|
Eight Innovative Business Ideas for Low-Income Communities Join the Corporate Leaders Program
Dear Friends,
As I write this, Opportunities for the Majority is in a busy but very exciting time. I’m proud to say that we continue to break new ground with our projects. Highlights of our approvals this quarter include projects with finance company FINAE, which will give low-income Mexican students access to university education through specialized loans; Cooperativa Jardin Azuayo in rural Ecuador, a community-owned credit union that will finance social infrastructure projects; FEDECREDITO, a Salvadoran credit union through which we will support local entrepreneurs by modernizing historic marketplaces; Vision Banco, our first partner in Paraguay, which will help low-income people get loans for expanding or improving their homes; FOPEPRO, a regional fund that will provide loans to small farmers; and Tenda, a Brazilian retailer that plans to offer its low-income customers a variety of value-added services including credit, professional training and insurance products. We will keep you updated on these projects and more.
Meanwhile, we and our partners at Dalberg Global Development Advisors are very proud to be able to announce that eight companies have been selected to take part in our Corporate Leaders Program for Success in Majority Markets. All eight have fresh and ambitious ideas about increasing their engagement with low-income communities through Base of the Pyramid business projects. Dalberg consultants have already started the hard work of helping them develop their business plans, and we’ll follow their progress over the coming months in Dalberg’s new blog.
In September, executives from dozens of companies joined us at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, Brazil to learn about the results of a study of private sector involvement in improving nutrition for the BOP. Whether you work in the food and agro-industrial sectors, or just have a general interest in BOP projects, you’ll want to see the presentations delivered at the conference –just click on the article for those links. And, at the annual Foromic conference in October, we and our colleagues in the Bank’s private sector division held an informative workshop on impact investing, titled “Beyond Financial Return: A New Asset Class for Impact Investors.”
It’s also been a busy fall for our strategic partners. During the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and several other organizations held a conference titled “Accelerating Progress Towards the Millennium Development Goals Through Inclusive Business.”
Global Partnerships closed their $20 million Social Investment Fund 2010, which supports innovative advances in the services offered by microfinance institutions in Latin America. The September issue of the Harvard Business Review included a must-read article by Ashoka’s Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich on “hybrid value chains” as a powerful tool for collaboration between the private and nonprofit sectors. And the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan held the latest in its series of workshops on measuring the impact of BOP business projects on low-income communities.
Looking ahead, we are starting to plan a major event to take place June 28, 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at which we’ll showcase some of the most powerful and effective BOP business strategies we’ve learned and pioneered in our work so far. Mark your calendars and join us there –it will be a great opportunity to celebrate the progress we’ve made, and more importantly, get inspired about bigger, bolder, more innovative ways to find private sector solutions to poverty across Latin America and the Caribbean.
I thank you for your interest in MajorityMarkets.org. Please let us know what topics or organizations you’d like to hear more about on our site.
Best regards,
Luiz Ros
Manager, Opportunities for the Majority
|
