The World Resources Institute (WRI) and Nextbillion.net recently published a great interview with C. K. Prahalad on the role of private enterprise in development and poverty alleviation. Prahalad is the author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid and one of…
A few headlines regarding the World Bank recently caught my eye, mostly because they are not the usual development headlines I am used to reading. In the Business Standard’s “Migration to urban areas is good, says World Bank,” and domain-b.com’s…
Aahar: Meals for Poor at Rs. 5, has won the grand prize ($10,000) at the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) as reported by IndiaPRwire. The business plan was presented by a group of students from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management…
Whether you are an individual investor, an institutional fund, or a microfinance organization, the issue of returns on social investment is always a concern. The difference is usually in the approach that each stakeholder may take in measuring these returns. …
To start, I want to say that my mind has been racing despite sleep deprivation and jet lag since I touched down in Mumbai at 0135 IST this morning. This is the first I have set foot in India since…
This winter, through the gracious support of the Social Equity Venture Fund (S.E.VEN), I will be working in Cairo, Egypt with Click Diagnostics, a mobile tele-health social enterprise venture that recently won the $100K Entrepreneurship Competition hosted yearly at MIT. As…
Last night I had the good fortune of sitting in on a talk given by Nancy Barry, a pioneer in the field of creating private, market-based solutions to poverty alleviation for women across the globe. Her talk was very powerful…
A quick insight from Ryan Gunderson of Riches for Good: India is the most favored country for social entrepreneurs around the world. According to his research, India has “over 75% of the top organizations [in the field] working there.”
Why is India…
The field of microfinance is hot these days – some would argue too hot, in fact. In this flurry of activity, it seems its originally intended purpose – service to the poor – is in danger of being overshadowed by…
The composition of the microfinance sector is becoming increasingly hybridized, as microfinance institutions (MFIs) morph into profit-making entities, and global financial institutions such as Citigroup, Inc. or HSBC Holdings become (unintended) vectors of poverty alleviation (refer to “Global Financial Institutions…
