist
The threat of a global pandemic is rising again.
TAGS:health care, public health
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Micro loans reverse poverty cycle

Source: The Australian
With an average loan of about $150, more than two million families in India, Indonesia, The Philippines, China and Ghana are leaving poverty behind thanks to Opportunity International Australia.
TAGS:Microfinance
Tuesday, April 09, 2013 — Asia Pacific

World experts debate case for new bird flu vaccine; China confident it can control outbreak

Source: Deccan Chronicle
Experts from around the world are in daily talks about the threat posed by a deadly new strain of bird flu in China, including discussions on if and when to start making a vaccine.
TAGS:health care, public health
Tuesday, April 09, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Product Development Partnerships Applaud Japan’s First Public-Private Partnership to Spearhead Innovation in Global Health

Source: TB Alliance
As Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) dedicated to the discovery, development and delivery of new global health tools, we applaud the official launch of the Global Health Innovation and Technology Fund (GHIT Fund), which was announced today in Tokyo, Japan.
TAGS:health care, public health
Thursday, April 04, 2013 — Asia Pacific

No sign of human transmission in new bird flu appearance-WHO

Source: Alert Net
The World Health Organization says no evidence has emerged to show that a type of bird flu which has killed two Chinese men can be transmitted between people.
TAGS:health care, public health
Monday, March 25, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Bankers ride boom in social enterprises

Source: South China Morning Post
Putting private capital to public service is booming in Asia, and some investment bankers are quitting their high-profile jobs to support "clean and green" enterprises.
TAGS:social enterprise, social entrepreneur
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 — Asia Pacific

IDB's assignment: A proposal to reform private sector operations

Source: Devex
The Inter-American Development Bank’s annual meeting has concluded with a lot of promise for businesses in the region, from the establishment of a new Chinese cofinanced fund to a plan to streamline the activities of the bank’s private sector windows.
TAGS:impact investing, poverty alleviation
Friday, March 01, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Growth and Poverty

Source: Inquirer News
The ten years of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gave the Philippines a much faster economic growth at around 4.8 percent annually. The only decade-long gross domestic product (GDP) growth higher than this was recorded in the 1950s.
TAGS:Poverty, poverty alleviation
Thursday, February 21, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Q&A: Inovio CEO on DNA Vaccines

Source: The Wall Street Journal
One area of biotechnology that has drawn a lot of attention in recent years is DNA vaccines.
TAGS:health care, public health
Monday, February 18, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Global Health Threat Seen in Overuse of Antibiotics on Chinese Pig Farms

Source: The New York Times
As Europe continues to recoil at the “horseburger” scandal, focusing minds on the risks in long food-production chains, a new study has found that high use of antibiotics in Chinese pig farms is producing antibiotic-resistant genes that pose “a potential worldwide human health risk.”
TAGS:public health, sanitation
Monday, January 21, 2013 — Asia Pacific

China, UK unveil joint global health program

Source: China Daily
The Chinese and British governments are cooperating on a program to improve global health policy for developing countries, with the launch in Beijing on Jan. 16 of a new UK-China partnership.
TAGS:health care, public health
Wednesday, January 09, 2013 — Asia Pacific

S’pore firm and Mongolian government create ‘Medical Silk Road’ to improve healthcare with mobile technology

Source: SGEntrepreneurs
The Mongolian government has partnered with Singapore’s Borderless Healthcare Group to improve rural healthcare through the use of mobile technology. The initiative is dubbed the ‘Medical Silk Road’.
TAGS:health care, mobile applications, rural healthcare delivery, telemedicine
Tuesday, January 08, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Chinese microcredit firms lend 600 bln yuan

Source: People's Daily Online
BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese microcredit companies reported 600 billion yuan (96.31 billion U.S. dollars) in outstanding loans by the end of last year, up 52 percent year on year, an association head said Tuesday.
TAGS:Microfinance
Wednesday, January 02, 2013 — Asia Pacific

Getting at the Heart of China’s Public Health Crisis

Source: Council on Foreign Relations Blog
Trying to wrap one’s arms around China today is a significant challenge. It is a global power with a growing economy, rising military, and expanding diplomatic reach.
TAGS:public health
Wednesday, November 07, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Education boosts role of local women

Source: China Daily
Women in the Tibet autonomous region enjoy rising social status and are stepping beyond their traditional roles, according to an official at the Tibet Women's Federation.
TAGS:education, financial inclusion, Women
Friday, November 02, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Businesses urged to take lead in supporting social enterprises

Source: Channel News Asia
SINGAPORE : Acting Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing has said that while the government supports social enterprises, more businesses still need to take the lead in growing the sector.
TAGS:corporate engagement, social enterprise
Wednesday, October 31, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Micro Benefits to be Recognized at the G20 Summit for Improving the Livelihoods of China's Factory Workers

Source: Market Watch Press Release
SUZHOU, China, Oct 31, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- In collaboration with the G20 Mexico Summit, Ashoka Changemakers(R) has named Micro Benefits one of five finalists in a worldwide social impact competition - the G2012 Mexico Financial Inclusion Challenge: Innovative Solutions for Unlocking Access. More than half the world's population - some 2.7 billion adults - lack access to basic financial services such as affordable credit, savings and insurance products.
TAGS:conferences, financial inclusion, microcredit, microinsurance
Tuesday, October 30, 2012 — Asia Pacific

How social enterprise movement can stop acts of terrorism

Source: The Jakarta Post
Nothing is new in the use of social enterprise to promote peace. The phenomenon has won global recognition with Nobel Peace prize awarded to social entrepreneurs like Wangari Maathai of the Greenbelt Movement in 2004, Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank in 2006 and former US vice president and environmental campaigner Al Gore in 2007.
TAGS:social development, social enterprise
Thursday, October 25, 2012 — Asia Pacific

DBS China launches social enterprise program

Source: China Daily
Development Bank of Singapore (China) announced the launch of a program to support the development of social enterprises in China on Wednesday.
TAGS:corporate engagement, skill development, social enterprise
Tuesday, October 23, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Creating space for social enterprise in Singapore

Source: The Guardian
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" That is probably the most common question I would get from any family member, friends of family and head-patting adults in general. It was a question that I enjoyed answering when I was 10. The possibilities were endless. But I also wondered why adults like asking that question. Was it because they found a need to keep up with our fleeting, fantastic answers, or was it that they like to reminisce on what could have been for themselves?
TAGS:incubators, social enterprise
Monday, October 22, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Earthquake Recovery in Japan: Entrepreneurs to the Rescue

