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  • Brewing Prosperity Creates Good Jobs

    Brewing Prosperity Creates Good Jobs

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    In the Democratic Republic of Congo – home to the world’s largest United Nations peacekeeping mission and decades of bloody civil war – a brewery has not only survived, it has thrived to become a popular brand throughout central Africa. By being a success, the Brasimba brewery has brought prosperity and high-quality jobs to Congo’s second largest city, Lubumbashi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubumbashi), and proven that a modern business can do well there despite the obstacles.

    The Brasimba brewery has an ultra-modern factory (http://www.viddler.com/explore/kaysha/videos/298/) complete with high-tech laboratories to constantly test the quality of the beer. It employs 700 people – most of whom are Congolese – and produces 250,000 bottles of Simba beer every day, according to Monocle magazine. The company’s beer brands are Simba Biere du Lion and Tembo Biere and its slogan is a proud Notre Biere (Our Beer).

    Lubumbashi is a city described by the BBC as without “child beggars, without potholes and where there are no festering mounds of rubbish.”

    A study of the economic impact of breweries in Uganda and Honduras found that more than 100 local jobs, from farmers to truck drivers, depended on every person employed by a brewery (http://www.inclusivebusiness.org/2009/10/sabmiller-impact-assessment.html). Markets across the South are seen as growth areas for beer companies: China’s beer consumers now outnumber those in the U.S. By 2003, world sales of beer reached 148 billion hectolitres (Euromonitor). Overall, it is forecast that global beer consumption will rise by 3.5 percent by 2015, mostly in the South.

    Apart from creating steady employment, breweries also help to improve the development of the advertising and marketing businesses of a community as they promote their various brands, and they support local activities like sport with team sponsorship. They also offer a local example of how to run a modern beverage business, with mechanized production, distribution systems and laboratories to ensure hygiene and quality standards are maintained.

    Brasimba has been operating in Lubumbashi for eight decades, through the twists and turns of the country’s history. The city has prospered from its copper mines and wisely used that wealth to improve the city’s general prosperity.

    The brewery has successfully become a regional favourite, producing beer that is drunk not only in the surrounding Katanga province, but also in Zimbabwe and Zambia. It’s an impressive accomplishment for a company operating in such a turbulent environment. Distribution of the beer by truck is not easy, with the trip taking between six days and two weeks depending on the weather and the condition of the roads.

    And the beer is not cheap, at around US $1.48 for a big bottle — a sure sign there is money to be made.

    The healthy economic environment has also spawned a beer war with rivals Bralima, owned by the multinational Heineken. With five breweries in Congo and its head office in the capital Kinshasa, Heineken claims the lessons it has learned in Congo are helping it to change its marketing and business strategies far away in the United States.

    It recently transferred its commercial director of Congo operations to head up operations in the United States. Heineken Chief Executive Officer Jean-Francois van Boxmeer told the Bloomberg news agency that working in Africa was “certainly worth three times Harvard Business School.”

    Heineken’s market share doubled in the Democratic Republic of Congo in just four years and Africa has become a significant market for the brewer.

    Published: December 2009

    Resources

    • Small businesses looking to develop their brand can find plenty of free advice and resources here: Website: http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com
    • A Brandchannel: The world’s only online exchange about branding, packed with resources, debates and contacts to help businesses intelligently build their brand. Website: http://www.brandchannel.com
    • Just Food is a web portal packed with the latest news on the global food industry and packed with events and special briefings to fill entrepreneurs in on the difficult issues and constantly shifting market demands. Website: http://www.just-food.com

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • New Appetite for Nutritious Traditional Vegetables

    New Appetite for Nutritious Traditional Vegetables

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Throughout the history of farming, around 7,000 species of plants have been domesticated. Yet everyday diets only draw on 30 percent of these plants and even this number has been going down as more people consume mass-market foods (FAO).

    One consequence has been poor nutrition resulting from the reduction in consumption of high-vitamin foods, leading to stunted mental and physical development across the global South.

    Once-rich culinary traditions have wilted and left many people not knowing what to do with formerly common vegetables and fruits, even if they can actually find them in markets.

