As part of our interview series, we are delighted to have talked to Rajeev Kher who is CEO of Saraplast, developing 3S Shramik toilets in India. Rajeev discusses the challenges of creating demand for the toilets and the focus on health, sanitation, child mortality and providing dignity. He shares his views on the role that government should play in encouraging new ideas and…

For all of us involved in Mobile Financial Services, the challenges imposed by regulatory mechanisms in different countries related to KYC and AML norms are a big hurdle to address financial inclusion for the BoP segments of the populations we serve! 

Recently the FATF (the global body on AML and CTF) has recently updated their guidance on financial inclusion and have also referred to the GSMA Methodology for Assessing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing risk.  Hope these…

I’ve leant more than I ever expected about toilets the past 6 months. But understanding toilet ventures has taught me a lot about how inclusive business works.

In fact, the challenges and innovations that we can see in two slum sanitation projects – 3S Shramik in India, supported by the Business Innovation Facility, and Sanergy in Kenya, supported by Innovations Against Poverty – illustrate typical issues for businesses that are solving a ‘problem’ and meeting a ‘need’ in a market…

The challenge of rapid and unplanned urbanisation that India is facing and will continue to face over the coming decades needs no introduction. Of the 93 million slum residents in India, 81 per cent have inadequate access to sanitation, according to a 2008-09 National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey* on the characteristics of slums. That is to say, they lack the facility of either an individual toilet or a shared toilet. They are forced to depend on badly maintained and overcrowded…

Please find the article at http://bhutanobserver.bt/303-bo-news-about-its_time_to_redefine_focus_on_microenterprises.aspx

Looking forward to your views.

Happy reading!

Sanjay Gupta 

One of the most common problems that we have encountered in most slums/ informal settlements that, we visited, is the lack of adequate space available. This greatly hinders putting up of new infrastructure such as individual toilets because there is simply not enough room for them.

That has led to the construction of community toilets by the government. Water and electricity is free at these toilets. But the challenge remains in maintenance of the toilets. The foremost cause  is that…

Apologies to those of you that got a Spammer comment on your profile over the weekend, and possibly received an email notification of the comment.  We have hundreds of membership applications that we cannot approve as they are probably spam, but occasionally one slips through.   

The weekend's problem is now removed.  If you ever think we have missed something, go to the 'Report an Issue' button right at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for your tolerance!  Caroline 

As a project moves forward it is critical to track its progress through key indicators and data in order to get valuable feedback on whether or not the project objectives are being addressed, factors that may not have been considered during the design stage or even in the implementation stage sometimes come to light through collection of data and tracking different data sets in the project.

We have been collecting a lot of data for the slum sanitation project in order to improve it as…

For the past year, we have been involved with the slum sanitation project and through the highs and lows of implementing the project we have experienced a lot of learning and change of attitude about what it takes to tackle the issue of sanitation for the urban poor. The team has been involved in various discussions with other stakeholders across sectors that are either directly or indirectly involved with the issue of sanitation for the urban poor and in doing so gained new insights in the…

Poverty remains  a major global concern despite science and technology’s significant contribution to the mindkind. Considering the widespread poverty that exists today, social sector-led poverty projects could at best be termed pilots as the combined impact of these on a national economy is miniscule.  Up-scaling efforts to mainstream them have not met with desired results because of  inadequate business and management capacities of those managing them. Private sector players, though having…

By Charles Henderson of Climate Futures

Moringa Oleifera is a highly nutritious plant, which grows throughout the tropical zones. Its seed oil is also used in cosmetics, and was favoured by the ancient Egyptians, including (it is alleged) Cleopatra herself.

Moringa Miracles Ltd. is developing commercial production in Malawi, for export to Europe, the US and South Africa. With BIF's support, Climate Futures undertook a market study into the size of the health…

I am sharing see the latest Impact Report summarising some recent ADP projects and viewpoints on key organisational and programmatic challenges in the sector. There are summaries for the key domains - Health, Education, Financial Inclusion etc - and the report also highlights three important trends close to your collective inclusive business hearts:

• The changing and expanding role of business in development;
• The continuing potential of technology to increase the impact…

The universally quoted phrase "Money makes the world go around" is intuitively understood by most people. In the context of Malawi, where 74% of the population are excluded from the financial sector and 55% excluded from any financial services at all, the lack of access to money is seriously restricting Malawi's economic world from going around!

As part of the initial scoping of  a Business Innovation Facility project in Malawi, I was engaged to assess the inclusive business potential…

While it is still quite an unusual approach, there are emerging examples of NGOs that spin-off a free-standing, for-profit enterprise from a successful development programme. This can be a good option when an NGO has a development programme that has at its heart a commercial model in which goods or services are produced and sold. The term ‘spin-off’ means that the commercial elements of the programme is re-located from being part of the NGO’s larger operations, to becoming a separate legal…

This report upset my plans.   Last month’s choice was an agriculture report so this month should not be.  But since reading ‘Catalysing  Smallholder Agricultural Finance’ 2 weeks ago, I have had umpteen times when I have referred to its findings in conversations and plans.  So if it’s that useful, I should share it.

The headline finding of a $450 billion gap in agricultural finance for…

When we held our NGO / private sector workshop back in November in Malawi, the unwritten assumption was that NGOs could play a valuable role in helping link the private sector to smallholder suppliers. NGOs have naturally been stepping into this gap since their social programmes mean they are already working closely with communities who need assistance with growing their livelihoods. This role…

Farm Business Advisor at work in Cambodia.  Photo: Sam Faulkner, Nestlé

iDE has 30 years of experience working with…

In between cycle 4 and cycle 5, we in the Innovations Against Poverty (IAP) team have concluded an analysis of the third cycle in the programme.  Out of the 222 applications received, eight projects are selected to be funded. The number of cycle 3 grantees is lower than for the two previous cycles. One explanation…

Kenny Ewan, Programme Manager

Over the past two and a half years, the Cafédirect Producers’ Foundation, a UK based NGO, has developed and piloted WeFarm, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing network for smallholder farmers in the most isolated locations worldwide. Using WeFarm, a farmer can crowdsource a solution to a common agricultural challenge or share an idea, using just a basic mobile phone to send a…