Source: Triple Pundit
“Disaster relief” usually brings to mind images of tents, food and water convoys, and emergency medicine. But since 2011's earthquake, tsunami, and reactor meltdown in the Tohoku region of Japan, a Tokyo-based social entrepreneurship group called ETIC has added a whole new dimension: an entrepreneurial recovery effort.
TAGS:social enterprise, transportation
Monday, October 22, 2012 — Asia Pacific

IIX, SEAS Sign MoU To Promote Growth Of Social Enterprises In Asia Pacific

Source: Bernama
SINGAPORE, Oct 22 (Bernama) -- Impact Investment Exchange Asia (IIX) and the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS), today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to solidify joint efforts to promote the Social Enterprise (SE) space in the sustainable energy sector.
TAGS:impact investing, social enterprise, sustainability
Thursday, October 18, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Bush Food Gathers Momentum as a Social Enterprise

Source: Pro Bono Australia
The concept of ‘bush tucker’ is uniquely Australian - romanticised by Hollywood as something Crocodile Dundee survived on - but now a group of Indigenous Queenslanders wants to turn the harvesting of native bush foods into a sustainable social enterprise.
TAGS:consumer products, nutrition, social enterprise
Wednesday, October 10, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Oxfam launches fund to make 'impact investments' in the developing world

Source: Third Sector
The overseas aid charity is linking up with the City of London Corporation and Symbiotics to help small and medium-sized enterprises, with the first investment in Mongolia
TAGS:impact investing, investment fund, Microfinance, social impact
Monday, October 08, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Entrepreneur brings color to the desert

Source: China Daily
A man-made oasis in China's seventh biggest desert, Kubuqi, on the southern bank of the Yellow River, has been the backdrop for several international environmental events this year.
TAGS:entrepreneurship, social impact, sustainability
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Grameen Foundation and eBay Foundation – A Mobile Commerce Approach to Poverty Alleviation

Source: Huffington Post
Recognizing the opportunity offered by this technology, Grameen Foundation and eBay Foundation began working together this summer to build solutions that address market challenges facing microentrepreneurs in Indonesia.
TAGS:microenterprise, mobile applications
Thursday, August 30, 2012 — Asia Pacific

New Impact Investing Stock Exchange Is Making Steady Progress

Source: Forbes
It looks as though The Impact Exchange Board, or the iX, a ground-breaking publicly regulated social stock exchange, has been making steady progress since it launched about a year ago.
TAGS:impact investing, social enterprise
Wednesday, August 29, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Haircuts Can be Serious Business for Myanmar Women

Source: The Jakarta Globe
Khin May Phyo, 18, fought back tears as she bickered with the barber over the length of her haircut. “If you want to make 20,000 kyat [23 dollars], then it has to be cut here,” said Kay Aye Mon, chopping the girl’s waist-length hair at the base of her neck with her palm.
TAGS:poverty alleviation
Tuesday, August 21, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Rural banks partner with telcos to boost microfinance

Source: The Manila Times
Rural banks will soon have their own set of “killer apps” to better compete with bigger banks and, more importantly, expand their microfinance services in the Philippines.
TAGS:financial inclusion, Microfinance, mobile applications, mobile banking
Friday, August 17, 2012 — Asia Pacific

The size and scale of Chinese social entrepreneurship

Source: Guardian
While the social entrepreneurship field has been around for several decades in some countries, it has only begun to emerge in China in the last decade. So there is little understanding about the current organisational structures, origin, size, scope of work and impact of social enterprises in China.
TAGS:social enterprise
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 — Asia Pacific

TISS, DBS Bank tie-up to support social entrepreneurship

Source: First Post
Singapore-based DBS Bank and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) joined hands to launch a programme which will support social entrepreneurship.
TAGS:investment fund, multinational corporation, social enterprise
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 — Asia Pacific

$627M to fund anti-poverty program in 2013

Source: Business Mirror
The government will roll out a $627-million poverty-alleviation program in rural areas by August next year. Dubbed as the Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP), the government will seek a loan of $500 million from the World Bank to fund the initiative.
TAGS:rural development
Tuesday, June 26, 2012 — Asia Pacific

More people in Asia making impact investments

Source: Channel News Asia
SINGAPORE: Investing with a social cause has caught on in Asia. Some 400 participants gathered in Singapore for an inaugural forum on impact investing. The forum, co-hosted by Singapore-based social enterprise Impact Investment Shujog and Impact Investment Exchange Asia was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Asian Development Bank.
TAGS:impact investing
Monday, June 25, 2012 — Asia Pacific

The new sexy: Social entrepreneurship

Source: Rappler
MANILA, Philippines - “We want to make social entrepreneurship sexy,” says Karl Satinitigan, the 24-year-old director of Gawad Kalinga’s Center for Social Innovation or CSI, a program that trains aspiring social entrepreneurs.
TAGS:social entrepreneur
Thursday, May 31, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Little Impact Seen From China Private Capital Push

Source: Wall Street Journal
SHANGHAI—China's pledge to give private capital real access to the nation's lucrative banking sector has triggered more skepticism than excitement, with analysts saying entry barriers remain firmly in place.
TAGS:Microfinance
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 — Asia Pacific

The ‘Grandfather’ of Social Enterprise, Steve Lawrence Dies

Source: Pro Bono Australia
The man described as the the grandfather of social enterprise in Australia, Steve Lawrence has died after a long battle with cancer aged 60.
TAGS:social entrepreneur
Tuesday, May 08, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Omidyar Network Executive Forum Unites Business Leaders Investing In Social Change

Source: Huffington Post
One network of top executives is proving that good business means wise investments -- specifically investments in people who have the power to create global change but may simply lack opportunity.
TAGS:impact investing
Tuesday, May 08, 2012 — Asia Pacific

5 Clever Hacks for Becoming a Social Entrepreneur

Source: Forbes
Social entrepreneurs create innovative solutions for tackling the world’s most vexing social problems. Whether they’re solving hunger, improving the environment, or fighting for political freedom, these entrepreneurs place social missions at the center of their business activities — aiming to maximize social value instead of profits, though both are important for maintaining a sustainable organization.
TAGS:social entrepreneur
Monday, April 23, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Environmental Index Could Save Rural Communities

Source: Phys Org
By creating the world's first long-term record of ecosystem health, Chinese and UK researchers have identified where specific social and economic policies have damaged the environment in eastern China. The work shows that wealth generation over recent decades is damaging essential ecosystem services on which the poorest rely - things like food, fuel, and clean water.
TAGS:Impact Assessment, poverty alleviation, rural development, sustainability
Thursday, April 19, 2012 — Asia Pacific

