Poverty - Most Popular
Social Innovations
Microloan Sharks
Commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs) must calculate two bottom lines: alleviating poverty for clients and also generating profits for investors. To achieve the latter goal, some MFIs charge their impoverished clients exorbitant interest rates. The recent Banco Compartamos IPO in Mexico raises a red flag, demonstrating how easily well-intentioned MFIs and their investors can shift from microlending to microloan-sharking.
Podcast
Vera Cordeiro Rio - Breaking the Cycle of Poverty-Related Illness
When Dr. Vera Cordeiro Rio worked at Hospital da Lagoa in Rio de Janeiro, she witnessed a constant admission/re-admission cycle in childcare treatment. To break that cycle, she gathered medical community volunteers to form Renascer, addressing root causes that prevent families from providing adequate care. In this audio interview, join host Sheela Sethuraman as she learns how Cordeiro Rio translated her passion translated into a methodology that is quickly sweeping through Brazil and the world.
Nonprofits
She’s Crafty
World of Good connects female artisans in poor countries with retailers (including Whole Foods Market, pictured) in the West.
Social Innovations
Do Companies that Engage in BoP Markets Outperform the Market?
A new index is creating a benchmark for comparing large-scale companies serving the markets for the very poorest.
Podcast
David Goldwyn, David Dollar - How Energy Effects Economic Development
People in the developing world expend more than a quarter of their potential earnings on energy. Economic development, environmental health, and global stability all hinge on wise management of global energy resources. In this audio lecture, David Goldwyn and David Dollar paint a positive picture of what developing countries and governments in the West can do to improve energy use abroad and at home.
Government
15 Minutes with Martin Eakes
Managing Editor Eric Nee spoke with Self-Help’s founder and CEO, Martin Eakes, about the subprime loan crisis and its impact on the poor.
Social Innovations
Reimagining Microfinance
Critics of microfinance institutions (MFIs) ask them to choose between helping the poor or making money for investors, but this is a false choice. MFIs can have their impact and profit, too, says the author, the CEO of the Grameen Foundation. He sketches a new vision of microfinance as a platform, not a product; one that relies on high volumes, not high margins, and that uses limits on private benefit, holistic performance standards, and third-party certification to help MFIs meet both their bottom lines.
Nonprofits
Review: Out of Poverty
Polak offers entrepreneurial solutions to poverty in Asia and Africa.
Social Innovations
Review: Creating a World Without Poverty
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus aims for a more just society for all.