« Poverty Reduction through Social Business ? », lessons learnt from Grameen joint ventures in Bangladesh (extracts)

KerstinHumberg is Business Consultant with a leading international management consultancy for several years. During her academic career in geography, Kerstin has conducted researches about the impact of social business in the fight against poverty. For three years, she traveled on the field, in Bangladesh, many times, to study Grameen joint ventures, including Grameen Danone Foods Ltd. The result of her work has been published in a book, « Poverty Reduction trhough Social Business ? ».

We are lucky because she allowed us to publish two chapters :

• Chapter 2 : « Mapping the field : social business and relevant contexts »
• And Chapter 7 (a GDFL case) : « Grameen Danone Foods Ltd. : Fortified Yoghurt for the Poor ».

Finally, for those who wish to go further, devour the bibliography of this academic research that lays the groundwork for a debate about the impact of social business. Happy reading!

GCM Tour 2012: contribute to make 2012 the year of social business!

Since 2008, danone.communities organizes every year a major conference in Paris, called the General Community Meeting, with Professor Yunus and many pioneers from the social business area. The aim is to promote social business, to share the avdancements on projects initiated by danone.communities and connect thousands of fans and experts. This evening has gained momentum progressively : 800 participants in 2008 at the Bibliothèque Nationale, 1200 people in 2009 at the Casino deParis, 1500 people in 2010 and 2000 people in 2011 at the Carrousel du Louvre...

GCM Tour 2012 news: meeting Danoners at Campus Danone (Evian)

Last Tuesday, it's on the hills of the Haute-Savoie that danone.communities that carried its little sticks Moss Tekki (from the project Lemateki) for a taste sampling to other employees of Danone.

Several times a year, Danone holds a Campus, a corporate university that brings together about 300 people of all nationalities. So we jumped at the chance to meet them and tell them about danone.communities and our GCM Tour 2012. Special thanks to all the Campus Team for gaving us this opportunity and for helping us to make it real.
 

So it's on my little tasting booth that I could answer all the questions from my international colleagues! Opinions were divided on the flavors of Moss Tekki (I proposed the flavors vanilla, bissap and peanut) because the ingredients are local (Senegal) and the texture matches the food tastes of young children between 5 and 8 years, but most Danoners embarked on this tasting playing the game until the end because it is the flavor "bissap" that was chosen most often.

One of the next Danone Campus will be held in Prague in June and will bring together as many Danoners. The subject will focus on social business and we will have another opportunity to share the energy of our movement with others!

Below are some pictures of the stand (morning and afternoon)

Respect of environment, carbon finance, well being for all... in a single investment Fund : Livelihoods

Livelihoods: what is it?

Livelihoods is a unique investment fund whose objective is to restore carbon credits with high societal value to its partners investors. Livelihoods raises funds from its investors and reinvests them into large-scale projects to generate long-term viability. The Fund seeks to find the best balance between the financial value of these credits and the value created for local communities.

The mechanism can be summed up as follows: through the carbon economy, the fund contributes to ecosystem restoration and development of the local economy and thus to the fight against poverty in countries where it invests. Hundreds of thousands of families can contribute to the restoration of their ecosystem while improving their food income.

Livelihoods par Livelihoods

Who are the initiators and partners of Livelihoods?

Nobel Laureate Pr. Muhammad Yunus has been named by Fortune magazine as one of the 12 Greatest Entrepreneurs of Our Time.

Fortune Magazine publishes many ranks each year. The one we are the most interested in today is “12 Greatest Entrepreneurs of Our Time”, which we are particularly proud of because it includes Professor Yunus, President of danone.communities board. Pr. Yunus is mentioned besides many over innovative persons like Steve Jobs from Apple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin from Google, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook… The Top 12 includes 10 American people, an Indian one and Yunus, who is from Bangladesh, as many people know. All the ranked persons are presented through a little story, in an article named "From dreamers to doers" (read the story of Yunus here). A mantra to keep in mind ?

Before reading the reasons why Pr. Yunus has been chosen to be part of the rank.(source DailyStar), we just would like to let you know that Pr. YUnus will be with us in Paris, 15th May for our annual Global Communities Meeting Tour 2012. More details here.