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Newsletter - November 2007
Dear CWB Friends,
In this Newsletter we keep you updated on the progress
of the launch of the CWB mentoring guide and other developments and
collaboration agreements of the foundation. Please check if you can be
of any help in the areas we mention in the ‘Support us’ section.
We include links to interesting articles that allow you
to gain a deeper insight of
what is going on in business development. Additional contents of this
Newsletter include a Profile of Mohamed Ibrahim and a Review of the
World Resources Institute.
We expect this Newsletter to be a first step towards
creating a closer and thriving CWB network where members can connect
with each other and encounter inspiring people and experiences.
Therefore, we encourage all of you to send us comments on the contents
of the Newsletter, and we especially look forward to your contributions,
whether they be articles of your own, suggestions on worthwhile articles
that we may have missed,or profiles that inspire us to improve the
state of the world (one little bit at a time). For issues regarding the
Newsletter, please write to mbueno@ceoswb.org.
Enjoy the reading!
CWB news
New projects... CEOs Without Borders
inaugurates a 2.0 Mentoring Guide at www.wikilearning.com:
Visitors, who wish to provide mentors and mentees with
useful tips to maximize the success of their mentoring experiences, will
create the contents of the guide. This initiative follows from the
notorious increase of 2.0 websites (those whose contents are contributed
by visitors to the website, such as Wikipedia, Linked-in, Flickr and
Wikilearning). Many mentoring guidelines are available. First, we had
the idea of putting together the dispersed knowledge of these guides and
adding our mentor’s experiences. However, the latest meeting of the
World Economic Forum in Davos raised our awareness about 2.0 websites
and their incredible power in knowledge accumulation and dissemination.
Thus, we decided to make the guide in 2.0 format, in order for it to be
richer in content, more versatile and continuously updated.
TIE-UK has already joined the initiative and we are now
working together to make this guide a reference tool for business
mentoring.
Stay tuned for the official launch of the guide in
future Newsletters!
New collaboration agreements with ESADE
Business School in Barcelona:
ESADE students have volunteered to assist CEOs leading
business cooperation projects in Africa. They will be developing
projects during the winter semester and travelling to Africa during the
summer time.
Webpage updates:
New support material for mentors and mentees: Tips on
how to take out the best from a mentoring experience & everything you
need to know about the business environment in Ghana
SUPPORT CWB We need
contacts with individuals & companies who would like to promote a
REVOLUTIONARY PROJECT: frozen ready-to-eat fruit pieces
produced in less developed countries for export to Euorpe and the USA.
Contact us for further details.
FUNDRAISING: We are looking for new ways to sustain
the activity of CEOs Without Borders. If you know an expert fundraiser
that can help and/or contacts with corporations that might be interested
in promoting CEOs Without Borders, put them in contact with us! INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY in Communication and Marketing: Help us market CWB to the business community in Europe, the USA and Africa. Tasks: writing and editing, doing research and interviewing. Hours/days negotiable. We accept applicants from all over the world. English proficiency and experience required.
Help us find MENTORS in:
Field News & Essential Readings
Nov-Dec 2007
The Globalization Index 2007
Foreign Policy
Oct 20, 2007
Sub-Saharan Africa: Regional Economic Outlook
International Monetary Fund
Oct 18, 2007
The Digital Gap, More than a click to put Africa online
The Economist
Oct 12, 2007
Indian Microfinance is attracting big business
Financial Times
Oct 10, 2007
Tackling poverty a priority for Zoellick
Financial Times
Sep 5, 2007
View of the day: Growth in Africa Financial Times
Winter 2007
Molding the Middle Class Expanding, Kenya's Middle
Class to Promote Growth
Harvard International Review
2007 Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy Special
Report
Financial Times
Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems
Copenhagen Business School (November 2007)
Profile of the month: Mo Ibrahim
Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim (1946) is a Sudanese entrepreneur
holding a PhD from the University of Birmingham in Mobile
Communications. He rejects Africa as a lost continent and emphasizes
the business opportunities in it, where he says the highest rates of
growth are possible.
He is the founder of Celtel, a mobile communications
spin off company he sold to Kuwaiti MTC for US$3.4bn in 2005. Celtel is
an African success story: It began operating in 1998, and today covers
more than 15 African countries. By the end of 2006 Celtel had 16.87
million active consumers and revenues of USD 2.05 billion. This is not a
big cake compared to other telecommunication companies in Europe and
USA, but it is adding on average 100,000 new customers each week.
Current levels of mobile users in Africa are around 6% and expected to
reach 20% by 2010. Use of mobile phones is concentrated in urban areas,
but connecting to rural areas now too. See how Africans are using
mobiles at Mobiles are catapulting rural Africa, New York Times.
Ibrahim created the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which
published the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, a comprehensive
measure of governance in 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In
October 2006, the Foundation launched the Prize for Achievement in
African Leadership, the largest yearly prize in the world given to the
sub-Saharan African leader who “surmount(s) the development challenges
of their countries, improving the livelihoods and welfare of their
people and consolidating the foundation for sustainable development.”
The winner is selected from leaders who have left office during the
previous three years. The prize is US$5 million over 10 years and
US$200,000 annually for life thereafter. Also, US$200,000 a year is
provided for 10 years towards the winner’s public interest activities
and good causes. This prize is set up to encourage sub-Saharan African
leaders to do the most for their countries. The first recipient of the
prize was former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, last October
22, 2007.
Link of the month: World Resources
Institute (WRI)
WRI is an American think-tank founded 25 years ago to
focus on environmental issues. Since then it has outgrown its initial
emphasis to encompass a mission that includes practical ways to protect
the earth and improve people's lives. WRI has recently launched
www.NextBillion.net, a knowledge repository and a space for discussion
and networking for those interested in the search of profitable
solutions for the Bottom or Base of the Pyramid (BOP). Traditional
approaches to poverty imply providing public service(healthcare,
education, etc.). Market-based approaches consider poor markets as
markets that are able to pay for services that are appropriately
designed for their financials. The BOP is comprised by people with
incomes below $3,000 in local purchasing power – less than US$3.35 a
day- living in informal economies and underserved markets in developing
countries. The NextBillion.net features blogging, newsrooms, an activity
database, events calendar, and a resource area.
In www.NextBillion.net you can find the core
publication, “The Next 4 Billion: Market size and business strategy at
the base of the pyramid,” by the WRI and the International Finance
Corporation (World Bank). This publication attempts to analyze BOP
markets at the national level for the first time. It estimates the BOP
to be a $5 trillion global consumer market, analyzing the size of each
market by geography (largest, by far being Asia), national composition
(rural/urban & higher/lower income levels concentration depending on the
country) and market by sector (dominated by food, energy and housing).
It describes raising business interest in these markets -- with
successful enterprises being which have re-imaged the business to focus
on BOP (for example, micro-finance and low cost remittance); added value
locally (involving local agents), enabled access (for example, one-use
packaging) and founded new partners (NGOs, governments, etc).
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