The Life-Changing Power of a Good Nap—And a Smart Business Plan

Source: GOOD
Yellow Leaf Hammocks, a rising socially conscious lifestyle brand, could have launched fast after its inspiring moment only to crash and burn. Yet smart planning and business sense gave the company the organic, slow-growth start that offers it the best shot at a sustainable future. Howyou run your company is just as important as why.
TAGS:consumer products, social enterprise
Thursday, April 12, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Microinsurance in Rapid Expansion Says ILO, Munich Re Report

Source: Insurance Journal
According to the Microinsurance Innovation Facility of the International Labor Organizationand the Munich Re Foundation, “the number of microinsurance schemes worldwide has increased substantially over the past five years and now reaches an estimated 500 million worldwide.”
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, financial inclusion, microinsurance
Friday, March 30, 2012 — Asia Pacific

All Wrong On Poverty & Aid

Source: Dawn.com
IT is our claim that the debates on poverty and aid have gone off the rails. On poverty, it is too narrow, quibbling about a few percentage points above or below some historical number.
TAGS:Impact Assessment, Poverty
Friday, March 30, 2012 — Asia Pacific

BoP Boom in Japan Part I

Source: CSR Asia
The year 2009 was referred to as “The first year of BoP in Japan”. Not only did the Japanese translation of the late Prof. Prahalad’s “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” received much attention, BoP market analyzation that focused on emerging markets in Asia and African countries gained wide recognition too.
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, business development, corporate social responsibility, social business
Monday, March 26, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Microfinance Experience in PHL Shows the Poor Can Be Insured

Source: BusinessMirror
The Philippine success in extending microfinance credit to the poor shows that this sector at and below the poverty threshold could also become worthy of insurance coverage, the Insurance Commission here said.
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, Microfinance, microinsurance
Thursday, March 22, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Economists Demonstrate One Size Does Not Fit All for Microfinance Programs

Source: MarketWatch
New Study Reveals Wide Variance in Results from Thai Million Baht Village Fund Large-scale microfinance programs are widely used as a tool to fight poverty in developing countries, but a recent study from the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty suggests that they can have varying results for participants and may be the most cost-effective use of funds only in limited situations.
TAGS:Microfinance, rural development
Monday, March 19, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Facebook-style Microcredit Site Helps China Farmers

Source: NewStraitsTimes
BEIJING: Dairy farmer Deligeerma needs 642 to buy fodder for her cows during the harsh winter months in northern China. So far, she has received 149 in pledges from four people around the world.
TAGS:agribusiness, entrepreneurship, farmers, financial inclusion, Microfinance
Friday, March 09, 2012 — Asia Pacific

IFC To Start $100M Microfinance Debt Fund

Source: VCCircle
International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, along with two other investors, will set up a $100 million debt fund called Micro Finance Initiative for Asia (MIFA), to address the funding needs of microfinance institutions in developing and underdeveloped economies.
TAGS:financial inclusion, Microfinance
Wednesday, March 07, 2012 — Asia Pacific

ADB Plans to Invest $100M in Environment Fund

Source: Inquirer Business
The Asian Development Bank is expected to invest about $100 million in a multinational fund that will be put up to boost investments in environment-related technologies and projects in developing countries like the Philippines.
TAGS:impact investing, investment fund, renewable energy, technology
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 — Asia Pacific

Alliance Pushes Social Entrepreneurship Bill

Source: Manilla Bulletin Publishing Corporation
An alliance of farmers, workers, community enterprises, business associations and fair trade groups is pushing for the approval of a measure designed to institutionalize social entrepreneurship (SE) nationwide.
TAGS:Base of the Pyramid, social enterprise
Friday, December 09, 2011 — Asia Pacific

IFC Stakes 18.9% Equity in ACCION

Source: Vanguard
ACCION International, parent company of Accion Nigeria and a pioneer in global microfinance, has signed an agreement with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group focused exclusively on the private sector, in which IFC will invest approximately $1 million in ACCION's Chinese affiliate, ACCION Microfinance China (AMC). The investment will enable ACCION to strengthen the operations of AMC, which it launched in December 2009 in Chifeng Prefecture, Inner Mongolia, to deliver financial serv...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 — Asia Pacific

China Raises Poverty Line: Is it Setting an Example for Poverty Alleviation?

Source: International Business Times
China announced a new standard for defining poverty on Tuesday as it seeks to bridge the gap between the country's wealthier and poorer classes. The central authorities have decided to raise the poverty threshold to 2,300 yuan ($362), in terms of a farmer's annual net income, which marks an 80 percent rise from the 1,274 yuan standard in 2010. The 2010 figure was itself the result of marked revision; the standard was 206 yu...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, November 28, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Bringing Online Education to Mongolia, in Wireless Backpacks

Source: Fast Company
As a turbulent snowstorm whips across the vast, desolate Mongolian grasslands, a group of schoolchildren huddle over laptops, their eyes transfixed as the sagacious Sal Khan works through Newtonian physics. But Khan is only reaching these kids because of a bold initiative from another creative edupreneur: Neil Dsouza , age 27, cofounder of TeachAClass.org , ...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Indonesia?s Green Prosperity

Source: Brookings
On November 19, 2011, in Bali, Indonesia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a new partnership agreement with the Government of Indonesia providing more than $600 million of U.S. aid through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). More than half of these investments are dedicated to "green prosperity"-the sound idea that sustainable natural resource management and clean energy technologies accelerate economic growth and poverty alleviation. What does this mean in practical te...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, November 18, 2011 — Asia Pacific

China Reports Dramatic Drop in Rural Poverty

Source: CNN
China has reported a dramatic decrease in rural poverty over the last decade. The number of rural citizens living below the national rural poverty line fell from 94.2 million people (10.2% of the rural population) in 2000, to 26.88 million (2.8%) last year, according to figures released Wednesday by China's State Council. The sharp drop occurred despite the fact the national rural poverty benc...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, November 14, 2011 — Asia Pacific

People from India, China Potential Customers for Future: President Barack Obama

Source: The Economic Times
WASHINGTON: Appreciative of achievements made in a short span of time by India and China in areas like poverty alleviation, US President Barack Obama has told top CEOs from the Asia-Pacific region that people of the two Asian giants are "potential customers" for the future. "Whether it's China, whether it's India, these emerging countries, what they're accomplishing in a few short decades -- a...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, October 31, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Bill Gates and the Chinese Government Want to Take On World Hunger

Source: Fast Company
The world's largest charitable foundation and one of the world's more totalitarian governments might seem like odd bedfellows, but both, it turns out, have similar goals. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that they are launching a far-reaching partnership with the Chinese government for international aid work on Wednesday. Over the coming months and years, the Gates Foundation and the Chinese Ministry of Scie...
TAGS:No Tags
Thursday, October 27, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Micro Credit Providing a Lifeline

