News/Events

WDI Senior Research Fellow Ted London was the keynote speaker at the Nov. 18 launch of the Inclusive Business Action Network (IBAN) in Berlin, Germany.

Established by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the IBAN aims to create a global network for the inclusive business community to share knowledge and learn from each other, and connect inclusive businesses to the support mechanisms, partners and financing they need to be successful.

WDI recently launched ‘A Roadmap for the Base of the Pyramid Domain: Re-energizing for the Next Decade’, which outlines a vision for the future of the BoP domain and provides a set of actionable initiatives that serve as platforms to share knowledge and support BoP enterprises more effectively. London spoke about the BoP Roadmap and, in particular, how the launch of the IBAN contributes to the goal of building a holistic partnership ecosystem for BoP enterprises, one of the priority initiatives identified in the BoP Roadmap.

A recent collaboration between WDI and GIZ has focused on developing tools and frameworks for assessing the current landscape of potential partners for inclusive businesses, and understanding the gaps that need to be filled. This initiative has resulted in the development of a framework to help inclusive businesses to understand and navigate this landscape of potential ecosystem partners. Also, as part of the IBAN launch event, WDI’s Colm Fay facilitated a working session where participants learned about this framework and had the opportunity to apply it to their own organization.