Selected Reports
- IFC Report “Accelerating Inclusive Business Opportunities: Business Models that Make a Difference”: This 44-page report identifies 7 inclusive business models that expand access to goods, services, and livelihoods for the world’s poorest people while generating strong financial returns. Its findings are based on an analysis of IFC’s portfolio, which found that mature investments in companies with inclusive business models show financial returns very similar to those of IFC’s portfolio as a whole, while having a larger impact on development.
- Harvard University Report “Tackling Barriers to Scale: From Inclusive Business Models to Inclusive Business Ecosystems“: What is keeping inclusive business models from reaching their full potential? According to a report released in October 2011 by Christina Gradl and Beth Jenkins on behalf of the Harvard Kennedy School’s CSR Initiative, among the most obvious factors is that operating environments for inclusive business are challenging, with significant gaps in the institutional, informational and infrastructural conditions required to make markets work. This report is based on an analysis of 15 case examples.
- FSG Report “Creating Shared Value in India”: This report demonstrates that market-based solutions to social problems can and do create competitive advantage. This report offers detailed examples from both large corporations and small social enterprises in India that have developed highly innovative efforts to create economic value while addressing core issues in healthcare and sanitation, agriculture, and financial services.
- Monitor Group “Promise and Progress: Market-Based Solutions to Poverty in Africa”: The report concludes a 16-month research project on the operations of 439 enterprises in nine sub-Saharan nations, enterprises which are active in 14 sectors and seek to use market mechanisms to improve the lives and livelihoods of people living at the bottom of the economic pyramid.
- Scaling up Inclusive Business: Advancing the Knowledge and Action Agenda: This IFC and Harvard Kennedy School report frames the key issue areas that need to be addressed to move the field of inclusive business forward – toward greater scale and effectiveness.
- Monitor Group “Emerging Markets, Emerging Models” Report: Based on analysis of more than 250 inclusive business models in India, the report identifies seven approaches with the potential for commercial viability and scale: pay-per-use, no frills service, paraskilling, shared channels, contract production, deep procurement, demand-led training.
- UNDP Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative Report: “Creating Value for All: Strategies for Doing Business with the Poor” develops a Strategy Matrix based on an analysis of the ways 50 companies in different countries and industries are overcoming the challenges of doing business with the poor.
- The Next 4 Billion Report: Analysis of household income and expenditure data by IFC and the World Resources Institute shows total market size at the base of the pyramid as well as consumer ability to pay within critical sectors such as water and sanitation, energy, information and communications technology, health care, and financial services.
- World Development Indicators: Free database covering all of the world’s economies, including more than 1,000 indicators from GDP per capita to income distribution to telecommunications penetration to access to health care.
- UNDP Market Heat Maps: Depicting access to goods and services in selected sectors and countries by type of provider, the heat maps reveal unmet demand among the poor and the relative market shares of different suppliers. Currently available for Botswana, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Africa.
- Harvard Business Review’s “Serving the World’s Poor, Profitably”: One of the first articles on inclusive business in a mainstream publication, this article by CK Prahalad and Allen Hammond explains how, by stimulating commerce and development at the base of the economic pyramid, companies could radically improve the lives of billions of people.
- WBCSD-SNV Inclusive Business Alliance Brochure: The brief publication “Inclusive Business: Profitable Business for Successful Development” introduces the concept and case for inclusive business, including company examples.
- WBCSD Inclusive Business Challenge Simulation: A presentation and simulation tool for use in awareness-raising and capacity-building by companies and other organizations active or interested in the field of inclusive business. Available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, the tool includes a facilitation guide and links to additional resources.
- Business Partnerships for Africa: Redrawing the boundaries of possibility: This report examines how business- driven partnerships are addressing Africa’s development challenges in new and innovative ways, redrawing the boundaries of what is possible, and creating new frontiers for sustainable development and growth on the continent.
- Inclusive Business Solutions: Expanding Opportunity and Access at the Base of the Pyramid: This IFC report captures insights shared during a high-level event held on October 7th and 8th in Washington, DC in which the IFC recognized twelve clients for their leadership in developing inclusive business models.
Locations
Hover on a location and click to select for more information.
