Serving the World’s Poor, Profitably

Learning from the Poor

focusing on
Enterprise-level solutions
Empowerment at community/village level
“If you turn [poverty reduction] into a
business proposition, then it’s powerful,
because it can run on its own steam.”

–Dr. Mohammed Yunus

Digital Dividends seeks to identify, document, and

disseminate business solutions that bring benefits to
underserved populations.
Digital
Digital Dividends
Dividends Project
Project
 Clearinghouse Projects—900+
 Case Studies
 Catalyzing Action
 Regional Partners

www.digitaldividend.org

World Resources Institute

World Resources Institute
World Resources Institute
Prodem Case Study
Microfinance
Bolivia

World Resources Institute

Win-Win Opportunities
 Agriculture—e-choupal, Akashganga
 Financial services--Prodem, ICICI Bank
 Health services—Voxiva, TB SMS
 Educational services—Vidya, Educar
 Connectivity—n-Logue, Vodacom

ICT is starting to enable productivity gains

in many sectors

World Resources Institute

Empowering
Empowering communities,
communities,
social
social enterprises
enterprises
 Low cost connectivity
--text messaging, WiFi, WiMax,
transport-linked solns

 Empowerment process
-- access to information, basic services,
transparent transactions that build
capacity, dignity, trust

World Resources Institute

 Lessons Learned
• Key role of franchise model
in empowering and building capacity of local
entrepreneurs
• Key role of shared access/shared
infrastructure
in aggregating demand, lowering costs
• Power of information access and
transparency
to transform governance, markets, opportunity
• Role of private sector
in poverty reduction, development
 Regional
Regional Partnerships
Partnerships
…localizing
…localizing to
to reach
reach scale
scale
 Central and South America
 Sub Saharan Africa
 India
Building capacity in local centers of
Buib
expertise on ICT for development

World Resources Institute