Archive for October, 2010

D.I.Y. Foreign-Aid Revolution

Questions for Melinda Gates: The Donor

Turning Values into Action

Water Is Africa’s Lifeblood, FLOW Smartphone App Checks the Pressure

Globalization with Crusoe and Gulliver

The U.S. presidential visit to India in November is causing quite a stir in the Indian business community. A hot topic on President Obama’s agenda is outsourcing. There has been much media coverage about how lucrative the outsourcing business has become for India and how it may be impairing job creation for the depressed U.S. economy. One perspective the media has omitted in reporting is how the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry may be presenting learning and employment opportunities for India’s rural poor. » Continue reading “BPO Opportunities as part of the Poverty Alleviation Toolkit?”

This post is part of our ongoing partnership with GOOD Magazine. Post by Alex Goldmark of GOOD Magazine.

Sometimes you can take two problems, add them together, and get a win-win solution. In this case, here are the two problems: First, as cities expand we create more waste and more sewage, and we don’t have any really good plan for it. And second, we keep making more and more plastic that never goes away, filling landfills or swimming in oceanic garbage patches. So, what’s the natural solution? Why not turn the poop into plastic that biodegrades? Simple, right? Actually, yes. It turns out it is.

Ryan Smith is CTO of Micromidas, and he turns poop into plastic for a living. “We take raw sewage from a waste water treatment plant and we convert it to biodegradable plastic.” He says it is “just a series of tanks, nothing complicated or fancy about it. Nothing that is technically too difficult.” That’s because he gets bacteria to do the hard work for him, and that’s the novelty of his product. Finding the bacteria, and mixing them up into the right combination, that’s a different story. » Continue reading “Bioplastic Made from Poop, for a Profit”

Beyond Profit is proud to announce a new partnership with GOOD Magazine to report on social enterprise in South Asia. Below is our first article.

If you know anything at all about social enterprise, you are probably familiar with the fact that many of the case studies cited as successful are Indian in origin. Case in point: Aravind Eyecare, Jaipur Rugs, Barefoot College, d.Light. It makes you wonder: Is India better at producing social entrepreneurs than other countries? Is there something in the water? And if India really has cornered the social enterprise market, how did they do it?

First, let’s look at what we know. India is massive. It’s bursting at the seams with people, and because one out of every six people on the planet is an Indian, we are statistically more likely to stumble upon Indians anywhere—and some of those people are bound to be social entrepreneurs, right? Of course, a big pile of people does not explain why social enterprises often thrive in India, and the policy environment certainly doesn’t help: There are no freebies for social enterprise, no special legal structures (like the L3C in the US or the CiC in the U.K.), and few policies that help enterprises get funding. In fact, some might say that Indian social enterprises have succeeded in spite of policy, not because of it.

What about funding? Most Indian social entrepreneurs would tell you that they have just as much trouble as the next guy. There are only a handful of “social” or “social/commercial” funds in India, and while there is a frenzy of interest in India from foreign investors, many of them ride on the coattails of domestic funds, investing only after a trusted Indian social investor has made the first move.

So, what makes India different? » Continue reading “Is India Really a Hotbed for Social Enterprise?”

Recent allegations against Indian microfinance institutions (MFIs) by the media and the State have thrown sector stakeholders into a crisis. Accusations against MFIs include coercive practices, lack of transparency, and “usurious” interest rates. These accusations have resulted in the passage of an Ordinance by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh (AP). Intellecap, an India-based social business advisory firm and publisher of Beyond Profit, has released a White Paper in response to the crisis. Thought-provoking and informative, the White Paper analyzes the buildup to the crisis in AP, attempts to revisit some fundamentals of the business, and questions the effectiveness of radical approaches to multiple bottom-line business by the State and the media. We welcome your comments here and at Microfinance Insights.

Download Intellecap’s White Paper here.