    Between 94,000 and 144,000 plant species — a quarter to a half of the world’s total — could die out in the coming years, according to an estimate by Scientific American (2002). Among them are vital food crops, threatened by a world in which climate change is causing more weather turbulence and diseases and viruses can spread rapidly and destroy crops.

    This scale of plant loss risks leaving the world’s food security dependent on fewer – and more vulnerable – domesticated species.

    Despite being rich in vitamins, minerals and trace elements, African leafy vegetables have been overlooked in preference for cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, and other imported produce. But with rising food prices at local markets, people are looking again at these neglected African vegetables. In East Africa, this includes indigenous plants like amaranth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaranth), African eggplant, Ethiopian mustard, cowpea, jute mallow and spider plant.

    Like tomatoes and potatoes, some of these vegetables are members of the nightshade family — but unlike those imports, they are indigenous to Africa. According to Patrick Maundu of Bioversity International (http://www.bioversityinternational.org/), African nightshades provide good levels of protein, iron, vitamin A, iodine, zinc, and selenium at seven times the amounts derived from cabbage. The high levels of vitamins and micronutrients, he says, are especially important to people at risk of malnutrition and disease, particularly HIV/AIDS.

    As the cost for basic foodstuffs have shot up during the global economic crisis, growing food has become an increasingly lucrative source of income. Estimates of the number of people doing this across Africa range from hundreds of thousands to millions.

    In the bid to reduce the over-dependence on imported foods, urban farming is coming to the rescue and becoming an effective survival tactic in Africa’s fast-growing cities. Thousands of urban workers in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, are supplementing their wages by investing in farms growing food.

    Eunice Wangari, a nurse in Kenya, supplements her US $350/month salary with money earned from growing food. “For too long our country has been flooded with imported food and westernized foods,” Wangari told The Guardian newspaper. “This is our time to fight back – and grow our own.”

    In Kenya, this type of agriculture usually involves an urbanite taking a stake in farmland outside the city. Relatives then do the farming. Mobile phones play a key role in this approach. The urban dweller can keep in touch with the farm by phone and receive updates on progress. They use their knowledge of urban food tastes to then adjust the crops and increase profits.

    An accountant, James Memusi in Nairobi, is growing mushrooms in a spare bedroom in his home and then selling them to hotels and supermarkets, according to The Guardian. Miringo Kinyanjui is selling unrefined maize and wheat. Loved for its nutritional qualities, the flour is also flavoured with amarathan, a common green vegetable in Kenya.It is a clever way to make the most of the fact that many urban dwellers have some access to land in the countryside.

    Pride is also returning to the topic of food, as people re-discover traditional foods and vegetables and fruits.

    In Liberia, president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has launched a “Back to the Soil” campaign to get urban dwellers to farm and help the country lose its dependence on foreign food imports.

    Liberia is trying to reduce the importing of rice and tomatoes.

    In Zambia, the embracing of traditional foods has been fuelled by recipes used by a chain of popular restaurants. This appetite has driven demand for dried pumpkins, ‘black jack’ leaves and fresh okra.

    The success of this revival of traditional foods has attracted big multinationals as well. Unilever Kenya ran a campaign in 2008 called ‘taste our culture,’ promoting African herbs and spices.

    Published: November 2009

    Resources

    1) The Global Trees Campaign, a partnership between Fauna & Flora International, Botanic Gardens Conservation International and many other organisations around the world, aims to save threatened tree species through provision of information, conservation action and support for sustainable use. Website: http://www.globaltrees.org

    2) World Vegetable Center: The World Vegetable Center is the world’s leading international non-profit research and development institute committed to alleviating poverty and malnutrition in developing countries through vegetable research and development. Website: http://www.avrdc.org/

    3) Sylva Professional Catering and College: A well-known Zambian food entrepreneur who runs a range of businesses, including restaurants, a cooking school and a guest house. Website: http://sadcbiz.com/countries/zambia/categories/index.htm

    4) Marketing African Leafy Vegetables: Challenges and Opportunities in the Kenyan Context By Kennedy M. Shiundu and Ruth. K. Oniang. Website: http://www.ajfand.net/Issue15/PDFs/8%20Shiundu-IPGR2_8.pdf

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Global South’s Rising Economies Gain Investor Spotlight

    Global South’s Rising Economies Gain Investor Spotlight

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    A new book is arguing that the world’s attention should switch away from BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and take another look at nations and regions elsewhere across the global South. It argues many are lodestones of future growth and prosperity in the making and will see dramatic changes over the next decade.

