In Pursuit of the Next Billion: Getting down to Business

by Joseph Bornstein, NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Microfinance on Jun 26, 2008

It's already launched in Kenya, Afghanistan and Tanzania. And now a mobile money-transfer service from Vodafone is to reach 40 million customers in India. Meanwhile, Microsoft Innovation Centres in Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda and Morocco are set to provide aspiring business people with the technology to launch new products. And in India, personalised commercial information is being texted to the mobile phones of thousands of farmers in their own language.

These three groundbreaking initiatives were among those revealed at the Business Call To Action conference in May, when CEOs from some of the world's biggest companies unveiled plans designed to both fight poverty and boost business. Hosted by DFID and UNDP, the event also featured President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and President John Kufuor of Ghana. It is the start of a co-ordinated initiative designed to engage the business community with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by enabling poor people to access up-to-the-minute information, money and business expertise, as well as creating new commercial and employment opportunities. Big name companies who have already signed up to the Call for Action include Citi Group, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters and Sumitomo Chemical. Within five years it is estimated that initiatives from these and other companies will save almost half a million lives, create thousands of jobs, and benefit millions of poor people across Africa and Asia.

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