Related Reading:

“Killing microfinance will help moneylenders” The Economic Times, 24 October, 2010
“Quash AP ordinance on MFIs, SKS to HC” The Times of India, 22 October, 2010
“India’s microfinance conundrum” The Asian Correspondent, 18 October, 2010

Last night I went to see Waiting for Superman, the new documentary by Davis Guggenheim about the tragic state of the US school system. The film follows five kids in different urban centers across America as they seek a better education than is being offered by the public school system. The education system in America, the film exhorts, is broken. It can be fixed, insist school reformers, if we decentralize and shift the focus from teachers and what they want to children and what they need. “Superman,” it turns out, is a symbol of the change we wish would happen—some outside force that we hope will swoop in and save the day. However, what the film wants us to realize is that as stakeholders in society, we (you and me) have the power to save our schools—and in so doing, can save our kids and communities.

The movie is one more feather in the cap of Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media, which aims to make films with a conscience. If you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth, North Country, Darfur Now, or Fast Food Nation you’ve seen a Participant movie, notable for the fact that they educate as they entertain.

America is not alone in sounding the alarm about the state of the education system. What seems universal is the realization that we can no longer wait for “Superman.” Smart, but uneducated parents around the world know that the only way out of poverty and into a better life is through school. And, they are no longer content to settle for the status quo of teacher absenteeism and mediocre lesson plans. » Continue reading “Waiting for the World to Change”

By Suzanne York

As a nation of 1.1 billion people and growing, with a robust economy, India is a crucial player on the global climate stage.  Will it move from its current reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal, or will it take steps to a clean energy future, and balance an expanding economy and populace with a sustainable environment?  Most of its population is rural and lacks reliable electricity.  The path that India takes will affect not only the lives of Indians, but the rest of the world as well.  It faces a daunting challenge, but there are encouraging signs.

Investing in the Future

On paper at least, India is making strides toward a clean energy future, with a focus on solar.  In 2008 the government launched the National Solar Mission, which calls for an increase in solar energy capacity from around 2 megawatts today to 1,000 MW by 2013 and 20,000 MW by 2022.  It is, without a doubt, an ambitious plan, facing hurdles from the electric grid to financial cost.  But it does show that India is serious, and despite its reliance on coal, oil, and natural gas, leaders and decision-makers seem to know that the future lies in renewable energy. Continue Reading

Shreya Gadepalli admitted in front of an audience of 50 or so people gathered at the Nehru Center in Mumbai last week that she once was an addict. Her vice of choice consumed her thoughts and altered her behavior.

But she was not the type of addict you might think. In fact, she said, most people share her addiction:

Cars

Gadepalli is the Senior Program Director at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and spoke about the importance of getting over our collective addiction to the automobile at the Building Livable Cities 2010 event held in Mumbai and organized by The Urban Vision. » Continue reading “Getting Over Our Collective Addiction to the Automobile”

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the primary provider of jobs around the world—in India alone, the SME sector contributes 45% of the total manufactured output, 40% of total exports, and nearly 60 million jobs. The G20 meeting this November in South Korea will focus on development issues, and in particular, on financing solutions for SMEs. The world is starting to pay attention to this important sector, as are we: Beyond Profit’s current issue looks at how best to finance SMEs.

As always, we want to hear from you! If you have any comments, thoughts, or feedback, leave a comment on a specific post or get in touch.

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This story originally appeared in our October 22, 2010 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Next month, leaders from the G20 will meet in South Korea to talk shop about the global economy. Whereas the main points of discussion on the agenda in the last two years included the regulation of hedge funds and crack downs on tax havens, this year the Summit will focus on development issues, and in particular, on financing solutions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs)—something quite remarkable.

The G20 is a body of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from the world’s 20 leading economies, whose goal is to promote global financial stability and to achieve sustainable economic growth and development. Since the G20 was created in 2008, the Summit has been notable for the raucous and often violent protests that accompany it. Why? Because the creation of the G20 coincided with the onslaught of a global recession, for many the meetings symbolize the vagaries of corporate greed. » Continue reading “Inclusive Growth in Developing Countries: What’s Missing?”