    The story of the BRIC and BRICS countries is an impressive one. In just eight years from 2000 to 2008, the BRIC countries’ combined share of total world economic output rose from 16 to 22 per cent. This led to a 30 per cent increase in global output during the period, showing how key these countries were to global prosperity in the 2000s. BRIC countries make up nearly half the world’s population and are regional leaders. Taken together, their gross domestic products (GDPs) are not far behind the United States.

    Ruchir Sharma’s Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles (http://www.amazon.com/Breakout-Nations-Pursuit-Economic-Miracles/dp/0393080269) argues that the BRICS are now entering a more stable growth path and thus will not see the rapid-fire expansion and quick profits investors have become used to in the past decade.

    “The BRICs,” Sharma told Forbes magazine, “were last decade’s team.”

    The BRIC acronym (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC) was coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs managing director Jim O’Neill, in a 2001 paper titled “Building Better Global Economic BRICs” (http://www.goldmansachs.com/ourthinking/brics/building-better.html). O’Neill predicted that this handful of countries would dominate the growth and economic development story for the years 2000 to 2010. This was because they all shared a similar stage of advanced economic development.

    The BRIC states first began meeting together in 2006. South Africa was added in 2010 to form the BRICS acronym.

    The buzz surrounding the BRICS countries over the past decade has been justified by their impressive growth rates, declining poverty levels,modernizing economies and societies and growing middle class populations.

    China alone had seen its gross domestic product grow by US $5 trillion between 2001 and 2011.

    Now, Sharma argues, it is someone else’s turn.

    Sharma is head of emerging markets with Morgan Stanley Investment Management in New York, and Breakout Nations looks at where the next economic surprise stories will take place.

    “A breakout nation is a nation that will grow above expectations, and will grow more than nations with similar per capita income,” Sharma told Forbes. “You can’t bunch all of the emerging markets together anymore. The last decade saw these countries behaving the same economically, but I think that is behind us now. Investors today will really have to pick their spots.”

    He points out that Indonesia was the best performing emerging market in 2011 and has an economy that will surpass a trillion dollars in the coming years.

    He also believes Sri Lanka and Nigeria are economies to watch.

    Sharma says funds flowing into emerging market stocks grew by 478 per cent from 2005 to 2010, a massive jump compared to 2000 to 2005, when they grew by 92 per cent.

    As he sees it, China has now reached middle-income status and its growth rates will not be as high as they have been for the past two decades. In his research, he found that countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all slowed down once their per capita income went past US $5,000.

    Investors who watch the emerging markets predict the hot growth areas for the next decade will be around energy, technology, and agricultural resources.

    Sharma picks out Indonesia, Turkey, the Philippines, Poland and the Czech Republic for future investment interest, but urges caution with thinking all emerging economies are on course to boom.

    “You’ve got to pick your spots, rather than just assume that because you put a tag of emerging on a particular nation, it’s going to boom,” Sharma told The Globe and Mail newspaper.

    To make sense of the complexity of fast-emerging economies, a flurry of new investor acronyms has popped up. One of the country clusters is called the CIVETS: Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIVETS).

    The MINTS (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) are also set for great growth in the next decade, many investors believe.

    Then there is the N-11 or Next 11. This is the MINTS plus Bangladesh, Egypt,Iran, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam.

    And after that there is VISTA (Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Argentina). While clearly the creative juices are flowing at investment houses as they come up with ever-catchier acronyms, a more serious point is being made: many countries in the global South, for the first time in history, are no longer solely dependent on the Western economic system for demand.

    These countries, investors note, now have an unprecedented range of options uncoupled from the political, financial and economic legacy of Western developed nations. They say that many nations in the global South are set for a runaway investment boom because they are making changes and modernizing their economies faster than many expect.

