Category Archives: empowering people

Framework for a better future: lecture by Muhammad Yunus

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Prof. Yunus, Nobel Laurete and founder of Grameen Bank gave an inspiring lecture titled “A Framework for a better future: the promise of social business” on May 29th at the British Council. He continues to strongly promote the creation of social businesses as these can address and solve the problems of poverty, health care and environment. Prof. Yunus gave examples of social businesses he has been creating in Bangladesh. In addition to the well know Grameen- Danone (joint venture manufacturing affordable yoghurt full of micronutrients for children in Bangladesh) he mentioned Grameen-Veolia (Veolia is a French water company) creating small water treatment plants and BASF-Grameen which will be providing treated mosquito nets at very little cost. He also mentioned the eye hospitals and a healthcare program to create a nursing college as a social business. In the area of environment Grameen Shakti has been providing affordable solar home systems in Bangladesh for the poor.
Prof. Yunus call for social business is very timely as the current financial crisis is forcing us to think how can we improve or rebuild the financial system so that it is an inclusive system that would include the majority of the people. You can see the transcript and videos (youtube) of the lecture.

Follow-up visit to Luisa’s bakery in Guatemala

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On April 23rd I visited the bakery of Luisa and Luis in Tecpán, Guatemala. Luisa is a client of Fafidess, a leading MFI in Guatemala that provides microcredits, training and technical assistance to groups of Guatemalan indigienous women with limited resources. My last visit was back in August 2005. The business has been growing steadily on the back of new acquisitions of institutional clients (hotels and restaurants in the area). Monthly sales have more than doubled from Q 16,000 to Q 35,000 (USD 2000 to USD 4375) during this period. There were two other areas where a lot of progress could be seen. As the business increased its clients to hotels and restaurants that need invoice, the bakery has slowly moved to the formal sector and now they hire an external accountant for bookkeeping. The other change which impressed me the most was on the education of the children. In 2005 Luisa’s 3 older daughters: Angela, Rosy and Carmen (who were then 17,15 and 13) were helping at the bakery so they could only attend Saturday/Sunday school. Nelson the only boy at 9 years old was attending full time school and the youngest girl Sonia, 5 years old was at home. I had asked then Luisa if Sonia would be able to attend full time school next year. Luisa said maybe. During our current visit, Nelson and Sonia came back from school wearing their uniforms. Yes Sonia is now attending full time school. Furthermore, Angela, now 21 has finshed the weekend school and told me she wanted to enroll to University to study business administration! See photos of this visit.

Skoll Forum 2009

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The 6th Skoll Forum, a gathering of leading social entrepreneurs took place in Oxford on March 25-27th. Prominent figures of the social, corporate, policy, academic area engaged for 3 days in discussions and debates to accelerate, innovate and scale solutions for the world most pressing issues. This year the mood was slightly less euphoric due to the current crisis but one could feel an even stronger and powerful level of energy in the air as social entrepreneurs are becoming even more important players, in Jeff Skoll words, they are likely to come out of this crisis not as survivors but as leaders. He pointed out that social entrepreneurs are masters in leveraging; in producing results with limited resources, they have the abilitiy to do more with less, in choosing which assets can be most efficiently used to meet the objectives, also they maximize resources by collaborating. He could not have expressed it better. Many sessions can be watched in videos and also many blogs are available of the event. This year there were 9 Skoll Awardees. I was especially delighted to see Jordan Kassalow of VisionSpring, formerly Scojo who we have covered in this journal and in my recent book being one of them.

Safia Minney and People Tree

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Last week while I was in Japan I picked up a book written by Safia Minney, a pioneer in fashionable and ecological fair trade. The book seems to be only available in Japanese but there is plenty of information on the web on Safia and People Tree, the fair trade company/brand she founded in 1995. People Tree (PT)works with more than 60 fashion and handicraft producers in 16 countries including India, Bangladesh, Peru and Kenya providing design and technical assistance based on traditional skills. PT sells their products through catalogue, internet, and also through 400 shops around Japan and 100 in Europe. Safia is an inpiring social entrepreneur that has been recognized by various organizations including the Schwab Foundation of Social Entrepreneurship where she was selected in 2004 as one of the world’s “Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs”. She has not only raised consumer awareness of poverty alleviation, ecology and fair trade but also has built a business of fashionable and ecological fair traded goods. PT’s sales have surpassed 7.5 mn USD for 2006. Another remarkable social business, a win-win example.
Her blog is highly recommended and there is also a YouTube clip where Safia’s presents People Tree in her own words, a presentation that she delivered in London in Sept 2008.

SoCap2008 -Social capital markets conference

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SoCap2008 , a conference designed to bring together the entrepreneurs who want to change the world and the capital that wants to make it happen took place this week Oct 13-15 in San Francisco. Unfortunately I could not attend this year but it is possible to follow some of the inspiring discussions through the many blogs available. Especially the team of nextbillion did a wonderful job covering the conference.

