Speaker: Thierry van Bastelaer, Principal Associate/Scientist – Abt Associates.
Thierry van Bastelaer is Principal Associate at Abt Associates, where he helps design and developthe company’s portfolio of private health finance activities. In addition to his work on healthinsurance and savings in Africa, Thierry is the founder and co-director of Abt’s Risk and Resilience Methods Center, and was named one of Abt’s Senior Fellows. Households living at the Base of the Pyramid demonstrate remarkable skills in dealing with the variety of risks that threaten their health and livelihoods on a daily basis. Too often, however, they are doing so without the benefit of financial tools that, if they were widely available, affordable and flexible, would dramatically decrease these families’ vulnerability and increase their long-term resilience. In particular, insurance products are struggling to keep pace with the increasing costs of health care and the effects of climate change on agriculture. van Bastelaer’s speech examined how a portfolio of inclusive financial products and services—such as commitment savings and microinsurance—are giving low-income families across the developing world more tools to ensure that shocks do not push them further into poverty. Using examples such as health savings, micro health insurance, and index-based weather insurance, he suggests how the combination of technology and financial services has the potential to give low-income families a stronger handle on their economic and personal well being.
Speaker: Henning Alts Shoutz, Marketing Manager, CEMEX-Patrimonio Hoy.
Patrimonio Hoy is one of the first private initiatives that combine what most companies aspire to: it is a real inclusive business being profitable and at the same time producing important social and economic impacts to the participating families and communities.
Impact assessment training workshop conducted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA October 26-28, 2010
Impact assessment training workshop conducted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA Feb. 17-19,2010
Impact assessment training workshops conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa May 7-9, 2013 and New York City, USA April 15-17, 2013. Funding for these workshops was provided by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs.
More than ever, business and market-based approaches in general are seen as critical parts of the solution to global poverty. Governments, NGOs and businesses – from startups to multinationals – have largely accepted this premise. Now, it is time to start talking more about how we, as a sector, can collectively share – and debate – the lessons learned so far in order to better create the future path ahead of us. But in order to do that, we need to be more of a community. To achieve this, we need a long-term vision not only for specific enterprises, but a shared vision for the domain as a whole.
A new ‘action agenda’ for base of the pyramid businesses presents four key initiatives to guide and enhance development of the domain over the next decade
London’s Base of the Pyramid Impact Assessment Framework explores how ventures influence the well-being of local buyers, sellers, and communities. It guides managers through a detailed look at an organization’s effects on those constituencies in three areas: economics, capabilities, and relationships. The framework examines negative as well as positive effects—for instance, whether activities that increase the income of the poor also prompt them to mistreat arable land. It helps managers focus success measures on the most likely high-magnitude outcomes.
With a goal of better connecting the BoP community to help move the domain forward, the William Davidson Institute organized and hosted the BoP Summit 2013: Creating an Action Agenda for the Next Decade on October 21-23, 2013 at Ross Business School at the University of Michigan. Participants took stock of the current BoP domain, identified success factors and on going challenges, and explored how challenges could be overcome. This document describes the summit design process, and details the outputs of each working group.
In Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid, Ted London, Stuart L. Hart, and six leading BoP thought and practice leaders show how to apply today’s most significant BoP innovations, techniques, and business models. London, Hart, and their contributors go beyond providing low-cost products and extending distribution reach by demonstrating how to promote market development, innovation, and capability creation “with” BoP new customers, not “at” them. This publication is available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.