    As the BRICS economies mature and slow down and take on different priorities based around improving the quality of life of their citizens, those seeking faster profits will look elsewhere. This trend is even happening within the BRICS, as Chinese and Brazilian companies offshore work to Vietnam and Colombia.

    There are many new centres of economic activity and rising prosperity across the emerging markets that often fail to gain wider attention. Few would probably know that the Northeast Asian nation of Mongolia – mired in the 1990s in the worst peacetime economic collapse in half a century (http://www.scribd.com/doc/20864541/Mongolia-Update-1998-Book) – is now the world’s fastest-growing economy (http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/2012/02/28/what-behind-mongoliaeconomic-boom) and one of the top places for mobile phone usage and penetration (http://www.businessmongolia.com/mongolia/2012/03/19/mongolia-ringing-the-changes/).

    Then there is Myanmar (formerly Burma), where many are hoping recent moves toward democracy and improvements in diplomatic relations will lead to an economic boon for the region. Investors are also targeting Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

    Reflecting these changing realities, Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank, has been documenting the rising role played by the Chinese currency in international trade. A recent report forecast US $100 billion (R768 billion) in Sino-African trade would be settled in the Chinese currency, the renminbi, by 2015. This would be double the trade between China and Africa in 2010. It also found 70,000 Chinese companies are using the renminbi in international trade transactions.

    Published: April 2012

    Resources 

    1) Beyondbrics blog: A blog by the Financial Times calling itself “The Ft’s emerging markets hub”. Website: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/

    2) BRICS Summit: The Fourth BRICS Summit was hosted in New Delhi on 29 March 2012 under the overarching theme of “BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity.” The Summit has imparted further momentum to the BRICS process. Website: bricsindia.in

    3) Market Oracle: A good source for updates on investor sentiment about the emerging market economies. Website: marketoracle.co.uk

    4) Monocle magazine: “A briefing on global affairs, business, culture and design” often featuring trends in the emerging market countries. Website: monocle.com

    5) BRICS Information Centre, University of Toronto. Website: brics.utoronto.ca

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/04/15/african-youth-want-to-do-business-in-fast-growing-economy/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/03/20/global-south-eco-cities-show-how-the-future-can-be/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/07/19/global-south-trade-boosted-with-increasing-china-africa-trade-in-2013/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/global-souths-middle-class-is-increasing-prosperity/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/global-souths-rising-economies-gain-investor-spotlight-2/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/11/12/global-souths-rising-megacities-challenge-idea-of-urban-living/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/15/indonesian-middle-class-recycle-wealth-back-into-domestic-economy/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/trade-to-benefit-the-poor-up-in-2006-and-to-grow-in-2007/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/20/venezuelas-currencies-promote-cooperation-not-competition/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/10/wireless-internet-culture-helping-zimbabwe-economy-recover/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • Ghana’s Funeral Economy Innovates and Exports

    Ghana’s Funeral Economy Innovates and Exports

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The West African nation of Ghana’s funeral economy is attracting innovation and grabbing attention outside the country. The nation’s elaborate – but expensive – funeral rituals provide craftsmen with a good income. And new products are being introduced to handle the financial consequences of this unavoidable fact of life.

    As Africa undergoes the biggest shift from rural to urban in its history, the continent is experiencing a technology boom, mainly led by the mobile phone. Mobile phones have become important transactional tools in daily life, enabling people to communicate and to do business, thanks to micropayments and prepay. Interwoven in these twin phenomena of greater urbanization and the mobile phone economy is a rising and growing middle class population with spare cash to spend on more than just the basics of survival. And all of this is throwing up new economies and new products to sell to these middle class customers.

    It is in this context that Ghana’s flamboyant and vibrant funeral ceremonies have become an economy unto themselves.

    Ghana’s crafty craftsmen have developed a global reputation for their bizarre but highly skilled coffin designs. They build striking coffins of elaborate designs and shapes and flamboyant colours. The coffins usually take on the shape of an aspect of the deceased’s former profession or vocation. For example, a pilot gets buried in a mock-up of the plane they flew, or a farmer is buried in his main crop, like a giant corn cob.

    It is proof the creative economy works and adds value to existing products and services. What were just simple coffins for a utilitarian task (burying the dead) becomes an elaborate work of art and transforms burial into a grander experience.

