Searchlight participants who attended “The Future of the Urban Poor” convening in Mumbai in April 2011 offer thoughts on their site visits to pro-poor initiatives in Mumbai. Attendees discuss the need and role of these social enterprises in their current context as well as in the writer’s home region. UNLtd  is a seed fund and incubator for social entrepreneurs.

By Aidan Eyakuze, Society for International Development (Tanzania)

Two social enterprises that were talked about during our visit to UNLtd caught my attention. The first was the story of “Nikita and the Night Schools.” Nikita was perhaps UNLtd’s first client. Her passion was to improve the quality of the night schools attended by so many of Mumbai’s young adults in a bid to further their education and give themselves an advantage in the competitive job market. Nikita had engaged with 10 schools and 650 students to improve infrastructure, find ways of incentivizing the teachers, and was working on persuading the local and state governments to take over the schools to ensure minimum quality standards. Continue reading

For one week in April 2011, global participants of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Searchlight function were hosted by Beyond Profit publisher Intellecap and convened in Mumbai to discuss the future of the urban poor in different geographies. Participants attended workshops on various forecasting models, as well as field visits to Dharavi and various social enterprises. Throughout this week, Beyond Profit will be featuring reflections by participants about their experiences during the Mumbai convening.

By Claudia Juech and Evan Michelson, The Rockefeller Foundation

The effects of events such as the protests and demonstrations that have combined to create the promise of the Arab Spring, the American subprime mortgage crisis leading to a widespread and deep economic recession, or the Japanese tsunami disrupting global supply chains, tell us that it is becoming more and more difficult to forecast what the future may look like in 10 or 15 years. In our increasingly complex and interdependent world, the high pace of change, trends and discontinuities in demography, lifestyles, technology and economy can rapidly create new opportunities as well as threats. Continue reading

Eureka! is the International Business plan competition organized by IIT Bombay. It aims to create value in the ecosystem as per its belief that entrepreneurs are the ones who will take India and the world to the next level.

With a total prizes worth INR 2.4 million, legal and financial consultancy services, intensive mentoring and an online platform to provide solutions to participants’ queries, Eureka! promotes the best business ideas through various incentives. It’s not just a business plan competition, wherein people only submit their business plans and take away the prize money. It is an entrepreneur’s journey from an executive summary to an actual start-up. The competition is open to all and sees participants from different strata like working professionals, B-schools, Technological Institutes, IITs, NITs and even Medical & Law schools. Continue reading

This story originally appeared in the August 2011 edition of the Searchlight South Asia newsletter created by Intellecap for the Rockefeller Foundation.

Bangladesh has the third largest population in South Asia, after India and Pakistan. In July 2011, the results of Bangladesh’s fifth population census were released. The story behind the country’s latest demographic data foretells how a growing population could very well be a boon for the country if population control strategies are not ramped up.

The population now stands at 142.3 million people, nearly double the country’s 1974 statistic and 18 million more than 10 years ago. This level of growth is approximately equivalent to an annual population growth rate of 1.34% over the past decade. The population density has increased from 834 to 964 people per square kilometer. Nestled among these figures is the conspicuous fact that rural-to-urban migration has increased, thereby putting significant strain on urban facilities and resources. About one-third of Bangladeshis live in urban areas; at the current growth rate, it is projected that by 2040 the total population will balloon to 230 million people where 52% will live in urban areas. Continue reading

This story originally appeared in the August 2011 edition of the Searchlight South Asia newsletter created by Intellecap for the Rockefeller Foundation.

By Carlin Carr

India’s growing middle class has access to more goods, services and products than ever before. This new consumerism heaped atop rapid urbanization has left municipalities with an issue much less glamorous than the new malls, grocery stores and mega-shops dotting the cities. Massive solid waste accumulation has become an overwhelming environmental, health and aesthetic hazard for urban areas. Mumbai, for example, generates nearly 7,025 tons of waste on a daily basis, according to the Bombay Csommunity Public Trust. Yet, as the study points out, this trash is from officially recognized areas of the city and likely leaves out thousands more tons from informal slums. Continue reading

This story originally appeared in the August 2011 edition of the Searchlight South Asia newsletter created by Intellecap for the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Government of India is currently celebrating the fact that per-capita agricultural income is growing faster than overall per-capita income. With its next five-year plan for 2012-2017, the government is targeting a 4% agricultural growth rate. This may seem like good news, especially given recent years’ food inflation. However, the fact that India’s agriculture sector is earning more income has a hidden story: the price of food is increasing with each year, but there are also more mouths to feed each year. It is imperative to understand how much food India will need to grow every year to satisfactorily feed its population, however as presented in this article, India’s food challenges stem from mismanagement more than output. Continue reading

This story originally appeared in the August 2011 edition of the Searchlight South Asia newsletter created by Intellecap for the Rockefeller Foundation.

By Usha Ganesh

Tahmima Anam, a Bangladeshi writer in India to promote her latest book, said in a recent interview that Dhaka is a city bursting at the seams but with a surprisingly tangible energy of possibility. This energy—often driven by an overwhelming necessity to act quickly in a country of extreme poverty—has ignited innovation in many areas, development included. Bangladesh’s unique approaches to poverty reduction and inclusive growth have been exhibited most recently by the different ways in which mobile telecommunication is being harnessed by the development sector. While mobile phones have increasingly become ubiquitous in developing countries, Bangladesh has taken the technology’s capabilities a step further. Many new initiatives have leveraged the sheer number of people using mobile phones (76.4 million in Bangladesh), as well as the capabilities of mobile phones to promote inclusivity and access around education, health, banking, among others. Neighboring countries, it turns out, have lagged behind in the effort to leverage mobile phones for development purposes: India, for example, has a significantly higher number of mobile subscribers at over 700 million and tele-density of 67% and would seem to be a place where new technologies could be exploited in many different ways. This, however, is not the case. Continue reading

This story originally appeared in the July 2011 edition of the Searchlight South Asia newsletter created by Intellecap for the Rockefeller Foundation.

By Carlin Carr

Last month, the Punjab government in India announced a plan to map all cities in the province using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The technology will capture a satellite image of roads, railways stations, bus stands and public offices, and is meant to help the government more “scientifically” plan for the growth of its urban areas.  The program will commence with six cities in Punjab out of 142 planned nationwide under the National Urban Information system. While urban planning is essential to equitable growth of cities, the mapping initiative in India fails to include essential information to understanding poverty and basic service needs of the poor. By leaving aside this information in its groundwork planning exercise, the government is poised to develop city plans that overlook the real needs of these marginalized communities. Continue reading

This story originally appeared in the July 2011 edition of the Searchlight South Asia newsletter created by Intellecap for the Rockefeller Foundation.

By Nisha Kumar Kulkarni

Introduction

India is the only country in the South Asia region that is on its way to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. According to the Millennium Development Goals Report 2011, it is projected that poverty rates will fall to 22% in 2015 from 51% in 1990. The report shows that extreme poverty in India and China combined has reduced by approximately 455 million people, and it is expected that poverty in both countries will reduce by an additional 320 million by 2015. This is not insignificant progress, but the task at hand in India is colossal. Continue reading

Sankalp 2012 partners with the 3^rd ISB iDiya Challenge, a competition that aims to be a launchpad for high impact, self-sustaining social businesses in India. Initiated in 2009, iDiya exclusively targets working professionals and focuses on business ideas that create a measurable social impact.

iDiya is ISB’s nationwide Social Business Ideas Competition and has this year again partnered with the Sankalp Forum to jointly recognize and award some of the most sustainable and scalable social businesses in the country. Continue reading