Source: China Daily
Small-business owners are becoming more reliant on non-governmental organizations to provide capital. Chen Jia reports from Shaanxi province. Chinese farmers finding it hard to obtain bank loans are turning to micro-credit organizations to help them launch their own businesses, amid the accelerated expansion of the non-governmental financial system. With savings of only 1,000 yuan ($157) and no other income five years ago, Li Wenqin, a farmer in her 50s, never thought that she wou...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Wealthy Indonesians Start Sharing the Wealth

Source: The Jakarta Post
There are few places in the word where such vast contrasts exist that one can watch a Bentley overtaking a bajaj on city streets, an act that symbolizes the scale of economic inequality throughout the country. However, several determined Indonesians are aiming to take matters into their own hands as a means to provide greater opportunities to those who are less fortunate. Sandiaga Uno, a successful investor and CEO of Saratoga Capital, has found a unique way to link hi...
TAGS:agribusiness
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Cambodia: A Place for Pioneer Investors

Source: CNN
Phnom Penh, Cambodia (CNN) - The most common image of Cambodia is the land of ancient temples and budget travelers. There's now something else putting Cambodia on the map: foreign investors. Cambodia's devastating recent history set the country back a generation. From 1975-78, the Communist Khmer Rouge killed intellectuals, destroyed the education system and pushed for an agrarian society that required families to be uprooted and separated. By the end of t...
TAGS:Citi Foundation, leadership
Thursday, September 22, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Thriving Social Enterprise Empowers Rural Poor in Philippines

Source: Justmeans
Gandang Kalikasan, Inc. of Philippines has emerged as one of the sterling examples of how social enterprises can make a difference while being profitable at the same time. GKI is a unique social enterprise that was established four years ago by two sisters in Philippines, Anna Meloto-Wilk and Camille Meloto. It is now making a meaningful difference to the lives of thousands of rural poor in Philippines, while running an internationally successful business. Sisters Anna Meloto-Wil...
TAGS:consumer products
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Citi Increases its Microfinance Work Across the Region

Source: FinanceAsia
While most banks across Asia seem to be focusing on the high-net-worth market in Asia, some are also concentrating on the promising mass market. Most view licences in China as an opportunity to capitalise on the China Dream; others see microfinance as a means to build long-standing relationships across the region. According to the India Development Foundation, nearly 9 million Indian households that had access to microfinance moved above the $1.25 a day consumption threshold between 199...
TAGS:supply chains
Thursday, September 08, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Citi Gives New Funds to Microfinance Group

Source: The Asset
Citi has committed new funding for the Banking with the Poor Network (BWTP), the only pan-Asia microfinance network, as part of its continued commitment to promoting financial inclusion globally. Citi Foundation grants worth USD200,000 will enable the BWTP Network to provide secretariat services to the APEC Business Advisory Council's Advisory Group on Financial Inclusion and also build its capacity to support BWTP members consisting of microfinance institutions, commercial banks, c...
TAGS:supply chains
Wednesday, September 07, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Show Me Your Pricing Data: Transparency Helps Philippines Lead Global Microfinance

Source: Justmeans
"The Philippines receives a perfect score...for the way it regulates the microcredit activities of established financial institutions." -- Economist Intelligence Unit,"Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment" [1] The microfinance industry has taken a beating lately. In March, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunnus was ousted from his position as managing director of the microcredit lender Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which he founded in 1983, by the ...
TAGS:financial inclusion
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 — Asia Pacific

USD 7.7 Mn Japanese Aid for Nepal to Fight Poverty

Source: ZeeNews.com
Kathmandu: Japan has granted USD 7.7 million to help Nepal reduce poverty and child malnutrition. The Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction has granted the amount for three projects which will be administered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ADB has teamed up with the government of Japan and government of Nepal to help reduce child malnutrition, develop new livelihood opportunity for the poor and provide greater access to clean energy for poor rural woman through ...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, August 29, 2011 — Asia Pacific

When Communities Identify Their Own Poor, Aid Has the Most Effect

Source: Fast Company
When governments and NGOs plan on giving assistance to the most needy, how do they know who needs the most assistance? It's a question people are at great pains to answer, yet social welfare programs around the world are still plagued by error and abuse. That has not deterred the development of programs to help people escape extreme poverty. But because the poor--especially those earning less than $2 or $3 per day--typically hold informal jobs with no official records about their earnings...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, August 26, 2011 — Asia Pacific

East Asia Invests in Basic Sanitation

Source: Microfinance Focus
A series of reports by the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program highlights that households that invest in basic sanitation have a better standard of living and thus could increase up to seven fold the return on investment in economic benefits in East Asia. The reports are a follow up to the Economics of Sanitation Initiative (ESI) launched in East Asian countries in 2007. The new reports contain a case study analysis on the costs and benefits of investing in basic improvements ...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Rags2Riches Empowers Impoverished Women to Turn Recycled Scrap into Haute Couture

Source: Fast Company
Reese Fernandez-Ruiz was teaching children math, science, and reading skills in Payatas--one of the Philippines' biggest dump sites--when she noticed something: local mothers were making foot rugs out of scrap cloth that was furnished to them by a group of middlemen, who got the cloth directly from a factory and retrieved the finished products to sell. The mothers made a total of 20 cents per day. Before the middlemen came along, the mothers took the scrap cloth directly from the local du...
TAGS:consumer products
Tuesday, August 02, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Rural Chinese Shake Off Poverty Through Self-Development

Source: Xinhua
BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) -- On a muggy summer day in Xiuning County of central Anhui Province, Wu Fengfeng still chops wood with a five-kilogram carpenter axe in a workshop of the non-profit Desheng Carpentry School. The 18-year-old boy, who is from a poor rural family in Xiuning, said his only task now is to master the techniques of making the four-sided "immortal eight" table and palace chair -- two types of traditional Chinese furniture -- so that he can "graduate soon and make mone...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Bringing Light to the Poor, One Liter at a Time [Video]

Source: Reuters
A bottled liter of water with a few teaspoons of bleach is proving to be a successful recipe for dwellers in the light-deprived slums of the Philippines. The simple technology is spreading sunlight in places where it has never been, and saving residents money at the same time. Gemma Haines reports. ...
TAGS:business case
Thursday, June 30, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Nestl? to Continue (BoP) Expansion in Philippines

Source: Inquirer.net
Consumer goods giant Nestlé Philippines Inc. will be investing more in the country in the coming years, in a bid to offer new products to more markets, particularly consumers on the extreme top and bottom of the economic pyramid. In an interview with the Inquirer on Thursday, Nestlé Philippines chairman and chief executive John Martin Miller said the company, while already serving a wide spectrum of Filipino consumers, still had markets that were largely untapped. "W...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Roads and Rice: How Innovation and Infrastructure Can Feed the World

Source: Guardian.co.uk
As a new diplomat in 1968, I was assigned not to the chandeliered ballrooms of Europe (as I had hoped) but to the Mekong Delta of Vietnam , as a rural development adviser. The green revolution was just beginning to spread around the world, and a new "miracle rice", known as IR-8, developed at the International Ric...
TAGS:No Tags
Friday, June 10, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Closing the Loop between Sanitation and Food Security for the ?Base of the Pyramid?

