An article by Roshaneh Zafar of Kashf (our investment in microfinance in Pakistan) about Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus appeared in a recent issue of the Pakistani daily The Nation. Roshaneh’s work has been inspired in large part by Dr. Yunus, and both continue to work to demonstrate the bankability of the poor.

An editorial in The New York Times this week has it right in the last line – the world needs to focus on improving health systems and not just undertake one-off approaches to curbing diseases. The disastrous interaction of malaria and HIV causes more infections, sickness and death. I’ve just returned from Eastern and Southern Africa where we visited enterprises concerned with both diseases. I’ll post some excerpts from my journal in the coming weeks, but wanted to flag this important finding – and hope that our conclusion is to think more broadly about what it will take to deliver high quality and affordable health products and services to the poor.

Congratulations to Judith Rodin and The Rockefeller Foundation, a founding partner who provided seed capital to launch Acumen Fund. This article in The Economist highlights Dr. Rodin’s unrelenting approach to building on the best of Rockefeller history and re-inventing it to mirror the new realities of a global and interconnected economy. We’re proud to be associated with Rockefeller Foundation and are excited to see this new conversation taking place the world over.

At Acumen Fund’s recent five-year celebration, Suketu Mehta (the author of “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found“) shared his insights about Acumen Fund’s work. His keynote remarks appear below.

On July 27, 2005, Bombay experienced the highest recorded rainfall in its history - 37 inches of rain in one day. The torrent showed up the best and the worst about the city. Hundreds of people drowned. But unlike the situation after Katrina hit New Orleans, there was no widespread breakdown of civic order; even though the police was absent, the crime rate did not go up. That was because Bombayites were busy helping each other. Slumdwellers went to the highway and took stranded motorists into their homes and made room for one more person in shacks where the average occupancy is seven adults to a room. Volunteers waded through waist-deep water to bring food to the 150,000 people stranded in train stations. Human chains were formed to get people out of the floods. People stood on the streetcorners to hand out packets of food and water to commuters walking home. Most of the government machinery was absent, but nobody expected otherwise. Bombayites helped each other, because they had lost faith in the government helping them. On a planet of city dwellers, this is how most human beings are going to live and cope in the twenty-first century. (more…)

It was an incredible experience being at the opening of the first Sanjeevani store last Tuesday. The store and clinic looked wonderful (clean and simple), felt nice and cool in the warm Mumbai afternoon (the CEO of Medicine Shoppe India, Viraj Gandhi, made a note for me to thank Jacqueline for insisting on having the stores air conditioned), the Vision Shoppe had a long line for testing (I bought my first pair of prescription glasses after being tested as mildly myopic), and the line for the public clinic spilled out into the streets. I have also never seen Viraj as excited—he was just giddy about the possibilities that this new format holds for serving the poor. It also didn’t hurt that the Director of International Operations from Medicine Shoppe in the US was there at the launch. They were one of many partners that had cautioned Viraj about trying to enter the poor and rural markets, but seemed to be pleased with the launch yesterday. (more…)

At the Acumen Fund Pakistan office, we’ve had a lot of discussions about the fact that AF has a lot of young, driven people behind it who are committed to making a difference. This is noticeable in Pakistan even in terms of the inspirational individuals with whom we work – from Roshaneh Zafar at Kashf to Jawad Aslam at Saiban. Given the above, I found this article in Newsweek International to be really interesting, especially as it notes that this social consciousness is increasingly becoming a common phenomenon in Asia – which I personally hope translates into more people engaging in entrepreneurial approaches to poverty.

I’ve spoken previously about the need to build an “entrepreneurial bench” of top talent with strong financial and operational skills as well as the moral imagination to build appropriate enterprises with local stakeholders. Launching the Acumen Fund Fellows Program has been our effort to identify and develop some of the world’s next generation of leaders.

Our first group of fellows has completed its New York training and has gone into the field to help support our investment enterprises. We are excited to announce our call for extraordinary individuals to build our Acumen Fund Fellows class of 2008.

We seek applications from young professionals with the skills, imagination and will to effect significant change through market-oriented approaches to global problem solving. Candidates must apply by 12 noon EST on January 31, 2007 so that we can select fellows by mid-April, with the program beginning in September. You can find more information and application guidelines on our website.