    One of the most popular designs is the now-ubiquitous and much-coveted mobile phone: Africa’s great electronic connector. And it is the mobile phone that is allowing people to buy life insurance to be able to pay for the coffins and elaborate funerals.

    Mobile money is a dynamic and fast-growing industry that is firmly established in the global South. Some are forecasting the market in mobile payments will reach US $60 billion by 2015.

    A range of companies are now offering life insurance policies that can be paid for in small “micropayments” by mobile phone. This is an important service for people who may not have a formal bank account and who can be devastated by the costs of a family member’s funeral.

    The two companies pioneering this “micro-insurance” service are Hollard Insurance (http://www.hollard.co.za) and Mobile Financial Services Africa (http://mfsafrica.com). Both are offering funeral insurance by mobile phones. Working with MTN – Africa’s largest mobile phone group (www.mtn.com.gh) – they are launching the mi-Life insurance product, sold for between US 0.80 cents and US $4 for a month’s coverage.

    MTN pioneered its Mobile Money service in 2009. Out of 9 million MTN mobile phone subscribers in Ghana, 1.8 million have signed up for the opportunity to pay bills and make other financial transactions over their mobile phones.

    Selling life insurance by mobile phones is radically altering the marketplace for this product. Life insurance had been out of the scope of most Ghanaians just as bank accounts were beyond the reach of the poor.

    Jeremy Leach, head of micro-insurance at Hollard, told AllWestAfrica (allwestafrica.com), that 55 percent of Ghanaians say they can’t afford life insurance. “In terms of affordability, we’ve tried to address that.”

    MTN Mobile Money Ghana’s general manager, Bruno Akpaka, told the Financial Times mi-Life is 50 to 70 per cent cheaper than comparable policies.

    Subscribers sign up by using their mobile PIN (personal identification number) at a local kiosk, or send a short message service (SMS) on their handset. Once signed up, a monthly premium is taken from their account. When it runs out, they top it up at the kiosk again.

    It currently offers basic funeral cover: a lump sum to the family when the main income earner dies. This money is used towards the costs of expensive funerals. Other products in the pipeline include insurance for school fees.

    For the coffin craftsmen, the fast-growing economy of African online shopping is helping with sales. The elaborate craft coffins can be bought online from various platforms including eShopAfrica.com, which promises to sell “fair trade direct from Africa.” Its dedicated Ghana coffin pages (www.eshopafrica.com/acatalog/Ga_Coffins.html) advertise small coffins that take a month to make, and larger ones can take up to three months to build. Prices advertised on the eShop site range from US $1,500 for a full-sized, six-foot coffin, to US $175 for a “desk top chest.”

    Designs range from a mobile phone to a Ferrari race car to a computer mouse. But it is not just the resting places for the deceased that are on sale. The cabinet- and coffin-making skills are also turned to making a wide range of storage cabinets in bright colours and imaginative shapes, from a football to a red pepper and a beer-bottle shaped drinks cabinet.

    The global attention for the craftsman has been impressive. They are lauded by fine art collectors around the world and have been shown in galleries such as London’s Jack Bell Gallery (www.jackbellgallery.com/paajo.html). The legendary coffin artist Paa Joe is one of the most featured in gallery shows.

    Published: April 2011

    Resources

    1) Shop Africa 53: An online shopping website allowing independent traders to vend their products to the rest of Africa and the world. Website: www.shopafrica53.com

    3) Going into Darkness: Fantastic Coffins from Africa by Thierry Secretan, details the culture and the craftsmen, behind the iconic coffins. Website:www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500278393/cordelinetwebstu%22

    4) Creative Economy Programme: The creative economy is an emerging concept dealing with the interface between creativity, culture, economics and technology in a contemporary world dominated by images, sounds, texts and symbols. Website:www.unctad.org/Templates/StartPage.asp?intItemID=4577&lang=1

    Bangladesh Coffin-Maker Offers an Ethical Ending

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/bangladesh-coffin-maker-offers-an-ethical-ending/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghanaian-coffins-prove-design-and-craftsmanship-boost-incomes/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023