Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

News stories have been popping up lately about supermodels, actors, musicians and their pet causes. In graduate school I was focused sharply on the intersection of mainstream media and cause marketing, also known as "cause branding," and while I have a passion for these topics, I wanted to see how our NextBillion readers feel about celebrity spokespersons, big ad campaigns, and the like. Do you approve?

There's a recent piece in Vogue that profiles supermodel Christy Turlington and her passionate crusade for mothers in developing countries; she's doing a Master of Public Health at Columbia University. Then there's a recent piece I found on a stellar blog, Bella Naija, that poses the question, What do images of Naomi Campbell and wild animals do for the continent of Africa? Do they reinforce a message and image that is harming Africa and hindering its development?

Of course there is also Dambisa Moyo's persistent critique of aid, Bono, and the RED campaign, arguing that such efforts hurt Africa more than they help it.

Bill Easterly of Aid Watch at NYU recently wrote a blog post on why he thinks such campaigns are created in the first place; he argues they are created by and target middle-aged white men. I disagree and posted feedback there, but it's an interesting argument nonetheless.

So amidst the criticism, the well-done campaigns, and the not so well-done campaigns, what purpose do these campaigns serve?

This month, MTV's EXIT Campaign (End Exploitation and Trafficking) will launch here in Nepal with free concerts throughout the country to raise awareness about how to protect oneself from becoming a victim of human trafficking. Nepal, along with other MTV EXIT participating countries, the Philippines and Thailand, have long-standing human trafficking challenges.  Partnerships between models, actors, big brands, and more through "social marketing" raise awareness, raise funds, change behavior, and get healthy products such as bed nets and condoms into the hands of millions.

But what do you think? Does having Angelina Jolie or Turlington's face plastered across a billboard or magazine cause people to perhaps disengage and not take the very stark reality of the lives of those at the BOP seriously? Should we take donor dollars and raise awareness at any cost? Will MTV campaigns have lasting value and impact for the BOP or are they merely corporate reputation boosts?

I like to imagine what the world would look like if mainstream media, celebrities, and cause campaigns didn't meet. No movies covering important issues like Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions does in movies like Syriana, The Soloist, Darfur Now, and An Inconvenient Truth. Teenage girls in the West not exposed to the threats of violence and HIV for their counterparts in developing countries. Future aid workers and Peace Corps Volunteers not given images to inspire them in their early college days. 

My assertion here builds on an earlier post about what inspires us to give. Exposing the masses to BOP issues through mainstream media is using one more channel and giving people one more chance to encounter a possible inspiration or spark of awakening that can lead to real change for the BOP, whether through an investment, microloans, donations, a career change, declaring a major, or other life-changing event. As I recently read in a favorite book of mine, Ladies Who Launch, "Accessing images and dreams has a strong impact on our lives and leads us toward that creative spark, inspiration, and vision where we begin to create." Change has to start somewhere, so why not through mass media?

Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

E+Co, a leading clean energy investor for the BoP, recently announced the launch of their latest initiative, the Invisible Schoolhouse. The Invisible Schoolhouse offers an online learning portal and distance learning services for energy entrepreneurs in developing countries. Workshops will be offered in Senegal, Tanzania, and Ghana this summer and will offer courses on clean technologies, finance, accounting, and other business basics.

With the launch of the Invisible Schoolhouse, I was reminded of several other online portals connecting entrepreneurs, experts, consumers, and more. The ICT for Development (ICT4D) space is producing some much-needed websites, resources, and offline initiatives. Just recently I learned about Elevyn, an online marketplace for microentrepreneurs to sell their crafts. I have my own initiative to connect the BoP to consumer researchers and job opportunities through an online platform, BOP Source, which is now being used by the BoP in Nepal's Telecenters. In other words, "the BoP are signing in."

(Full disclosure: I am the founder of BOP Source.)

Bal Joshi of Thamel.com has been using ICT as a way to connect the BoP to resources for over ten years. Thamel.com is a success story, the likes of which many are trying to replicate. And now he's piloting VOIP, virtual ATM machines, and more throughout Nepal. Nepal, having some of the poorest infrastructure in the world, especially regarding ICT, is one of the most challenging places to work as an ICT4D entrepreneur, and yet the country seems to attract ICT4D entrepreneurs and is relatively open when it comes to trying new experiments.