Source: American Chronicle
If consumers in the advanced Western economies have a hard time swallowing the idea of drinking water recycled from sewage, that may be nothing compared with what those in the Philippines have to go through when they consider eating foods raised from fertilizer recycled from human wastes. But that´s exactly what a local foundation based in the boondocks of Mindanao has been advocating, and is now actively looking for "technology off-takers" who are willing to partner with t...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 — Asia Pacific

The Path From Charity to Profit

Source: The New York Times
By Tina Rosenberg On Tuesday I wrote about Kedai Balitaku , a for-profit company started last year by the development group Mercy Corps in Indonesia. Mercy Corps took...
TAGS:No Tags
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 — Asia Pacific

In ?Food Deserts,? Oases of Nutrition

Source: The New York Times
Poor urban neighborhoods in America are often food deserts - places where it is difficult to find fresh food. There are few grocery stores; people may do all their shopping at bodegas, where the only available produce and meat are canned peaches and Spam. If they want fruits and vegetables and chicken and fish, they have to take a bus to a grocery store. The lack of fresh food creates a vicious cycle; children grow up never seeing it or acquiring a taste for it.&...
TAGS:No Tags
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 — Asia Pacific

IDB Providing $3.3b to Help Indonesia Hit Growth Target

Source: The Jakarta Globe
The Islamic Development Bank on Wednesday agreed to provide as much as $3.3 billion of financing through 2014 to speed Indonesia's economic growth. "We are focusing on poverty, health and infrastructure. In line with IDB's strategic priorities, we are committing to provide soft loans for its member, including Indonesia," bank president Ahmad Mohammed Ali said. The Saudi Arabia-based bank's Member Countries Partnership Strategy program helps its 56...
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Foundation commits $2.2 mill for efforts at Hopkins-Nanjing

Source: The JHU Gazette
The Hassenfeld Family Foundation has committed $2.2 million to the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies to establish a social enterprise competition and fellowships at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in China. The Hassenfeld Social Enterprise Fund will enable Chinese, American and other international graduate students to work together to develop real-world outcomes through innovative projects, while the Hassenfeld Fe...
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Friday, March 18, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Avon Budgets RM100m Micro Credit Loans

Source: Business Times
Avon Cosmetics (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, the largest direct selling cosmetics company in Malaysia, allocates micro credit loans of RM100 million annually to provide business opportunities, especially for women. "Through the Avon micro credit loans financing, we provide loans of between RM1,000 to RM70,000 to distributors without a deposit or interest," said Avon president Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, Mansoor Wan Abdullah. He was speaking to reporters after ...
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Monday, March 14, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Amid Japan?s Earthquake, Entrepreneurship

Source: Forbes
By Elmira Bayrasli 700 times. That's how much stronger, the U.S. Geological Survey says , Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake in northern Japan was than the one that hit Haiti at 7.0 last year. Luckily the damage and the loss of life in Japan, though in the hundreds of thousands, was not 700 times larger. ...
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Wednesday, March 09, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Wen Jiabao Vows To Eradicate Chinese Poverty By 2020

Source: Forbes
Chinese authorities have released a series of announcements indicating that they might be beginning to correct their share of the so-called "global imbalances" by channeling domestic spending and revving up imports. While Premier Wen Jiabao announced on Saturday that his administration would look to "actively boost consumer demand," the government-approved China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) announced a record number of Chinese trade delegations would make the...
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Friday, February 04, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Behind the Seams: The Disadvantaged Women Creating Hong Kong Fashion

Source: CNN Go
The founders of Dialog Worldbutik, Malaysian Dong Shing Chiu and New Generation Award winner Cassandra Postema, started their social business after the 2004 tsunami. They sold " Hope Tee " T-shirts for tsunami relief fundraising and expanded into women's handbags and accessories using recycled materials by 2007. "Eco-friendly and fair trade is our trademark and the stories behind our designs are important. But the design...
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Friday, January 28, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Former Lehman Banker Leads Social Ventures in China, Battles Dyslexia in Schools

Source: Fast Company
China's social entrepreneurship scene is not all that well known , but the Hong Kong-based Avantage Ventures is trying to change that by infusing the country with a hefty dose of capital and mentorship. The company is led by founder Yvonne Li, a former investment banker with Lehman Brothers, who has a particular zest ...
TAGS:consumer products
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Investing In China's Future One Student At A Time

Source: The Huffington Post
For Calvin Chin , the road to higher education requires just a few hundred dollars at the right moment. Take Winnie, for instance. She was a senior at Guangzhou University when her father had to quit his teaching job because his eyesight started to fail him. He went back to working...
TAGS:consumer products
Tuesday, January 18, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Diamond Cab Picks Up Hong Kong's Fledgling Social Entrepreneurship Scene

Source: Fast Company
Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new phenomenon in Hong Kong--and one venture philanthropy startup, Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk) , has been at the forefront of the movement, with several investees under its portfolio focused on the elderly and disabled. The group's newest project, Diamond Cab , officially launches next week. "Diamond Cab is the first branded, high-quality taxi servic...
TAGS:agribusiness, consumer products
Thursday, January 13, 2011 — Asia Pacific

China's Top Social Innovators to Watch in 2011

Source: CNN Global
By Calvin Chin I firmly believe that China will be a leader in social innovation. But while there is a tremendous amount of dynamism and energy in this newly emerging sector, ...
TAGS:consumer products
Thursday, January 06, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Can P&G make money in places where people earn $2 a day?

Source: CNNMoney.com
Despite the growing belief that the billions of poor -- what the late management thinker C.K. Prahalad termed the "bottom of the pyramid" -- can actually make up a viable economic market, most attempts to harness it have failed. Procter & Gamble ( PG ), a $79 billion (in sales) company better known for its middle- and upper-middle-class brands than for its low-end offerings, thinks there's another way to re...
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Tuesday, January 04, 2011 — Asia Pacific

Harvard Business Review on Reaching India?s ?Vast Middle?

