Economic and Political Development

A man in a freshly pressed Calvin Klein suit, sporting Aviator sunglasses, stands on the corner of a busy street cradling his laptop case and yelling over the din into his Blackberry.  Moments later he gets into his new Honda and races away.  This could be an observation made on the streets of New York […]

BY JOHN VRAKAS Standing in the heart of a village in northwestern Rwanda, a farmer named Eusebe faces a dilemma. Traders have offered him 36,000 Rwandan francs (RWF), or about US $60 per ton, for his plantains. He hesitates; the farmer knows this is a profitable price, but he has no idea if it’s a […]

BY NISHANT LALWANI It’s a hot Saturday morning in Ahmedabad, India—the last before the monsoons start—and Leeladhar Bhatt Hall is packed with visitors. Hundreds of people have gathered here to attend a two-day customer evaluation session by the Micro Housing Finance Company (MHFC). MHFC has partnered with a builder that is constructing apartments on the […]

If you want to learn a thing or two about business, just ask Leah Mugure Mwaura. Leah is a charming Kenyan grandmother and owner of a clothing wholesale business in Gikomba, a sprawling, dusty, crowded place on the outskirts of Nairobi that is now East Africa’s largest market. Every day, tens of thousands of Kenyans […]