In the many conversations I've had with Bal, I've always observed a passion, optimism, and patience in him - the last quality being especially important in this country. Finding the right people to partner with and seizing the moment seem to be a trademark of Joshi's success, two facets I anticipate E+Co will also strive to develop for the Invisible Schoolhouse. I look forward to learning more about the infrastrucutre challenges and solutions in the countries where E+Co's Invisible Schoolhouse resides.

So maybe Mr. Joshi will start the next online learning center for ICT4D entrepreneurs. Or maybe someone else will. Either way, additional specialized learning centers would be a tremendous contribution to our field. Why not create global online learning portals for health, agriculture, education, water, sanitation, and other areas? I'm sure such resources already exist and I'd love to hear about them if you are involved in any way.

The challenges are many, especially related to literacy and language, and that is perhaps why several learning portals already exist for specific geographic communities, such as Ashoka Fellow Mahabir Pun's Nepal Wireless Networking Project Village Bulletin Board, a BoP Source partner. But with the rise of social networking sites and in the words of one entrepreneur here in Nepal, "There are already Sherpas working on Mt. Everest with Facebook profiles," it seems that the barriers for a global online learning, marketplace, and networking center are quickly shattering. I look forward to following the development of E+Co's Invisible Schoolhouse and I hope to hear from some of you soon with additional ICT4D initiatives.

Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

There are dozens of motives for people to work in the business of development and I've been pondering the psychology of "giving" and what drives people to want to work in international aid, donate to charities, work for non-profits, and generally work in an environment where there is a heightened desire to help others. I majored in political theory at UC Berkeley, conjuring up ways of creating a more just world and how we should collectively govern it. For me, thinking about how to help people out of poverty has always been about justice and fairness. So what drives you?

Katherine Fulton, in a recently released TED Talk from 2007, talks about leaders a century ago who engaged in the "business of benevolence," those who created modern Western philanthropy as we know it, in the form of foundations. Those same people are now criticized as being closed-minded, risk-averse, and slow to respond to new challenges, because of the bureaucratic evolution of those foundations and the sharp contrast of more current, cutting-edge tools of philanthropy as found on the internet. Fulton goes on to discuss the need for philanthropy to become a big, crowdsourced act, "the democratization of philanthropy" as she calls it, that we have started to see in organizations like Kiva, Spot.Us, DonorsChoose, Ideablob, and numerous others.

The phrase, "business of benevolence," took me back to my studies in political theory, where the phrase itself sounds a bit Machiavellian. The utility of "giving" to one's subjects, whereby giving is simply a means to achieving what you want (the maintenance of power) and not a selfless act, could be deemed as yet another motive for working in public service.  

I had a Professor of Public Health Ethics who praised his students as "saints" for choosing a field that required us to be so giving and sacrificial. He went on to describe his preoccupation with "status" and the meaning of being appointed Professor and at a school as prestigious as Harvard. He was very matter of fact and was simply trying to differentiate those who choose a career that very clearly focuses on helping others from those careers where helping others is a side benefit. Now, it can be argued that most positions help people in some way, such as Professor or banker or real estate agent. But, the decision to work in development is a decision to help people (or so we assume we are helping people).

Continue reading this story...

Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

In Development and Base of the Pyramid circles, we often discuss remittance economies and innovative ways to send remittances home; what we don't always think or talk about is what forces people to leave their home countries in the first place and what they experience when they go abroad. In the case of Nepal, as I've written about before, migrant laborers most often travel to the Middle East and Southeast Asia, often having their passports taken away from them upon arrival and not getting paid for months at a time. So would systems that facilitate sending remittances home actually encourage and facilitate such an unjust ecosystem? In the case of Nepal, I think we are better off creating jobs at home. 

I took the opportunity to interview one such laborer, Aslam, who spent 18 months in Doha, Qatar. In Kathmandu, he is a widely respected mason, but in Doha he simply broke stone and his skills were not put to full use. Aslam wanted to see the world; while abroad he went to the ocean for the first time and flew on an airplane for the first time. But in the end, the money he earned in Doha only paid off the loans he had to borrow in order to go to Doha in the first place, essentially breaking even and not profiting.

