All Articles | NextBillion

June 15, 2023

How Innovation Created an Off-Grid Solar Market in Rural Bangladesh — And What Other Countries Can Learn from this Model

In the early 2000s, a small-scale World Bank pilot project in Bangladesh unexpectedly grew into the largest off-grid solar program in the world. According to Nancy Wimmer at microSOLAR, the program's success provided the rest of the world with a model for how low- and middle-income countries can develop a nationwide, rural market for decentralized solar systems driven by home-grown companies. She explores how other countries can adapt Bangladesh’s market-creating innovations to their own local environments.

Sectors:

June 12, 2023

The Global Impact of South-South Cooperation: The Case for Teaching Developing Countries’ Solutions to Business Students Worldwide

South-South Cooperation empowers developing countries to create home-grown solutions to development problems, and to share them with other countries in the Global South. According to Mette Morsing at Principles for Responsible Management Education, the business sector has a key role to play in scaling these solutions in both the Global South and North. But for that to happen, she argues that business schools must focus on increasing knowledge exchange between emerging market innovators and their peers in the developed and developing worlds.

Sectors:

Repair Technician Rodgers Mwamba repairing a solar light, Likumbi Primary School, Kapiri Mposhi, Central Province

June 5, 2023

Repairing Electronics: A Circular Economy Solution for Reducing E-Waste and Building Resilience in Rural Africa

The accumulation of electronic waste is an increasingly urgent issue around the world. And as Sofia Ollvid at SolarAid points out, Africa is ground zero for this problem, since a significant amount of e-waste created globally is shipped to dumpsites across the continent. She explores how repairing electronic devices can help address this challenge while also boosting the local economy, as shown by a SolarAid program that's training repair technicians in Zambia and Malawi to extend the lifespan of solar devices.

Sectors:

May 29, 2023

Analyzing Menstrual Health and Hygiene Through a Market-Based Lens: A New Report Assesses the Landscape in the Global South

Around the world, roughly 1.8 billion people menstruate — and over 300 million are menstruating on any given day. Yet as Lucie Klarsfeld, Jeanne Charbit and Louise Berthault at Hystra explain, menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) is an overlooked topic in global development, and there's a lack of research about the market for menstrual products in the Global South. They share findings from a new Hystra report that addresses this knowledge gap by assessing the market for MHH solutions in eight emerging economies.

Sectors:

WASH

Sectors:

May 22, 2023

Scale vs. Systems Change: Three Ways Impact-Led Organisations Can Achieve Both

The social impact sector is increasingly recognizing that scaling a solution does not always result in lasting change. According to Emma Colenbrander at Spring Impact, Nell Lemaistre at 100x Impact Accelerator, and Kasthuri Soni and Sharmi Surianarain at Harambee, this realization may seem to force businesses and organizations to choose between scaling their own work and attempting to change the broader system. But they explore how these two goals can actually be pursued simultaneously — if organizations leverage the right kind of funding, mindsets and support.

Sectors:

Social Enterprise

Sectors:

May 15, 2023

Innovations in Last-Mile Delivery: How Automation Can Revolutionize the Industry in Africa

Last-mile delivery is the crucial link that connects businesses to customers in Africa’s rapidly growing economies. As Samuel Odeloye at Motions and Demilade Onajobi at RoadPreppers Technologies explain, it powers major industries like retail, e-commerce and manufacturing — but it's plagued by inefficiencies that are slowly killing the competitiveness of these businesses. They explore how Motions uses automation to address these issues — an approach they believe can transform last-mile delivery in Africa.

Sectors:

May 8, 2023

Accelerating Systems Change: An Innovative Accelerator Shows How Funders Can Amplify Social Enterprises’ Impact by Transforming Their Funding Model

There’s a growing belief that lasting solutions to today's complex challenges will require fundamental changes to the systems that underlie these issues. According to Celia Sanchez-Valladares Barahona, Stella Printezi and Lucía Tornero at Ashoka, social entrepreneurs are well-placed to accelerate systems change, but the funding models they rely on may end up prolonging the issues they're trying to solve. They explain how funders can transform these increasingly outdated models to better support long-term, systemic change, as illustrated by an accelerator co-created by Ashoka and IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.

Sectors:

May 3, 2023

Applying a Gender Lens to Agribusiness: A Pathway to Economic Empowerment for Women

Women farmers in emerging markets face many gender-specific challenges when they attempt to participate equally in agricultural supply chains, employment opportunities and distribution networks. As Cait Nordehn and Bwile Musonda at TechnoServe explain, agribusinesses are well-positioned to address these challenges — if these firms can improve the gender inclusivity of their sourcing, operations and distribution. They discuss TechnoServe’s experiences deploying its Gender-Responsive Diagnostic tool with agribusinesses to identify opportunities for greater gender inclusion.

Sectors:

Agriculture

Sectors:

NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Guest Articles.

How Innovation Created an Off-Grid Solar Market in Rural Bangladesh — And What Other Countries Can Learn from this Model

The Global Impact of South-South Cooperation: The Case for Teaching Developing Countries’ Solutions to Business Students Worldwide

Repairing Electronics: A Circular Economy Solution for Reducing E-Waste and Building Resilience in Rural Africa

Analyzing Menstrual Health and Hygiene Through a Market-Based Lens: A New Report Assesses the Landscape in the Global South

Innovations in Last-Mile Delivery: How Automation Can Revolutionize the Industry in Africa

Applying a Gender Lens to Agribusiness: A Pathway to Economic Empowerment for Women

About

From WDI

WDI

Most Read Article of April

test

Coverage By Sector

Connect