Competition Winners

• Entrepreneurs In Kenya and India
• Private Enterprise Solutions for Poverty Alleviation: Approaches of the US Military
• The Moral Imperative of Free Enterprise: The Only Known Solution to Poverty
• Aspirations and Well-Being Outcomes in Ethiopia

Entrepreneurs In Kenya and India

http://www.poverty-action.org

Throughout the developing world, the small family owned business is the ubiquitous form of free enterprise. While these businesses abound, relative to comparable firms in more developed countries very few grow. Economists traditionally think of all businesses as making perfectly rational decisions and fully exploiting all available profit opportunities. However, experience suggests significant departures from this ideal model – some entrepreneurs take better advantage of opportunities around them. In this multi-country project we seek to understand who these individuals are, what in their environment contributes to their development as entrepreneurs, and social, institutional and personal barriers to further growth.

The project seeks to answer questions like the following: To what extent do firms deviate from the efficient ideal? Why do these deviations occur? How important are hard economic factors, training, opportunities to develop specific values, and personality traits? How does personality affect the extent to which growth opportunities are left on the table?  Does greater future orientation, lower risk aversion, or openness to new ideas lead to better outcomes? To facilitate the detailed analysis that is crucial to better understand these issues, the project focuses on a single sector. The project focuses on retail because the industry has a similar structure across much of the developing world, accounts for more than 10% of employment in many developing countries and provides a route out of poverty for many. To investigate the extent to which these findings generalize across contexts the study will include two countries, India and Kenya, since most of those subsisting on less than a dollar a day live in South Asia and Africa.

To learn more about Dr. Kremer’s work, visit http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/

Private Enterprise Solutions for Poverty Alleviation:
Approaches of the US Military

http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/sge

Researchers at Cornell University, led by Professor Mark Milstein, Director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School, will explore how the US Army and Marines Corps have been approaching enterprise-based solutions to poverty in various theaters of operation – particularly within Iraq and Afghanistan. Comparing approaches undertaken by the military to those of the private sector and NGO community provides a valuable opportunity to develop better understanding of the complex relationship between entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation.

Over the past two decades, the number of humanitarian crises around the globe has increased significantly. The military’s de facto role in areas of conflict means that their approaches to seeding private enterprise at a broad level can ultimately determine the economic fate for millions. As the US military considers non-conflict based methods for fighting root causes of instability, its global impact on entrepreneurial development in poor nations is only set to expand in the years to come. Militaries everywhere have been asked to assume missions that involve considerable non-combatant activities. Often, these are taking place in geographies where legal, political, cultural, social, technical, and economic institutions are weak or non-existent. Within that vacuum, armed forces work hard to rebuild war torn nations, in part by finding innovative ways to support local entrepreneurs, small, and medium sized enterprises to establish an economic foundation which promotes hope, peace, and security for anguished populations.

This study will fill a gap in our collective knowledge by examining the actions, approaches, and results of an influential actor that is often overlooked by existing research. Even though the military has been pursuing small scale enterprise development for years, little is known about their experience. Examining the military’s work to promote private enterprise as a solution for poverty and development will hold important implications for achieving more effective cross-sector collaborations involving the private sector, NGOs, and government.

The Moral Imperative of Free Enterprise: The Only Known
Solution to Poverty

http://www.acton.org

Beginning in 2008, Acton Institute will begin a multi-year campaign aimed at persuading Americans and other Westerners of the importance of free enterprise to the defeat of poverty in the developing world. A centerpiece of that campaign will be a documentary, which will focus on first hand examples of both failure and success from regions such as war-torn Rwanda. SEVEN funding will enable them to do first hand, original research on such stories, which will not only be published, but will help provide source material for the documentary and other elements of their larger campaign.

For an example of a previous Acton Institute documentary, see Call of the Entrepreneur at www.calloftheentrepreneur.com.

Aspirations and Well-Being Outcomes in Ethiopia

http://www.ifpri.org/

Fatalism is customarily attributed to Ethiopians - particularly those who are poor. The intention, in such instances, is to characterize the lack of proactive and systematic effort to better one’s own life, and the implied acceptance of their circumstances, that a lot of Ethiopians seem to display.