So when we in BoP circles think about remittances, let's also think about what forces people to leave their homes in the first place and what they endure and sacrifice in order to send those remittances home. We need to create jobs at home- that is certain. But when those are not available, is it a better option for people at the base of the pyramid to travel abroad where they make the same or even less money, are separated from their families, and are treated like second class citizens? Below is a video and transcription of my interview with Aslam, which offers a glimpse into the lives of the laborers that churn remittance economies.

The video is available here, on YouTube.

Jenara Nerenberg, NextBillion.net: Why did you go to Qatar?

Aslam, Nepali mason: I went to Qatar to find work.  I wanted to make extra money from work so I could eat happily.

JN: What did you experience there?

Aslam: Work is a lot harder there than here. It's a lot hotter over there. It's twice as hot there. They don't care how bad the weather is there; they just want you to work. If you don't go to work, they cut your pay.

JN: How did they treat you?

Aslam: Some of the managers are nice, but others are very untrustworthy.  Some people don't have a lot of kindness. They tell you, "You came from Nepal to work. Whether you live or die, it's all the same. You came here to work. If you work, we give you money. If you don't work, we don't give you any money." They don't let you take any time off from work either.

JN: Why did you come back to Nepal?

Aslam: The thing is, I got placed with a really bad company. I was very unhappy, and they also turned out to be very untrustworthy. At one time they didn't pay me for four months. Even though we had a signed contract, they didn't give me any money. It's a lot harder than Nepal there. But it's harder for all the laborers, not just Nepalis.

JN: Are you happy you went?

Aslam: I went to Qatar and it was a very unhappy experience. I was happy when I went there; I was hoping to earn extra money so I can have an easier life. But I found a lot of unhappiness there. I even filed a case against the company. I even went to the Nepali embassy. After two or three days, I got into an argument with the Embassy. I asked them, "Why do you even have an Embassy here? Go back to Nepal. You're just here to spend the government's money. You're not doing anything while so many Nepalis are in trouble. While there are so many Nepalis suffering, you're just sitting in a comfortable chair and eating good food."

I got into a labor dispute and I even took them to court. But they don't care what Nepalis have to say. They call Nepali people "jungly." That's how much unhappiness there is for Nepali people abroad.

JN: Are you happy to be home in Nepal?

Aslam: Yes, I am happy to be back in my own country.  Once you come back to your country, you're happier whether you have money or not.

JN: What do you want to tell other Nepalis who are thinking about going abroad to work?

Aslam: If someone wants to go, it's obviously their choice. Once people don't find work in Nepal, they will go. They think that going abroad will earn them more money. I will tell them, "Don't go." Try to work in Nepal and if you can't find work, then take care of your home.

JN: Would you tell others to go abroad or stay in Nepal?

Aslam: I got some phone calls asking me if I wanted to go to Dubai. But I told them, I'm going to stay in Nepal and work. For people who want to go, they will spend at least 140,000 rupees. You might as well spend that much money here.

JN: Are you happy with the amount of money you earned while there?

Aslam: How can you be happy bringing back money that made you so unhappy?  I earned about 150,000 rupees.  I used that to pay back my loans.

JN: Tell me about some of your experiences.

Aslam: On Saturday they have a big get-together where people gather around and have fun and talk. The whole country gets a holiday. They eat and drink and be merry. All the Nepalis there are experiencing hardship.

I liked the gardens over there. I liked traveling around. I found the country beautiful. But what good is being in a beautiful country when you can't feed yourself?

Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

I live and work in Kathmandu, Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, where GDP per capita is $1,100, 42% of the population is unemployed, and 65% of women are illiterate. Recently, I had some expatriate friends say to me that living here is the hardest place they've lived, even harder than living with the daily threats of violence in Afghanistan. I personally do not feel that way but when I pressed them on why, it was clear that the fact that we only have power for 8 hours per day played a role in their uneasiness, as did the roads, overcrowding, pollution, lack of infrastructure, high rates of TB (almost 50% of the population) and more. To me this is all part of living and working in a developing country.

I wanted to take a moment to focus on Nepal in this post. We all study, breathe, and agonize over how to help countries develop and sometimes I think it's odd that we don't have an elixir, some magic formula that we can simply put in place and poof! magic happens, democracy is restored, people's bellies are full, families earn a strong income, and all else positive that comes with development magically happens.

Continue reading this story...

Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

Two weeks ago I attended the We Media conference in Miami as a We Media Fellow . The conference was exciting and thought-provoking and made me think a lot about the state of the "development through enterprise" community and us entrepreneurs working to fight poverty through innovative, private-sector-lead solutions. I'll share with you some themes from the conference as well as my key takeaways from the viewpoint of a BOPreneur.

With a focus on media, journalism, and the power of "we" to address global challenges through social media, We Media was packed with people like Alan Connor of the BBC, Alan Webber of Fast Company, Amra Tareen of allvoices, Brian Reich of iFOCOS, and other notable journalists and media experts. Also present were BOP superstars Erik Hersman of Ushahidi, Jenna Lawrence of Ashoka's Changemakers, Priya Haji of World of Good, and 11 bloggers from the Global Voices Team. It was gratifying to see my passions of social media, business, and international development converge at the conference and in these people.  

Continue reading this story...

Authored by: Jenara Nerenberg

iBoP Asia recently announced the winners of their first small grants competition and the second competition is coming up soon. I wanted to highlight the grants program for our readers at NextBillion, as I know that many of you have the ideas they are looking for.

A joint collaboration between the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) in the Philippines and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada, iBoP Asia seeks to advance the research agenda on science and technological innovations for the base of the pyramid in SouthEast Asia and does so through policy advocacy, conferences, small grants competitions, and more.

The winners from the first call for proposals can be found on iBoP's website and include Niti Bhan's Emerging Futures Lab, which, as a consultancy for BoP markets, will be looking at payment strategies and practices of the BoP with limited and irregular income. Several of the winners focus on improving farming practices, including the Sub-Plant Protection Department of Angiang Province in Vietnam and the Philippine Rice Research Institute, which focuses on building and sustaining the rice economy in the Philippines, through policy advocacy and providing farmers with greater access to technology.

Continue reading this story...

There has been a lot of buzz about new models of foreign aid and the role of social entrepreneurs since our post on President Obama and the NextBillion.net Agenda for the Base of the Pyramid. Guest blogger Apoorva Shah also shared some great points about the important actors in aid reform, including the American Enterprise Institute. 

Iqbal Qadir, a noted social entrepreneur and Founder of MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, argued effectively in his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal for the overhaul of America's current model of international aid and a renewed focus on supporting entrepreneurs in developing countries. Qadir details America's earlier motives in pouring aid into other countries as a way to cement alliance and allegiance to the U.S. and he points out that such models are now sterile and in fact often inhibit the true democratic development of aid recipient countries. While Qadir offers a historical perspective on why such models are in dire need of re-shaping and re-doing, other noted journalists and bloggers have also been focusing on the link between Obama, sustainability, foreign policy, and international aid.

I came across some important materials and entrepreneurs for the NextBillion.net community to ponder and discuss and I hope you'll join in on the dialogue. I will also echo Apoorva's central  question: What role can the NextBillion.net community play in the debate and formation of President Obama's policies on foreign aid? What do you think is the role of entrepreneurs in development and in helping America better support international development?

First, I was thrilled to read in the attached Obama Campaign policy statement that he has plans to create an entitiy that provides seed capital to SMEs and even build "SME Universities" in partnership with American business schools. Based on this policy statement alone, there is clearly thought being put into new approaches to development, including an understanding that the private sector plays a critical role. There is also some talk of there being a new, coordinated Agency to oversee the multiple U.S. agencies for international development, including PEPFAR, USAID, and MCC.  Obama has called for the doubling of foreign aid, but what does that aid look like? Is it charity or investment? And how is the aid being distributed?

Bill Gates has also called for the doubling of funds directed toward foreign aid, but this request is perplexing. Gates is a unique and interesting advocate of innovation in development and he has recently called for a new, "creative capitalism." But calling for a doubling of foreign aid is not the same as a call to embrace creative capitalism. Does this send mixed messages? What do you think?

Peter Beinart, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, presents an interesting analysis of America's foreign aid policies and points out:

"In the 1990's, American soft power was  based on more than goodwill; it was based on economic and ideological hegemony. There was only one widely accepted path to prosperity--deregulated, American-style capitalism. And there was one central destination for a poor country seeking the investment and aid it needed to travel down that path: Washington."