Source: The Wall Street Journal
The meltdown of the microfinance industry in Andhra Pradesh, as we have noted carries big risks not just for an industry designed to serve the poor but for the entire concept that the poor can be profitable customers. That has been an emerging trend in management thinking about emerging markets in the last few years, in part because of the success of microfinance. But since these matte...
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Monday, December 20, 2010 — Asia Pacific

Facebook for Farmers: Technology Empowers China's Rural Workers

Source: BBC News
China Mobile's Nongxintong - or farming information service - launched four years ago. The company is currently focusing on expanding its delivery in China's west and south-west regions. "Building the mobile network and covering most of the country's administrative villages, we realised that there was only a network signal. In rural areas, this is not enough," explains Liu Jing, a local manager for the service at China Mobile. "It's like havi...
TAGS:No Tags
Monday, December 06, 2010 — Asia Pacific

Unilever Eyes Top and Bottom-end Segments in Developing Markets

Source: channelnewsasia.com
SINGAPORE : Consumer goods giant Unilever wants to straddle both the top and the bottom of the economic pyramid in developing markets. This is part of its strategy to tap Asia's growth potential, and compensate for the slack in its European and North America units. And to support this growth, Unilever has been making invest...
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Monday, November 29, 2010 — Asia Pacific

Social Entrepreneurs Boost Cooperation to Reduce Poverty in Asia

Source: The Korean Times
Innovative thinkers working for social change converged in Seoul, Monday, in a bid to boost cooperation towards alleviating poverty and other problems in Asia. Some 300 agents of change known as social entrepreneurs - those who apply fresh paradigms to solve pressing human issues - gathered in southern Seoul for the second major gathering of the Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit. On the first of two days of dialogue at the Kyoyuk Munwha Hoekwan Hotel, tackling pove...
TAGS:consumer products
Friday, April 02, 2010 — Asia Pacific

Malaysia: Government Programs to Boost SME Sector

Source: The Star
THE New Economic Model (NEM) unveiled by the Government will take into consideration the needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises which form up to 40% of income earners. This group comprises those in the rural and urban population who are unregistered as SMEs. They have low or no business skills and are unaware of aid, training and financing schemes available to them, which further marginalises them in society. T...
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Friday, March 19, 2010 — Asia Pacific

Guangdong to Raise Minimum Wage by Average of 21%

Source: FinFacts
The minimum wage in South China's industrial heartland Guangdong Province, is to be raised by 21 per cent on average to a range from RMB 660 renminbi to 1,030 ($96 to $ 150) a month from May 1st in a bid to attract migrant workers, local authorities said Thursday. Guangdong, north of Hong Kong, in the Pearl River delta region, which is responsible for a third of China's exports and would rank as one of the world's 10 largest exporters if it were a country, is finding it...
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Thursday, March 18, 2010 — Asia Pacific

4,000 Entrepreneurs To Be Created Among Poor Women By 2012

Source: Bernama (Malaysia)
The government targets to create 4,000 women entrepreneurs among the hardcore poor, who are those with a household monthly income of less than RM440, by 2012. Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said this was one of the measures taken to move 44,643 people out of hardcore poverty. She said to date, 1,400 names had been identified for the entrepreneurial programme carried out with the cooperation of 18 ministries and governmen...
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 — Asia Pacific

Rural Banks' Service in the Philippines

Source: Manila Times
Rural banks do the nation a great service that people in the cities seldom give a thought to. They serve a market segment big banks don't want to be bothered with. The money of the farmers, rural businesses and agricultural and fishery entrepreneurs that make up that market segment is too small-and therefore too expensive-for the large commercial banks to attend to. Indivi...
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Thursday, January 07, 2010 — Asia Pacific

A Fresh Start: Asian Villages Carve Out a New Life

Source: Wall Street Journal
The village of Tmatboey in the northern plains of Cambodia seemed to have little going for it. It lacked clean water; there were no real roads. The people toiled mostly at subsistence farming, barely scraping by. The villagers didn't realize they had a valuable asset -- hiding in plain sight, so to speak: a tourist attraction that a niche group of international travelers would happily pay to see, even if it meant a stay in basic accommodations. And now they're making money...
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Wednesday, December 02, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Singapore Firm Eyes Profit in Cheap Toilet Market

Source: Associated Press
SINGAPORE (AP) - Christopher Ng has a dream: Help alleviate a major global health problem by bringing toilets to the world's poor — at a tidy profit. Ng, managing director at Singapore-based Rigel Technology, hopes to sell his state-of-the-art portable, fertilizer-making, toilets for as low as $30 beginning next year, tapping into a multibillion dollar market for proper sanitation in developing countries. It is among the exhibits at the annual World Toilet Summit in Sing...
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Monday, November 16, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Businessweek: A Big Idea for Little Farms

Source: BusinessWeek
In the countryside of Shanxi Province in north-central China, farmer Xie Xin has struggled for years with water shortages. The 47-year-old, who grows tomatoes and cucumbers, had to pay dearly to use the local well, since the region receives an average of only 16.5 inches of rainfall annually. But this year, Xie started participating in an experiment in which farmers use new irrigation equipment to conserve water. The equipment, similar to a garden hose with small holes every foot or so, is ex...
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Thursday, November 12, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Vietnam: Fund for Pro-Poor Businesses Debuts

Source: Saigon Times Daily
The Vietnam Challenge Fund (VCF), a new financial instrument to support new business projects that directly benefit the poor was launched Tuesday in Hanoi. With an initial budget of US$3 million for 2009-2011, the fund is a major component of the "Making Markets Work Better for the Poor Phase 2" initiative. It is backed by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the U.K.'s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), The Saigon Tim...
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Monday, November 02, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Welcome to China's "Wild West" of Capitalism

Source: San Jose Mercury News
Not long ago, Tsoi Chun Bun made potato chips. Now he designs and sells millions of mobile phones a year. He is one of hundreds of young entrepreneurs seeking overnight fortunes in Shenzhen Inc. — the Wild West of the mobile-phone industry. Phones made and designed by these Chinese vendors will account for about a third of the 1.1 billion cell phones that will be sold around the world this year.... ...
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Thursday, October 29, 2009 — Asia Pacific

The Internet Address Goes Global - with Local Languages

Source: Marketplace (NPR)
Bill Radke: The Internet address goes global. The company that acts as the world's clearinghouse for Internet domains is a California-based non-profit called ICANN. Reporter Kurt Achin says ICANN is about to help the Web speak the local language around the world. Kurt Achin: Up until now, Internet users have had to type out web page URLs using the Roman alphabet. But on Friday, ICANN's board -- meeting here in Se...
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Wednesday, October 07, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Understanding Rural and Low Income Customers in Asia

