ITC Limited is one of India’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities and is known for its strong and enduring farmer partnerships. ITC’s e-Choupal initiative is an internet-based intervention that facilitates the flow of goods and services in and out of villages in India. To extend the reach of e-Choupal, the student MAP team studied the micro-irrigation financing requirements of the e-Choupal farmers and developed an appropriate business model.
WDI worked with Digital Divide Data (DDD) to provide advice on how to design and measure their impact on employees from underserved populations from their first day, during their time at DDD as well as after they move on from DDD. WDI also engaged with DDD later to assist in refining their survey instrument through a pre-test in Cambodia and made recommendations for a robust data collection process across their country offices.
Movirtu provides innovative mobile cloud technology to wireless telecommunication providers servicing rural poor communities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The company provides the rural poor with their own private number through shared access of basic mobile phone services at a much lower cost than has been achieved before. Through interviews with the phone service’s users and village phone operators who sell the service, WDI identified a holistic set of potential impacts and provided Movirtu with recommendations on how to track and quantify the impacts identified during the strategic analysis.
The latest approaches to monitoring sustainability in agricultural supply chains was the latest free webinar presented by WDI. The hour-long webinar, “Monitoring Sustainability Performance in Food & Agriculture Systems,” was on June 25 and included a Q&A at the end with the guest presenters, Daniele Giovannucci and Jessica Mullan, Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA).
This webinar was part of WDI’s “Power of Poverty Assessment” series of free, ongoing webinars. Each webinar showcases the latest work of WDI and its partners in the poverty reduction and impact assessment sectors.
“Performance monitoring is a powerful tool for informing decision-making in real time,” said Heather Esper, WDI Program Manager for Performance Measurement. “More and more businesses as well as funders are interested in developing and strengthening such feedback loops in order to improve the agility of learning.”
The mission of COSA is to advance sustainability in agriculture via partnerships and learning. Giovannucci is president and co-founder; Mullan is monitoring program coordinator.
The two discussed the process of performance monitoring, and highlighted examples from their global work with diverse companies and organizations that use performance monitoring data.
Performance monitoring offers fast results at a low cost, which makes it particularly suitable for understanding sustainability performance in areas with limited capacity or resources for learning or assessment. It also is an optimal management tool for projects or investments, integrating vital information into real-time dashboards to improve decision-making.
The winter 2015 issue of the Davidson Review, featuring a cover story on the Institute’s entrepreneurship project in Jordan and the launch of the BoP Roadmap, is now ready to view online.
The Review profiles five young Jordanians who have benefited from WDI’s work to build an entrepreneurial mindset at Al Quds College in Amman. It also chronicles the launch event of BoP Roadmap help in Washington, D.C. and the first activities associated with it.
The winter issue also recaps the latest with the Base of the Pyramid and Healthcare research initiatives, updates on the new and ongoing Development Consulting Services’ projects, and the featured work of WDI’s Executive Education and Case Publishing programs.
To read the latest issue of the Davidson Institute Review, click here.
The summer 2014 issue of the Davidson Review, the biannual newsletter of WDI that examines the recent work done by the Institute, has been published.
Click here to view a “page flip” version on your computer, iPhone, iPad or tablet device.
Click here to download a PDF.
The Review chronicles WDI’s activities and work during the past six months, and also previews future events and plans. The issue’s cover story discusses WDI’s new president, Paul Clyde. Another cover story features WDI’s Development Consulting Services’ STRIDE project in the Philippines.
Other issue highlights include: updates on our Base of the Pyramid and Healthcare research initiatives; the latest on WDI’s Development Consulting Services, Executive Education, and the case-writing initiative Educational Outreach; and what’s new at the NextBillion website administered by WDI.
The newsletter also chronicles WDI’s support for international activities at the University of Michigan. This includes the projects of 19 summer interns, seven MAP projects, and the WDI Global Impact Speaker Series.