But, he continues, "That is no longer the case." I agree, and think that countries seeking America's investment should have a more diverse pool of options to choose from. It would probably be a much more empowering exercise to help countries think through several paths to development, before they eagerly accept American dollars. If Obama were to introduce a full-fledged initiative on business at the base of the pyramid, offering struggling MNCs a way forward and at the same time a new approach to improving the lives of the world's 4 billion poor, this would be an amazingly potent initiative and America and its aid recipients might just get what they want: revenue generation and economic growth. Let's call the initiative, "The Committee for Global Development and Entrepreneurship at the Base of the Pyramid" (GDBOP).

Obama could harness the power of entrepreneurs here in the U.S. and in developing countries to collectively brainstorm and decide where and how America's international aid should be distributed. The example of social entrepreneurs has more to offer in the way forward, because, afterall, development entrepreneurs work from the bottom up, with the base of the pyramid, and bottom-up innovation has always been Obama's strong point.

For examples of the building wave of BOP entrepreneurs in developing countries, check out Francisco Noguera's coverage of the attendees at Santa Clara University's 2008 Global Social Benefit Incubator program, including entrepreneurs such as Alfonso Gamboa of the Philippines. Echoing Iqbal Qadir, Mr. Gamboa calls for a drastic paradigm shift in development funding, stating, "The answer to poverty is business development, not charity. . . . Trade, not aid."

The above ventures and dozens of others highlight a new movement of entrepreneurs that connect the interests of America with the democratic development of other countries, which, as Qadir points out, leads to more secure allies for the United States. I believe that our NextBillion community has a huge role to play in alerting not only the Obama Administration, but the development community as a whole, to entrepreneurs in developing countries and here in the U.S. that offer new choices and innovative alternatives to traditional approaches to development and foreign aid.

Such entrepreneurs are young and have broken out of an old world understanding of what makes people and countries grow. They understand the changes that are needed and I would suggest to Obama to keep a close eye on their work.  One of the things that caught my attention when I saw Obama speak in Boston in February of 2008 was him saying that he supports entrepreneurship. He has certainly proven himself receptive to the trends of younger generations with his brilliantly-executed use of new media in his campaign and his hiring of a Facebook Executive to help in that effort.

I hope that he will continue this trend and pay close attention to the building wave of social entrepreneurs both in the U.S. and abroad and adopt their approaches to development in the same way he adopted young people's new media approach to communication. NextBillion.net is certainly part of the new media wave and so are all of you, because of our collective use of the internet to discuss and share analysis instantaneously.

Maybe President Obama is reading this post and all of your comments right at this moment. Here's hoping.

Not much has been written here on NextBillion.net about the election of Barack Obama to the American Presidency, as our news scope centers on base of the pyramid approaches to development in developing countries. However, I felt compelled to link the two together as we near Inauguration day tomorrow, January 20th, so here it goes.

Obama has a huge opportunity to transform how international aid is designated and distributed and I hope that he will convene a dedicated and experienced team to re-think and re-do the United States' current model of foreign aid. The most recent statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicate that in 2005 the United States issued 27.6 billion dollars in official development assistance. While the U.S. funnels much-needed money into developing countries to assist with meeting basic needs such as water sanitation, education, and healthcare services, I'm always left wondering how we can better direct funds. What would happen if the U.S. channeled more funds into microfinance initiatives and small and medium enterprises and made BoP economies more attractive to multinational companies? Wouldn't our stated goals of helping developing countries develop be better achieved by adjusting how and to which agencies we distribute funds?  Meeting basic needs is undoubtedly important and should remain, but for countries to develop beyond meeting basic needs, or to empower local people to help meet those basic needs sustainably and profitably, a shift in paradigm is needed.

Continue reading this story...

NextBillion left off in 2008 with Rob's post about Kiva and that's where I'll pick up in the new year.  I recently sat down with Matt Flannery, Founder of Kiva, to chat about BOP Source and Kiva's work in Asia. I wanted to share a brief update on the latter and point you to Matt's blog, which provides great insight on the triumphs and challenges of running a global organization like Kiva.

Part of Kiva's success is due to the outstanding Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) they partner with, an aspect of Kiva that also requires a lot of due diligence and a lot of staff. Taking a look around their offices in the Mission district of San Francisco, I said to Matt, "Wow, you have a large staff!" He said, "That's because of all the due diligence we do."

Continue reading this story...