Business Opportunity & Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid
Conferences


World Resources Institute (WRI), in association with Ashoka, and MIF, the Multilateral Investment Fund, will conduct two regional conferences on private sector-led development, in Sao Paulo, Brazil August 30, 2005, and Mexico City, Mexico, September 1, 2005. 

Building on the momentum created by the success of the December 2004 WRI global conference, “Eradicating Poverty through Profit: Making Business Work for the Poor,” these regional conferences will explore the role the private sector can play in poverty alleviation and in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.  Business, civil society, and development community leaders show how to "do well and do good" at the same time.  The one-day conferences will also feature an expo of enterprises working in low-income community markets. 

The conferences will cover:

§    Pro-Poor Business Activities: Why Bother? Why should business care about low-income markets? How large are those markets? How does business benefit the poor? Can engaging the poor generate significant growth and other benefits for business? Can pro-poor business activities catalyze broad-based economic development and transform how globalization impacts the poor?

§    Experience to Date: What Works? What are the real experiences from the field that indicate that "doing well and doing good" are compatible in financial services, consumer goods, agriculture, information and communications technologies, natural resources and other sectors? What strategies and business models are succeeding? What myths need to be dispelled, what misconceptions erased? The conference explored lessons that cross-cut sectors and industries, and drilled down into the specifics for multiple sectors with reports from businesses based in emerging markets, multinational corporations, social entrepreneurs, civil society, and bilateral and multilateral agencies.

§    Barriers and Challenges: How to Succeed. Poor communities have little reason to trust the business sector; corporations face enormous internal barriers; operating environments can be difficult. Attempts to serve low-income markets with existing products, business models, and metrics are likely to fail. But, despite the challenges, many are finding ways to succeed. The conferences confront these realities head-on and feature sessions facilitated by Professors C.K. Prahalad and Stuart Hart. These sessions analyze real business problems from real companies, as well as preview new market research and executive education tools designed for low-income market activities.


Mexico
www.basedelapiramide.org

Brazil
http://www.ces.fgvsp.br