Source: ADOI Magazine
An important segment that marketers cannot ignore in Asia is the bottom of the pyramid and those Asian consumers living in rural areas. The challenges, marketers face in trying to address these consumers are high and risky due to the fragmented nature of the rural market and the low margins of this trade. There is no denying though that rural consumers want to access brands, if only because they are a promise of quality. For Asian marketers interested in tapping the huge rural markets in Asia...
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Wednesday, August 05, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Emerging Market for Medicines

Source: Financial Times
When Haruo Naito, chief executive of Eisai, the Japanese pharmaceutical company, signalled his continued interest in western markets by inaugurating his company's European headquarters in the UK last month, his mind was already elsewhere. "We have already finished our investments in all major areas in the US and Europe," he says. "Now we are thinking about new areas. We are very interested in emerging markets, especially China, India, the Middle East, Turkey and north Africa."
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Thursday, June 18, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Business groups to lend money to SMEs through microfinancing

Source: The Phillippine Star
MANILA, Philippines – Businessmen have committed to helping Filipinos affected by the global economic crunch by lending money for capital to small scale entrepreneurs through microfinance activities. “We have pushed corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the corporate sector for many years from the conferences that we have organized. We have seen CSR evolve as a practice and a responsibility in each corporation’s CSR strategy,” Marilou Erni, League of Corporate...
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Friday, June 05, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Australian group seeks BoP business opportunities

Source: The Age
A T THE tail end of a business conference in the pretty Papua New Guinean coastal town of Madang late last month, a posse of high-powered Australian suits slipped into tropical mufti, climbed aboard a charter plane and flew deep into the wilds of the Southern Highlands interior. Dropping into remote villages over three days, they visited markets and surveyed crops, talked to tribal elders and field workers. They asked lots of questions about how people were making a livi...
TAGS:affordable housing
Monday, May 18, 2009 — Asia Pacific

Moving Beyond the Moving Anecdote

Source: Michigan Ross School of Business
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — For years, groups working on poverty-fighting ventures have used stories, anecdotes, and milestone markers to highlight their work and secure funding. Unfortunately, these things don't actually measure the effectiveness of an organization's effort. Nor do they showcase any unintended consequences, long-term changes, or missed opportunities. But Ross professor Ted London, after several years of field research, has developed a tool that organizations can u...
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008 — Asia Pacific

In a "wise" move Timorese women venture into business after decades of conflict

Source: UNDP
When Timor-Leste descended into a political crisis in April/May 2006, just five years after the restoration of independence from Indonesia, Mrs. Joaquina Da Silva, a 33 year-old mother of four was among the first group of women displaced from the capital, Dili. She then fled to the safe havens of Baucau which is her ancestral homeland. 'When our house was destroyed in Dili, I came here with my displaced family and just nothing else,' she says, her voice chocking with emotion....
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008 — Asia Pacific

Reliance in fresh approach to MTN

Source: Financial Times
India's Reliance Communications has made a fresh approach to acquire MTN, reviving its earlier interest in joining up with the South African mobile carrier to create an emerging markets telecommunications giant. News of the move follows the sudden collapse at the weekend of talks between MTN and Bharti Airtel, India's biggest cellular operator by subscriber numbers and Reliance's arch-rival. The talks with Bharti broke down amid differences over how to structure a proposed...
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008 — Asia Pacific

Reliance takes over wooing elusive target MTN

Source: Financial Times
For India's Reliance Communications, the breakdown of talks between its arch-rival Bharti Airtel and MTN must be a relief. A combination of Bharti, India's number one mobile operator by subscribers, and South Africa's MTN would have created a formidable competitor with 130m subscribers across 22 fast-growing markets in south Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Now, as Reliance pursues its own deal with the South African operator, Bharti's experiences may ho...
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007 — Asia Pacific

ICT has huge role in attracting children: Azim Premji

Source: The Economic Times
Azim Premji shared this thoughts on ICT in education in The Economic Times. An excerpt: One of the few things on which there is consensus across the entire ideological spectrum in economics and politics is that literacy and education are perhaps the most significant drivers of development and democracy. For societies to improve their literacy levels and the quality of their education, multiple complex factors must be worked upon. Information and communication technology (ICT)...
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Hope and despair in micro-finance

Source: Business Standard, India
These last few months have been marked by deals in the microfinance industry never witnessed before. With $12.5m into Spandana (of which $10m came from JM Financial), $11.5m in SKS Microfinance (majority from Silicon Valley-based Sequoia Capital) and a whopping $27m in Share (of which $25 m came from Dubai based Legatum Capital), suddenly all MFI CEOs seem to be talking about raising capital and doing it quick lest they miss the bus. But in a nascent industry MFIs large enough (with ...
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Friday, August 17, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Smart money for India?s rural poor

Source: Fortune
India?s Finance Ministry and Planning Commission are looking into ways of using electronic smart cards to transform the distribution of relatively small amounts of government money to India?s 220 million people who live below the poverty line, and maybe to 200-300 million more who are only marginally better off. This would make it much more difficult for bureaucrats, politicians and middlemen to siphon off the funds as they move down the distribution chain. ?We alr...
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Monday, August 06, 2007 — Asia Pacific

PM: Find Ways to Tackle Poverty

Source: NST Online
Enough talk, let?s find real solutions to poverty in the world. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said immediate action must be taken to resolve the problem of the poor. Let us, therefore, in the next two days, concentrate on finding solutions to this problem, he told some 400 participants at the opening of the Eighth Langkawi International Dialogue (LID) 2007 here last night. LANGKAWI: Enough talk, let?s find real solutions to poverty in the world.
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Thursday, July 19, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Innovate for India's Poor

Source: Wall Street Journal
When the Korean steelmaker Posco decided to invest $11 billion in the bleak hinterland of eastern India, it might have expected to be greeted with flowers. Instead, two Posco executives were recently kidnapped, but later released unharmed, in a protest over government policies to transfer land from struggling farmers to the mega-corporations driving India's modernization. It is only the latest evidence of gathering rage among the hundreds of millions who remain mute spectators to ...
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Friday, June 29, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Microsoft Launches Educational PC In India

Source: Forbes
Microsoft has teamed up with Advanced Micro Devices and India?s Zenith Computers to launch a personal computer aimed at Indian students for 21,000 rupees ($513). The IQ PC will run on AMD Athlon processors and have education software from both Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - ...
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Thursday, June 21, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Big Boom Coming Soon in India's Small Car Segment

Source: The Times of India
Even as competition has built up to unprecedented levels in the car market, one segment has remained untouched - that of entry-level small cars. But that's all set to change from next year, with a slew of cars priced around Rs 1 lakh revving to get off the blocks. Urban planners might be appalled at what this could mean for traffic congestion and parking, but companies - and consumers - are raring to go. The first launch will be that of Tata Motors' much-talked-about Rs 1 la...
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Saturday, March 24, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Global fin giants to go micro in India

