Session Title:
Asset-Building among the Poor: Effective Strategies in the US and Developing World Markets

Date of talk or publication:
December 13-14, 2004

Description:

Market-based approaches to eradicating poverty: New roles for NGOs
Increasingly, NGOs are working with business to help improve the way markets function for the poor and building scaleable solutions to systemic social challenges. We will look at two examples of NGOs that are using market-based strategies to expand economic opportunities for the poor: one transforming global trade in commodities and the other affecting local labor markets in the United States. In addition, we will hear about lessons learned from the Ford Foundation's Corporate Involvement Initiative, which invested close to $50 million to support market-based strategies to building assets in poor communities around the world.

Moderator: John Weiser [0]
Principal, Brody Weiser Burns Consultants

Terri Feeley [0]
Executive Director, SFWorks

Michele Kahane [0]
Former Program Officer, Ford Foundation
Director, Special Projects, Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College

Paul Rice [0]
Chief Executive Officer, TransFair USA