Publication database

This report examines the impacts and implications of mobile water payments with a comparative assessment from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia. It analyses levels of adoption, customer motivations and barriers, and the distribution of costs and benefits across stakeholders.

This report includes a set of 31 case studies on IFC’s portfolio companies with inclusive business models. The presented companies are profitably providing goods, services, and livelihood opportunities to the Base of the Pyramid. In the case studies the reader gets an insight in the specific background of the companies, the business models as well as drivers for the specific business models and results of the latter.

Stories of Change is Ashoka’s electronic book series profiing stories of "changemakers in the Ashoka community", Fellows, Youth Venturers, staff and partners. This report includes interviews with 10 young "changemakers" from Ashoka's Youth Venture program. The young people of different countries shortly present their diverse projects.

This study looks at the Niloo project, a collaborative venture between WSUP, Unilever and design consultants IDEO which focused on developing an innovative solution to sanitation issues in low-income districts of the Ghanaian city of Kumasi.

This report examines approaches to providing affordable and safe water to low-income communities and how the public sector, philanthropic and commercial players can aid the growth of such projects. It provides an in-depth and comparative analysis of models in this sector and clusters the solutions into four groups: 'devices, flasks and tabs', 'pumping and harvesting', 'pipes and taps' and 'plants and kiosks'.

This report presents findings from a review of the service activities of informal private water vendors in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It analyses the current water supply situation, gives an overview of the different types of small-scale water vendors operating in the area and provides an analysis of the effects of small-scale water vending on low-income households. An analysis of the affordability and quality of drinking water available to low-income households, problems involving the regulation of water supply as well as policy implications complete the report.

This publication is the product of an international learning event where development NGOs and businesses from the North and the South reflected on their partnerships. Its backbone is a series of five Insights that highlight the main challenges of a partnership and how to address them. This report is written from the perspective of a development NGO, but targets professionals from both Civil Society- as well as Private Sector. It supports a better understanding of the intrinsic organizational and capacity issues that occur when a development NGO engages into a partnership with a business.

This book examines new business models that bring basic utility services to the people at the base of the socio-economic pyramid. It draws on cases from electricity distribution and other infrastructure industries, as well as from experiences spanning Asia, Africa and Latin America.