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Doing business with the poor

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Suri Natun Juger Pratyasha

Suri Natun Juger Pratyasha is an NGO in West Bengal. The organisation undertakes socio-economic development programmes in rural Bengal for the welfare of marginalized communities, in particular, women for whom it provides confidence building programmes, vocational training and income generating...

Starbucks and Fairtrade partner in Rwanda

Starbucks, Fairtrade organisations join in sustainable development efforts in Rwanda; new Rwanda Fairtrade Certified Coffee coming to UK Starbucks in 2010; business forum explores entrepreneurial spirit focusing on responsible capitalism.

Royal Climate Care

Royal Climate Care is an Indian company that provides services relating to energy, the environment, climate change, carbon markets and sustainable development.

Vitmark includes the poor in its value chain.

Vitmark, a leading beverages producer in Ukraine, includes the poor at various points of its value chain: as suppliers of locally grown quality produce, as employees, and as low-income consumers through the offering of low-price juices.

Saraman builds earthquake- proof houses in Iran

Saraman, a start-up company in Isfahan, central Iran, is an example of addressing housing and construction challenges in a profitable way. The company designs, fabricates and erects affordable, earthquake-proof pre-fabricated steel structures for houses, schools and hospitals.

Reuters Market Light: Creating Efficient Markets

Reuters Market Light (RML), a business incubated by Thomson Reuters, is a pioneering mobile phone-based agri information service provider. The service is designed to provide farmers with personalised timely and actionable agricultural information from pre-sowing to post-harvest stages through SMS...

Pot-in-pot Enterprise: Fridge for the Poor

In 2000, Mohammed Bah Abba was awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise for his innovative Pot-in-Pot system to provide affordable, electricity free, refrigeration in arid Nigeria.

Vaatsalya Hospitals: Affordable Healthcare in Proximity

Vaatsalya is a for-profit chain of hospitals and clinics which aims to provide quality healthcare to semi-urban and rural areas and was started by doctors-turned-entrepreneurs Ashwin Naik and Veerendra Hiremath in 2005.

Allianz, UNDP and GTZ partner for a three-country study on Micro-insurance

In 2006, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) approached Allianz to work together on a market potential study to analyse the demand, acceptability and affordability of microinsurance products.

Ouro Verde is part of the New Ventures initiative at the World Resources Institute

Brazilian entrepreneur Luis Laranja's company, Ouro Verde, is part of the New Ventures initiative at the World Resources Institute. New Ventures works with small and medium enterprises that have positive environmental impacts, and helps grow environmental entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

Private Sector Supply-Chains Incorporating Social Enterprises

Some big businesses are currently active in the social business and enterprise sector using their skills to help entrepreneurs improve their business skills.

Corporate charitable partnerships come alive with Five Talents

Five Talents UK, a microfinance charity, has secured several corporate partnerships which have had a transformative effect.

WaterCredit Initiative: Connecting Micro-finance to Water and Sanitation

The WaterCredit Initiative is an initiative of WaterCredit Partners, an organisation with a long history of providing grants to assist communities with water supply and sanitation (WSS) services.

MDI Betterday Fairtrade Products: Better Quality, Better Health and Better for Society

MDI is a young and small 20 staff company specialized in equitable trade of agricultural products, including coffee, green tea, jasmine tea, snow mountain tea and cashews grown in eight provinces across Vietnam under the trademark Betterday Fairtrade. Production and primary processing of products...

Partnerships allow Maison Energy to provide energy to rural communities in Morocco

About two million people live without access to electricity in Morocco, mostly in remote rural areas where scattered and unevenly distributed homes make their connection to the national power grid difficult. As a solution, the National Office of Electricity (ONE) opted for a decentralized system of...

Mai Vietnamese Handicrafts: Crafting a Brighter Tomorrow for Disavantaged Women and Minorities in Vietnam

Mai Vietnamese Handicrafts (MVH) is a small and successful business, founded in 1990 by two passionate and energetic women. Building on the belief that social development is intricately tied to economic self‐reliance, Mai Vietnamese Handicrafts reaches out to artisans in underdeveloped areas and...

Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE): Linking Small-Scale Farmers to National and Regional Markets

KACE is the first and only national agricultural commodity exchange in Kenya, and it differentiates itself by dealing with a variety of commodities of which maize and beans are the most heavily traded. KACE acting as an intermediary further empowers rural farmers with market information and...

International Development Enterprise partner with Government to provide low cost irrigation technologies in Nepal

International Development Enterprise (IDE) is a development organization that operates in 11 countries worldwide with the aim of creating income opportunities for poor rural households in developing countries. IDE Nepal was established in 1992 with the aim of developing low-cost irrigation...

Turkish Trailblazer: Boosting Rural Areas through Business Investment

This is a study about a female entrepreneur in Turkey who achieved business success by breaking from the conventional practices preferred by others in her industry and investing in poorer parts of Turkey. Clothing, the industry in which the entrepreneur is operating, is one of the Turkish economy’s...

Multinational Corporations fund Hathay Bunano Proshikshan Society (HBPS), an NGO trying to promote the emploment of women in Bangladesh

While many NGOs in Bangladesh try to generate employment for the poor through microcredit, Hathay Bunano Proshikhan Samity (HBPS) chose to provide direct employment opportunities for poor women in rural areas, with special preference given to disadvantaged groups. Since 2005, the company produces...