Source: The Economic Times
India?s growing microfinance segment may soon see the entry of global financial services giant, Morgan Stanley and the Switzerland-based Blue Orchard Finance. Both these firms are in talks with the banking regulator Reserve Bank of India to foray into the local microfinance segment. Indian microfinance institutions have already started looking at diversifying their avenues to raise funds as part of the effort to lo...
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Thursday, February 15, 2007 — Asia Pacific

PM approves strategy to expand microfinance outreach to 3 mln households

Source: Associated Press of Pakistan
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has approved the strategy to expand microfinance outreach from one million to three million households by 2010. He was chairing a meeting here Wednesday to review the strategy prepared by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to increase the coverage of microfinance sector in Pakistan. The Prime Minister said Pakistan has come a long way in introducing and familiarizing the micro finance concept. However, strategic steps need to be taken and multiple approaches ...
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Monday, February 12, 2007 — Asia Pacific

India, Inc. gets back to the basics

Source: The Economic Times
Salvation in a sachet is passe now. Rural India will no longer be the playing ground of the FMCG bigwigs alone. In fact, many sectors such as telecom, IT, retail and education are at various stages of striking a deal with the aam aadmi. According to a recent Assocham report, the per capita income of semi-urban Indians is around Rs 15,000 per annum, whereas it?s Rs 7,000 per annum for rural populace. As per its findings, by 2012, the per capita income of rural population will do...
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Reliance, Bharti may storm microfinance

Source: The Economic Times
Reliance Retail and Bharti, which has joined hands with Wal-Mart, could storm the micro-credit space as they look to establish rural supply chain linkages to service their mega retail forays. According to sources, Reliance Retail is likely to move the RBI seeking permission to set up an NBFC arm that will operate as a microfinance institution (MFI). It may also look at partnering existing MFIs as part of its ambitious supply chain with rural and semi-urban markets for which the co...
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Friday, January 19, 2007 — Asia Pacific

Source: Xinhua
Now that China eased market entry policies for banking institutions in rural China last month, seven commercial banks have applied to set up a subsidiary in rural areas. On Dec. 22, 2006, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) published proposals to give financial institutions more market access in rural areas. The move was aimed to promote rural development. The CBRC has received applications from Minsheng Bank, Beijing Rural Commercial Bank, Tianjin Rural Cooperat...
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006 — Asia Pacific

China's development 'experiment' key to future growth

Source: World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Maintaining a balance between environmental sustainability and the continuing process of urbanisation is a major issue facing the Chinese, write the researchers. Although much of China's biodiversity is being threatened by rapid economic development and human activities, Tang Zhiyao and colleagues report the existence of ten biodiversity 'hotspots' in mountain ranges that remain largely unaffected. Protecting these mountainous areas is critical for cons...
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Friday, August 18, 2006 — Asia Pacific

Chinese Take a Turn at Turning a Sub-Saharan Profi

Source: New York Times
Through all the iterations of the world?s engagement with Africa, most of its nations have remained stuck in an economic trap in which they primarily supply valuable raw materials to the developed world while serving as a marketplace for cheap manufactured goods.? But China seems to be offering Africa something new, a straightforward business relationship between equals based on mutual interest and noninterference in the internal affairs of its allies. Excerpts: China, it seems, is sudden...
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Wednesday, June 28, 2006 — Asia Pacific

Small business growth could reduce poverty in Indonesia: World Bank

Source: TodayOnline.com
Excerpt: Small businesses, which employ millions of Indonesians, could become major engines of economic growth in this cash-strapped country and help reduce poverty, the World Bank has said. Indonesia's 15.7 million small enterprises make up more than 90 percent of all businesses and employ up to 60 percent of the workforce, outside agriculture, but their growth is hindered by access to credit and poor infrastructure, the World Bank's Indonesia director said in a report rel...
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Thursday, May 18, 2006 — Asia Pacific

Workshop aims to help Vietnam's poor take advantage of markets

Source: Voice of America
An organization called M4P is exploring how poor Vietnamese can escape poverty by taking advantage of the free market. At a recent workshop in Hanoi, experts said that using market forc es to fight poverty is promising, but far from easy.
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Tuesday, May 02, 2006 — Asia Pacific

Enterprise holds key to booming start-ups

Source: chinagate.cn
When Wu Shengying's wine-selling business failed in 2003, he abandoned farming in his hilly village in Shandong Province and turned to an idea that he hoped would please Chinese palates as much as KFC chicken wings [...] and after breaking several thousand eggs in experiments, he finally worked out a formula that he believes strikes a perfect balance between temperature and timing to make good roasted eggs. Wu's roasted eggs, with ...
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Friday, April 07, 2006 — Asia Pacific

Hong Kong's initial foray into BOP enterprise development

Source: Xinhua Online
More than 300 participants from various sectors on Thursday attended the Conference on Social Enterprise to discuss new approach to helping the poor. The conference, jointly organized by the Commission on Poverty and the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, aims to enhance community understanding of social enterprise and explain its relevance to poverty alleviation. The one-day conference was the first of its kind and scale in Hong ...
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Thursday, November 10, 2005 — Asia Pacific

'Missing market' a target for rural growth

Source: Fiji Times Online
THE UN Commission Report Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor is a critical first step in identifying the important role that the private sector must play to ensure that business will work for the poor, Foreign Affairs ministry chief executive Isikeli Mataitoga says. He made the remarks when he launched a Pacific workshop to discuss the report in Suva yesterday. The Report suggests ways for developing and developed countries to develop partnership throug...
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Friday, October 14, 2005 — Asia Pacific

China's Life Insurance Sector Should Tap Rural Areas: McKinsey

Source: Asia Pulse
To strengthen China's emerging life insurance sector the country should make more effort to exploit the huge potential in vast rural regions, suggested a report from McKinsey & Company. According to the report, most insurance companies don't provide sufficient coverage in under-developed areas. New entrants, especially foreign insurers, have concentrated on the wealthiest, most developed areas, leaving vast under-developed areas of the country without recourse to this pow...
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Sunday, April 24, 2005 — Asia Pacific

From aquariums to deminers, NGO spearheads manufacturing in Cambodia

Source: Asia - AFP
New Zealander Phil Elliott was intending to mass-manufacture aquariums for his expanding franchise business in China. But a chance encounter with a non-profit organisation in Cambodia -- a country better known for its war legacy than economic efficiency -- resulted in a change of plans. After a friend hooked him up with Development Technology Workshop (DTW), a charity working with the disabled to build industry in one of the world's poorest countries, the holidaying Elliott hand...
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Monday, January 01, 1900 — Asia Pacific

The new sexy: Social entrepreneurship

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