Hapinoy Stores: a promising microfranchise (microventure) from the Philippines

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Hapinoy envisions to become the largest chain store (franchise) of small convenience stores (known as sari sari stores or variety stores in the Philippines). Their aim is to empower microentrepreneurs and help them grow their business. There are roughly 700,000 sari-sari stores in the Philippines and the idea is to convert some of these stores into Hapinoy branded stores. The microentrepreneurs who join this franchise will have access to microfinance (business loans) as well as training for standarized operating systems. Another benefit would be the opportunity to increase sales through new businesses and services brought in by Hapinoy through partnerships. Hapinoy works closely with MFIs (CARD-MRI, TSKI, Kasagana-ka, LMPC) and also partners with manufacturers and service providers (Nestle, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Smart Communications etc).
Hapinoy is the first venture by MicroVentures Inc, a social business enterprise founded by Philippine leaders from the social development sector and the business sector. MicroVentures seeks for positive change in the Philippines through empowering microentrepreneurs and pushing the social business enterprise agenda believing that making profit and creating positive change can go hand in hand.
Hapinoy is a promising venture that one should keep an eye on. I learned about Hapinoy as I met Markus Dietrich who will be working for Hapinoy as a consultant based in Manila for one year starting this October.

Citi and Ashoka’s Changemaker launch a global competition “Seeking Financial Solutions for All”

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Ashoka’s Changemakers and Citi have launched a competition titled ” Banking on Social Change- Seeking Financial Solutions for All” to invite entrepreneurs from around the world to find and create innovative projects that will enable everyone to have access to financial services. Entries are accepted until October 1st.
Ashoka is a leading innovator for social change as it finds, fosters and connects the world’s leading social entrepreneurs-men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Changemakers, an initiative by Ashoka, has been building the first online “open source” community that co-creates and implements the best solutions for social problems through collaborative competitions. Changemakers hosts competitions on a wide spectrum of social problems where innovative solutions are desperately needed. The current competition was launched in mid-July and in the first 4 weeks 34 entries from 11 countries have been submitted. Anyone can view the entries, enter a discussion or nominate a project. If you would like to showcase your innovation, share your insights or simply learn about solutions go to Changemakers.

A hot dialogue/debate on “Philanthrocapitalism”

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A lively debate has been sparked by Mike Edward’s new book “Just Another Emperor-The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism” where he challenges the increasing use of business thinking in philanthropy and the current hype about it. It is in fact a controversial topic but certainly a healthy debate. I got to know about this topic as I follow Nextbillion where now the whole team is writing their comments on this subject.(highly recommended read). Also there is an on-line debate on this subject hosted by Global Philanthropy Forum. Here you can read comments from Matthew Bishop from the Economist who coined the word “philanthrocapitalism” and has written a book with Michael Green titled “Philanthrocapitalism: how the rich can save the world” coming out this fall.
I believe strongly that today there is a powerful movement of making the world a better place (the subject of my latest book) which has been accelerating due to the converging business (for-profit) and social (non-profit) worlds. Both worlds offer principles and methods in different areas that they ought to learn from each other. It is important to sort out what can be used most effectively from each world. I think that this is a timely debate and look forward to see the outcomes.

Learning more about microfinance: training programs/field visits/conferences

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Where can one go to learn more about microfinance? Is there enough capacity (trained staff and managers) to cope with the explosive growth of the microfinance industry? Of course there is no limit (only one’s own time) as to how much one can learn through the internet (ie CGAP, mixmarket, microfinance gateway or the UNDP Microfinance Distance Learning Program) but, there are also an increasing number of institutions that offer training programs around the world.
For programs/courses: Boulder Institute of Microfinance(creating a platform for dialogue and critical thinking in microfinance), Microfinance Center (programs for practitioners in Eastern and Central Europe), School of Applied Microfinance (provides 2 week training courses for MFIs in East Africa), Harvard Business School & Accion Program on Strategic Leadership for Microfinance (executive education for directors of MFIs), and Frankfurt School of Finance and Management which runs the Micro Banking Summer Academy. One excellent institution, Microfinance Management Institute (MFMI) is building a community to foster development of human resources for the microfinance industry through the creation of learning tools and programs. They also provide courses for funders as well as integrating microfinance courses into the curricula of premier graduate management programs in developing countries.
If one’s interest is to get familiar with microfinance by going to the field there are many microfinance institutions that provide visitors programs. I have visited 2 of these which were excellent. BRI in Indonesia and BRAC in Bangladesh.
For international conferences the easiest way to see these are on the website of the microcapital, the top newsletter of microfinance investments.
So don’t wait if you want to learn more about microfinance get started now!

Visit to Aravind Eye Hospital in Pondicherry, India

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naoko.jpgOn April 16th, I visited Aravind Eye Hospital in Pondicherry one of the 5 eye hospitals of Aravind Eye Care Systems (AECS). AECS was founded in 1976 by the late Dr. Venkataswamy (Dr. V) with the mission to eliminate needless blindness by providing compassionate and high quality eye care.AECS today is not only the world largest eye care facility but the world leader in eye care delivery. It encompasses 5 hospitals, a manufacturing center for ophthalmic products (Aurolab), an international research foundation (Aravind Medical Research Foundation) and a resource and training center (LAICO). During the 12 month period to March 2007 AECS treated 2.3 million outpatients and performed 270,444 surgeries. AECS is a profitable institutions although only 40% of the patients pay between US$ 50-300 for catarat surgeries while 60% are non-paying patients.
I was taking part on Unltd Learning Journey 2008 visiting social entrepreneurs in Southern India and although this was not part of the official program it was great that I could visit one of the institutions that I respect so much and have featured in my new book (see entry below). Renjith who is a manager for out-patients organized an efficient visit so that we could have an overview of how patients (both paying and non-paying patients) were examined and treated. We also had a chance to talk to Dr. Ravindran (picture above), the Chief Medical Officer about Aravind expansion plans. Aravind is busy expanding and replicating its model due to the many inquiries and requests from many places both in India and abroad. Yunus Muhammad is opening this month the first Grameen Eye Hospital in Bangladesh modeled after the Aravind Eye Hospital.