Increasing Access To Energy Through Enterprise
On Saturday, 29th of March, many westerners switched off their lights to celebrate Earth Hour. The Big Ben, Times Square in New York and the Kremlin in Moscow were just a few of the iconic landmarks that joined millions of people who dimmed their lights to raise awareness about saving energy and reducing our carbon […]
How Selling Energy as a Service meets The Poor's Needs
Rather than trying to sell energy products with high up-front costs, innovative businesses are selling energy services A good starting point for a business is usually to target customers with money, and in places that are easy to reach. So it might not seem an obvious business opportunity to provide electricity to the 1.3 billion […]
How Selling Energy as a Service meets The Poor’s Needs
Rather than trying to sell energy products with high up-front costs, innovative businesses are selling energy services A good starting point for a business is usually to target customers with money, and in places that are easy to reach. So it might not seem an obvious business opportunity to provide electricity to the 1.3 billion […]
The Sun Is Shining On West Africa And Solar Microgrids
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part article on Persistent Energy Partners (PEP) and its first acquisition in Ghana. In part one, Christopher Aidun, PEP’s managing partner, discussed the strategy behind the fund (formerly E+Co) and its focus on off-grid solar technologies. In this post, we take a closer look at PEP’s first […]
Persistent Energy Partners Look To Solar Horizon
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part article on Persistent Energy Partners and its first acquisition in Ghana. In part two, we take a closer look at PEP’s first acquisition and its position in the pay-as-you-go solar sector for low-income markets. In some ways, the business model for delivering products and services to […]
KARIBU Solar Power: Making Quality Solar Affordable
From Dream to Reality Initially started by then-banker, Adam Camenzuli, and his friends from York University (Canada) in 2012 our team seeks to address one of the many issues hindering African economic development: kerosene usage. Did you know that over 500 million people across Africa have little to no access to safe sources of light […]
Making Bluetooth Work For Rural Low-Income Families
By Vincenzo Capogna, Innovation Manager, SunnyMoney SunnyMoney is a social enterprise founded by London-based charity SolarAid and we are the largest seller of pico-solar lights in Africa. A pico-solar light is a compact portable device that uses a photovoltaic panel to produce up to 10watts of power. Combined with advanced batteries and LED bulbs it […]
GravityLight: Designing for the BoP
Globally, 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity. Millions more are ‘under-electrified’, with unreliable and sporadic supply. Instead they typically rely on kerosene for lighting. Hazardous, expensive and polluting, there is a real need to replace kerosene with a safer, sustainable and affordable light. GravityLight was born from a challenge by SolarAid to […]
Survey
Inclusive Business In Asia – Abuzz With Potential
Photo: Selling fish in Myanmar Asia, the most populated continent, is well used to fast growth. But as the call for inclusive growth gets stronger, attention is turning to inclusive business. During April and May the team at the Practitioner Hub for Inclusive Business have been in touch with a host of contributors across the […]
In Defence of Fair Trade
The School of African and Asian Studies – SOAS – has just produced a coruscating critique of fair trade. The research report is based on field work among wage workers on coffee and flower farms in Ethiopia and Uganda. It finds ‘unambiguously’ that Fairtrade has made no positive difference to wage workers. It finds that […]
Working For The Common Good
Fairtrade’s new Workers’ Rights Strategy has thus far focused on increasing the benefits of Fairtrade for workers on large commercial farms. However, we also recognise that many small producer organizations and their members also employ waged workers and that the number of such workers is increasing as a result of the growth of Fairtrade and […]
A 'Coopetitive' Business Model For Financial Inclusion
“Same: Same, but different” – We have all seen this printed on t-shirts across the world. It is a similar story here in Nepal with the shared access mobile financial services platform “Hello Paisa” – that is now beginning to scale up. The Hello Paisa platform is currently live with 8 partner banks – and […]
A ‘Coopetitive’ Business Model For Financial Inclusion
“Same: Same, but different” – We have all seen this printed on t-shirts across the world. It is a similar story here in Nepal with the shared access mobile financial services platform “Hello Paisa” – that is now beginning to scale up. The Hello Paisa platform is currently live with 8 partner banks – and […]
Three Ways to Bridge the Employability Gap
What are the skills needed for employability in the 21st century economy? And what innovative models are needed to deliver these skills to students? In early 2012, Results for Development Institute (R4D) embarked on a research study that examined the skills needed for employment in Africa and Asia. This two year project, funded by the […]
Linking Socio-Economic Impact and Business Strategy
Hanging By A Thread: Workers’ Rights And Lives
Campaigning On Workers’ Rights In One Sector Can Bring Important Gains – But In Doing So, We Must Not Ignore The Needs Of Vulnerable Workers In Other Sectors I was working in my room on the fourth floor of a hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s busy capital, when I saw a man hanging by a rope. […]
Fashion Industry Workers: Shock Absorbers Or Assets?
The problem of bad labour conditions in the garment supply chain is quite straightforward. If brands and retailers direct orders to wherever they get the best combination of (lowest) price, quality and delivery, suppliers have two choices. Either they constantly increase their efficiency in order to lower unit costs, or they constantly cut every cost […]
How Can We Strengthen Food Security In South-East Asia?
This week at the World Economic Forum on East Asia, held in the Philippines, the region’s governments and senior leaders will explore ways to accelerate sustainable agricultural growth and achieve food security through market-based multistakeholder initiatives Home to 600 million people, South-East Asia has enjoyed vibrant and fast-paced growth. The member states of the Association […]
Profit Follows Purpose
“There is considerable potential for business and social impact goals to align.” That sentiment was heard repeatedly at the 2nd TA Initiative Summit, held May 5-7 in Nairobi, Kenya. Organized by Acumen, the 3-day event brought together intrapreneurs from global corporations and social entrepreneurs from throughout East and West Africa to explore the potential for […]