Inclusive Business Brown Bag Lunch Series

The dialogue series offers an informal platform for experts in the field of business and development to exchange insights and discuss ideas. The event takes place every three months in the premises of one of the participating organizations. Representatives of the host organization present insights from own activities and kick off a discussion with their own questions. In this way, experts learn more about the work and views of other players in the field. This can facilitate collaboration and continuous exchange. 

Next Brown Bag Lunch on "PPP from the inside"

We warmly invite you to join our third ‘Inclusive Business Brown Bag Lunch’ in Berlin. Our host this time is GTZ. Project manager Jana Kern will provide first-hand insights from the public side of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), using the example of Munich Re's engagement in Indonesia.

To register for the event, send an email until March 12 to Christina at c.gradl@no-spam.emergia.de.

 

Past Brown Bag Lunches:

PlaNet Finance on the financing of microcredit

On December 11, 2009 PlaNet Finance welcomed around 20 participants in their offices in Berlin Mitte for the second Inclusive Business Brown Bag Lunch titled "Micro-Finance as Social Investment". Delphine Bazalgette and her dynamic team offered in-depth knowledge on the financing side of the microfinance industry. In her presentation, Kathleen Welvers showed that while the volume of investment into the sector is steadily increasing and more and more private investors are pouring in funds, the number of institutions who benefit from these investments is fairly small. The largest part is absorbed by the 150 best performing MFIs globally, out of more than 10.000 such institutions. Participants dicussed the role of the public sector in creating this market and supporting newcomers. They were also interested in the potential to transfer micro-finance models to Germany.

MicroEnergy on quality assurance and consumer protection

For the kick off of the Berlin Inclusive Business Brown Bag series, MicroEnergy International invited experts to their office at TU Berlin on September 11, 2009. Noara Kebir provided some food for thought on the challenges of quality assurance and consumer protection in low-income markets. She illustrated the difficulties arising from plagiarism, lack of legal enforcement and market transparency with own experiences in the energy sector. The 14 participants, representatives from Emergia Institute, Genesis Institute, GTZ and PlanetFinance, discussed potential solutions, such as delivering services instead of products, MFIs as effective negotiators for quality assurance, and better information platforms, e.g. by using the internet or mobile telephony.