Publication database

This roadmap is a step-by-step guide for off-grid clean energy companies to identify and adopt strategies to serve female customers more effectively. The roadmap was developed by the Power Africa Off-grid Project following a pilot with GDC member Simusolar to develop a market-focused gender strategy. By following this roadmap, your company can gain a deeper understanding of female farmers’ demands and challenges—distinct from those of men—in gaining access to productive use of energy (PUE) technology. Power Africa is grateful to Simusolar for its collaboration and willingness to share the lessons and tools in this roadmap.

This how-to-guide from the Global Distributors Collective is useful for last mile distributors looking to expand their product offering for customers. Exploring what this means for different distribution models, as well as key factors to consider including market, impact, organisational and logistical fit, the guide also features four case studies from the GDC membership. It was produced via a project delivered in partnership with Solar Sister and financed by EEP Africa.

This report – supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – relies on case studies drawn from the health sector to provide a better understanding of female sales forces. When are women direct sales forces be best-placed to reach low-income (women) consumers and why? How much income can women sales agents truly hope to make from these models?  What practical requirements and best practices can help make these models successful?

Between November 2018 and November 2019, Gates Foundation and Mars Edge discussed collaboration opportunities to accelerate the urban go-to-market strategy of Mars Edge’s nutritious savory snack GoMo™, specifically designed to help address nutritional deficiencies of 6-18 year olds in India, with a focus on reaching low-income consumers. The Growth for Growth (G4G) network of service providers set up by the Foundation’s PSP program co-designed this strategy to reach lower-income urban areas. In December 2019, the PSP approved a grant to assess and adapt the model during a market test. As part of the grant, the collaboration between G4G and Mars then continued until December 2020. This case study aims to share the lessons learned throughout this journey, in terms of public-private collaboration and innovation process.

This document has been designed to provide you with sustainable approaches to increase the consumption frequency of nutritional and other beneficial FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) products for lower income consumers. This toolkit has been created by experts in consumer insights and behavioural science, as well as marketing, distribution and communications strategy. It is a series of standardised modules and tactics to fuel your strategic marketing and innovation processes, helping you reach sustainable impact at scale (SIS).

Companies selling fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) have traditionally focused their marketing and distribution efforts on increasing penetration of their products. However, few have focused on increasing how frequently consumers purchase their products. While focusing on penetration can be a sound business strategy for traditional FMCGs companies, it cannot suffice for brands selling products meant to have a health impact achieved through repeat use. How can last-mile distributors encourage frequent consumption among consumers?

Foreign companies operating in a ‘host’ country’s private sector play an important role in fostering inclusive development in these nations. This PhD thesis, exploring the contributions of the Dutch private sector to inclusive development in Kenya’s three most important sectors, tea, flower and renewable energy, finds that private companies operate in a very specific context and must adapt to existing local circumstances that are often not automatically inclusive.

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. 

Thirteen interdisciplinary research projects were reviewed for this synthesis paper. These projects addressed a range of business processes and innovations by and for small-scale producers and entrepreneurs in the agri-business sectors in countries across sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. The paper stresses that innovations supporting inclusive business are only relevant and effective for the poor and marginalized when they are applicable to a specific problem and context, affordable at low costs, and accessible to all. This Is called the Triple A: applicability, affordability and accessibility.