Publication database

The idea of Inclusive Business is taking Africa by storm. The timely publication of a new concise book 'Inclusive business in Africa': A business model aims to take readers on a journey into the subject of Inclusive Business in Africa and shows how companies can be agents of change, contributing to inclusive development and growth. The publication brings together research supported by the Partnerships Resource Centre (PrC), a specialist research centre at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and RSM’s Professor Rob van Tulder. 

The sector guides assess disadvantages for girls within a specific sector and the potential impact that a sector-wide solution might have for girls.

This publication presents five in-depth case studies of inclusive businesses and identifies the common strategies these companies are employing to do business with people living at the base of the pyramid. Ranging in geographies and sectors (agriculture, education, financial services, and healthcare), each company has a unique path but their shared strategies provides insights that can spark innovation among future business entrepreneurs. The case studies are based on interviews with the companies’ founders, chief executive, and senior management.

This report provides insights on the impact enterprise landscape in East Africa. The report identifies three different categories of impact enterprises: Access enterprises provide critical products and services among the low income and underserved population. Ability enterprises increase their capacity to earn higher incomes through skilling or by engaging with them as partners. Lastly, Knowledge enterprises build awareness and markets, and encourage behaviour change.

This book chapter offers an in-depth case study of Access Afya, a micro-clinic health franchise in the slums of Kenya that was designed for scale from the very beginning.

This paper examines the concept of social enterprise, and focuses its research on social enterprises defined by a hybrid business model rather than their financial or social performance or social impact. Focusing on Vietnam and Kenya - it assesses the potential role for social enterprises of this type in the agriculture and health fields and it identifies specific markets, activities or circumstances where the hybrid model may have validity.

This case study reviews social enterprises operating in the agriculture and health sectors in Kenya. It considers how the lack of a widely-accepted social enterprise definition influences activity in Kenya, and it identifies niches within which agriculture and health sector social enterprises are operating.

This case study describes the interventions undertaken to create an inclusive business ecosystem in health in Kenya in order to increase awareness of and access to Oral rehydration salts (ORS) and zinc for treating childhood diarrhoea.

This study looks at access to sanitation in Kenya, it assesses the community's sanitation preferences and it evaluates the suitable mechanisms, that can enhance demand, availability, and accessibility, of identified sanitation products and services.

This case study explores Penda Health which provides high-quality, evidence-based, standardised primary care, both curative and preventative, to low- and middle-income families in Kenya while also specialising in women’s health care. It reviews the impacts of providing access to primary health care on children age eight and younger and on pregnant women living in BoP communities.