Recent work by Appadurai (2001) and Ray (2006) offer alternative characterization of what appears to be fatalism, namely, aspirations failure. Accordingly, a weak capacity to aspire (to a better future or a better life) can translate into low or no investments and that may pass for fatalism. Importantly, whereas little can be done to address fatalism, the aspiration failure framework offers clear entry points for programs aimed at enhancing entrepreneurship and reducing poverty.

There is however very little (if any) evidence on the empirical validity of this approach, and much remains to be learnt. This study will use a new individual-level data set collected by the present researchers, to investigate measurement issues in aspirations and related concepts. In a second step, an experimental design relying on the broadcast of specially produced documentaries will be used to test the underlying theory. It will further be used to identify policy-relevant mechanisms to promote future oriented-behaviors among Ethiopians.
   
   

Judges

Marcela X. Escobari, Executive Director, Center for International Development, Harvard University

Marcela Escobari has over a decade of experience in economic development, including work with industrial strategy, technology policy and private sector development. She is the Executive Director of Harvard University's Center for International Development. Previously, Ms. Escobari led the Americas region and served on the Executive Committee of OTF Group, where she advised heads of state and private sector leaders on how to improve their countries' export competitiveness. Prior to working at OTF, Marcela worked with indigenous communities in Bolivia for the World Bank and was a Mergers & Acquisitions investment banker with JP Morgan in New York. Marcela holds a B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College and a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

For more information about the Center for International Development, see:
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/

Malik Fal, BMO Group Lead, Microsoft Africa

Malik Fal is Microsoft’s Business Marketing & Operations (BMO) Group lead for West-East-Central Africa, based in Johannesburg, and covering 49 African countries. The BMO function at Microsoft is often described as a COO position, combining business planning, strategy, and marketing. Before Microsoft Mr. Fal was with the OTF Group consultancy as Vice President, Africa region, and as a manager with PepsiCo.  He holds a Master’s of Public Administration for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Being an African who was educated and professionally trained in Africa, Europe, and the US, Mr. Fal developed a passion for understanding the “essence of development” through exposure to a number of different models.

For more information about Microsoft Africa, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/southafrica/

David Rabkin, Vice President, American Express

David Rabkin is Vice President at American Express, responsible for the Delta Consumer Co-brand card. Previously, Mr. Rabkin was Vice President at the OTF Group, where he led the firm's efforts in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East, and was a member of the founding management team. He has also worked as a consultant at Price Waterhouse and an Account Executive at Procter & Gamble. Mr. Rabkin holds a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

For more information about American Express, see:
http:/www.americanexpress.com
   

Aliya Shariff, Investment Officer, Africa Finance Corporation

Aliya Shariff is an Investment Officer with the Africa Finance Corporation, a hybrid investment bank / development finance institution mobilizing capital towards driving Africa’s economic development, specifically in areas of infrastructure, telecommunications, power and heavy industry.  Prior to joining AFC, she was a Manager with the OTF Group, where she worked with firms, institutions and governments in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa on cluster-level competitiveness strategy. She has also worked in Rwanda, Afghanistan, and the United States in a variety of capacities in both the public and private sectors.  Ms. Shariff holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.

For more information about the Africa Finance Corporation, see:
http://www.africafc.org/
   

This competition jury included a committee of three judges from the SEVEN Fund.

Original RFP

Enterprise-based Solutions to Poverty Inaugural Request for
Proposals (RFP)

On October 7th, 2007, The SEVEN Fund today published its inaugural Enterprise-based Solutions to Poverty request for proposals (RFP). The submission deadline was January 20, 2008 with the winners announced on February 7, 2008. SEVEN intends to run a version of this competition annually. This inaugural RFP is only the first of many SEVEN projects to focus on Enterprise-based Solutions to Poverty: we are considering investments in documentary films, collective intelligence (open source) solutions, essay contests at Universities, and entrepreneurship awards programs.

• Read the original Press Release for the RFP Contest

About the SEVEN Fund

SEVEN (Social Equity Venture Fund) is a virtual non-profit entity run by entrepreneurs Michael Fairbanks and Andreas Widmer whose strategy is to markedly increase the rate of diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. We do this by targeted investment that fosters thought leadership through books, films and websites; supporting role models - whether they are entrepreneurs or innovative firms - in developing nations; and shaping a new discourse in government, the press and the academy around private-sector innovation, prosperity and progressive human values.  The SEVEN fund was established through a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

About the John Templeton Foundation

The John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org) serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in the areas engaging life's biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity.