A champion of social business and a pioneer in the field of social entrepreneurship, Muhammad Yunus, has been building successful ventures in India’s neighbor, Bangladesh, for decades. Yunus has looked globally, set up three international joint ventures, and is now looking next door to India. He first collaborated with IIM-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and [...]

Back in September of 2008, I wrote a piece titled on On Bailouts, Boons and Bill Clinton that attempted to explain how the onset of the credit crisis will affect the microfinance industry and as a result restrict the poor from access to financial products. Eight months later, we have an opportunity to look to [...]

Sa-Dhan, an association of community development finance institutions in India will host a National Microfinance Conference in New Delhi on March 31, 2009. The conference is centered on the theme, ‘Microfinance Ecosystem: Equilibrium Between Growth & Effectiveness’. One of the goals for this event is for Sa-Dhan member organization to come together with academicians, practioners [...]

Here are some high level points from his talk last night. My own observations are preceded by initials, while comments he said are left alone. I kept them in this order as this was the original chronology of how they developed: (VG) Power of one man: it is impossible to not be in awe when [...]

Editor’s Note: Aparna Dalal works with the Financial Access Initiative, a research consortium between New York University, Harvard, Yale, and Innovations for Poverty Action. FAI is focused on finding answers to how financial services can better meet the needs of poor households. FAI aims to provide rigorous research on the impacts of financial access and [...]

A recent article on www.sramanamitra.com postulates that SKS Microfinance, which offers “several microfinance options to the poor in India for a variety of businesses from agriculture and livestock purchase to basket weaving and photography,” and has to date “provided over $550 million in microcredit,” will most likely follow Compartamos’ model and go public. According to [...]

In a recent interview with Fortune Magazine, Muhammad Yunus beautifully articulated his dream of a “Digital Aladdin’s Lamp”, which would provide poor women around the world with access to global markets and trends for local benefit: “A genie comes out of it and asks, ‘What can I do for you, ma’am?’ And she says ‘I [...]

A recent article in the New Yorker echoed sentiments expressed by many venture capitalists that have begun to shift their focus on the developing world and BoP markets that microfinance, while an amazing concept for enable entrepreneurs, cannot in itself lift countries out of poverty. James Surowiecki writes: Microloans are often used to “smooth consumption”—tiding [...]

Dr. Muhammad Yunus has talked extensively about reconceptualizing “capitalism” in his new book, “Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and The Future of Capitalism,” suggesting that “capitalism” posits human beings as one dimensional profit maximizers, devoid of complexity and multi-dimensionality. He proposes the reconceptualization of capitalism in the context of social business, where the [...]