Everything You Wanted to Know About Inclusive Business
The eLab provides an introduction to managers who are tasked and set to create business with low-income communities. It is designed in a way that fits every managers schedule, while providing the most important insights every IB manager should be aware of. Let’s review these two propositions! Insights The eLab consists of 6 modules. Each […]
Inclusive Business as a Tool for Development in Morocco
The National Initiative for Human Development (NIHD)[1] in Morocco promotes inclusive business as an important tool for development. Four factors seem to be especially crucial for the NIHD’s success as an inclusive business policy: Its high visibility as an overarching policy framework, its participatory approach, its collaborative governance and its clear implementation responsibilities. The National […]
Bringing ‘Smart Insurance’ to India´s Poor
Anjali Devi has come a long way from her home in rural Punjab to the public hospital in Mohali, the capital of the district. The three hour bus ride to the hospital has led her and her husband get up early in the morning to make sure that they can make it back home the […]
4 Success Factors for an Inclusive Financial Sector
The potential of Inclusive business models to contribute to poverty eradication and sustainable development is well known – and is increasingly gaining attention among governments and policymakers in general. But many inclusive businesses are facing constraints, hindering them to reach a larger scale. They typically include a lack of information, rules, financial resources, and structure […]
“It´s Inclusive Business, stupid”
Of course, we do not know if Bill Clinton, provided he would run for president today, would frame his presidential campaign like this. But what we know is that today governments and donors would do good in promoting inclusive business and they have a number of policy options at hand to do so – as […]
Sumitomo Chemical and the Market for Bednets
When I first learnt about the partnership of Sumitomo Chemical and A to Z Textile Mills Ltd. in Tanzania it seemed like pure success. In 2007, I was working on the UNDP report “Creating Value for All”, and the story about local manufacturing of mosquito nets was one of my favourite case studies. Sumitomo Chemical, […]
Youth Unemployment in Sierra Leone
The high rate of youth unemployment is one of the challenges the Business Booster is designed to tackle. Now that my time in Sierra Leone is almost over, having spent 10 weeks surrounded by locals at home, in the office and during my free time, and inspired by the theft of my laptop two days […]
Harnessing the Business Potential of Honey
I have recently been focusing my time on a honey production company called KEYDA, one of the two selected youth led companies on whom the business booster will be tested in the third phase of the pilot. To get a better picture of their current status and in order to assure a certain level that […]
Time for Training: After a decade of learning, an executive BoP course comes online
11 years ago, CK Prahalad and Stu Hart published “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.” The article and consecutive book have sparked enormous interest among companies, followed by experimentation, trials, and sometimes, success. However, it quickly became clear that developing inclusive business was far from trivial. The usual management tools did not always […]
Functional Impact Investing Ecosystems Reduce Risk
Impact investors are typically seen as part of the supportive ecosystem inclusive businesses require to start, succeed and go to scale. The second Frankfurt Round Table on Social Finance on June 4, 2013, in Frankfurt, made it clear that impact investors themselves need a supportive ecosystem to reduce costs and risks of investments. The round […]
Beyond income: Understanding the BoP from an access to development perspective
No matter how much practitioners agree on quantifying the Base Of the Pyramid (BOP) based on their access to development and basic needs, we still seem to be loosing the battle against income threshold fundamentalists. Beyond the traditional controversies calculating purchasing power parity (PPP) income measurements, due in part to the lack of comparable basket […]
Commercial Food Processing Entrepreneurs Sierra Leone
I am lucky enough to just arrive at the right time of the year: The month of Independence Day. The Independence Day is a huge event for all Sierra Leoneans and a lot of activities, street celebrations and cultural events are coming with it. This gives me the opportunity to dive into the commercial world […]
Business Booster Project Sierra Leone
Wednesday, 17th April 2013, 18:00 local time: Arrival at the airport in Freetown. Add to it 5 more hours for taxi, waiting, the slowest ferry ride I have seen in my life and another taxi, that’s the time I arrived in downtown Freetown, Sierra Leone. But even though transport and a whole lot of other […]
2013 Series: Measuring Impact, for Impact, London
On Wednesday, 1 May, Business Fights Poverty convened an event with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Business Innovation Facility on “Measuring Impact, for Impact” in London. The event was hosted by Standard Chartered. The event was moderated by Simon Maxwell, Senior Researcher, Overseas Development Institute. The speakers are listed below, along […]
From Micro-Leasing to Micro-Futures – In Search for New Financial Solutions for Smallholders
More than 500 million smallholders provide home and livelihood to more than 2 billion people. Many of them remain in dire poverty. One reason is the lack of access to financial services that would allow these farmers to manage their cash flow, get credit to invest in productivity increases, or manage risks through insurance. Providing […]
Unlearning to innovate: 7 steps entrepreneurs need to know when getting into inclusive business
Dr. Fernando Casado Cañeque. Director, Centre of Partnerships for Development It is typically in crisis situations when the absence of political leadership becomes most evident. In such situations, it is also when social innovation becomes most needed. However, as a concept, for innovation to be really social, it should challenge current thinking models and recognize […]
The BIG Smallholder Opportunity
By Dian Hollman, Program Officer, GIZ and Christina Gradl, Founder and Managing Director, Endeva Over the past few years, agriculture has returned to the center stage of the development agenda – particularly as price fluctuations and demographic growth aggravate the challenge of food security. A staggering 870 million people, 12 percent of the world’s population, […]
Resources for practitioners: inclusive business models in the energy sector
We are delighted to launch a new series of monthly Editorial Specials, in which we highlight our favourite resources on business and development. As the concept of inclusive business takes root and people move from ideas into action, an increasing number of sector-specific reports on inclusive business models have begun to come out. This month, […]
Business Solutions to Enable Energy Access for All
Business solutions to enable energy access for all is the first major publication of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) Access to Energy initiative. It has been released today to coincide with the launch of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All by the United Nations’ Secretary-General, HE Ban Ki-moon. Addressing the […]
Trade not Aid: How tourism is fighting poverty in Latin America
The latest episode in BBC World’s “The Other America” explores Latin America’s development, and the role that tourism can play in tackling poverty. Various examples are given of “inclusive business” that engage poor people in companies’ value chains. For more information, read this blog by Inclusive Business, an initiative of the SNV Netherlands Development Organization […]