Track V: Business at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Base of the Pyramid fanfare focuses on the business opportunity for multinationals to sell goods and services to the poor in developing countries. Fair Trade turns the pyramid on its head by connecting the poor directly to international buyers – and, in turn, to millions of US consumers – and empowering them to become international businesspeople. In six years, sales of Fair Trade Certified products in the US have channeled more than $67 million in additional, above-market revenue to farmers and farm workers throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. Fair Trade income funds sustainable local development projects – health systems, scholarships, women’s leadership initiatives, and microfinance programs – in over 50 countries around the developing world, and provides over 1 million farmers with resources to invest in their businesses and their products.

Fair Trade is increasingly recognized as the gold standard of social and environmental certification. It has expanded from its emergence in the specialty coffee market to a growing number of commodities: cocoa, tea, rice, sugar, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, and grapes. Consumers can now choose Fair Trade Certified products in Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, supermarket chains, and college cafeterias. Panelists will draw upon their experiences at various stages in the Fair Trade supply chain to examine the following issues:

A majority of the world’s poor live in rural areas where agriculture is the dominant means to earn an income. Since the mandate of microfinance is to reach those areas where previously credit and financial services were unavailable, there is a natural connection between rural agricultural business development and microfinance. The object of this panel is to explore those links and consider in which ways agricultural business development services can support and enhance the impact of microfinance in these areas.

Mexico is a country in a dynamic process of change. For the first time in 70 years a non PRI party president was elected in 2000. The two presidents prior to the democratic transition had make fast paced efforts to liberalize markets, privatize government holdings, strengthen institutions and enter into free trade agreements with NAFTA, then the European Union, Japan, Israel and South America. Mexico is once again approaching democratic elections and is a country with great challenges to overcome with close to 40% of the population in extreme poverty. The panel unites academics, politicians, and businessmen to share their vision of how Mexico

Emerging economies have an enormous challenge in providing their economies much needed infrastructure to promote growth. Financing massive transportation, trade port, water and electricity projects is not easy in economies were the market may not provide the returns on investments. The PPP in Infrastructure panel unites the top global and multilateral organizations involved in infrastructure innovation to share their vision of how emerging economies can accomplish infrastructure goals.