PSD Blog - The World Bank Group

Netflix for Nollywood

Hollywood, Bollywood… and along comes Nollywood. 3,000 Nigerian films have a new distribution channel – MovieGlory.com. It follows the Netflix model closely, and so far is available for US customers only. Who's taking bets on how long it takes Netflix to add a Nigerian category to its foreign film offerings? From Emeka Okafor.

Update: The Economist (July 29th) has a great piece on Nollywood.

Today, filmmaking employs about a million people in Nigeria, split equally between production and distribution, making it the country's biggest employer after agriculture, according to the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB). The industry has sales of $200m-300m a year...

So far, the industry has grown with little or no help from Nigeria's government. The films cost anywhere between $15,000 and $100,000 to make, and the money comes directly from the market...

Nollywood is divided over whether it wants help from the government. Some filmmakers fear that the industry's growth could slow if the authorities discourage popular voodoo storylines. But many filmmakers would like the authorities to start a fund to offer cheap loans for films.

If you don't have a subscription, you can read the article text here.

Tata’s $2000 car

Tata Motors on Friday said it would launch the much-touted Rs one lakh car in early 2008, as the company had completed its styling and designing and tested the prototypes within the plant. Tata Group Chief Ratan Tata told shareholders that the launch of the car would create a new paradigm in low-cost personal transport, carve out a new market segment and reach a broader base of the pyramid.

As reported in the Hindustan Times, via Alex Singleton. Also see the discussion over at NextBillion. I'm not sure if that 'new market segment' will be found.

Pesos at the bottom of the pyramid

Tomorrow’s Financial Times discusses the increasing attention “bottom of the pyramid” approaches are receiving from Mexico’s private sector – such as microfinance, innovative low-income financing schemes and leveraging remittances. Bottom of the pyramid (BOP) approaches are gathering lots of praise and following, though IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno makes the key point:

“The biggest challenge is scale. Without that it will only be a drop in the bucket.”

Read the full article for several examples of successful BOP models. Here is more on the IDB’s bottom of the pyramid focus, and a previous post on Patrimonio Hoy. Also see Cemex’s Construmex program, which allows migrants living in the US to send remittances back home in the form of cement and building materials. How long before Home Depot jump in?

Illuminating the way to energy conservation

A global switch to efficient lighting systems would trim the world's electricity bill by nearly one-tenth… [and] better building regulations would boost uptake of efficient lighting… The IEA [also] concludes, there is no need to wait for LEDs. Policy measures and individual action to bring the switch would slash 38% from the global electricity bill for lighting by 2030.

The BBC reporting on a new International Energy Agency report with a tongue-twister for a name: ‘Light’s Labour’s Lost.’ (Don’t worry, I didn’t pick-up on the reference either). So is it time to ban the bulb? Also see the IFC's Efficient Lighting Initiative.

Hubbard on private sector development

Glenn Hubbard in the Financial Times:

Understanding the role of business and business institutions in prosperity is surely a good complement to the Buffett-Gates emphasis on social transformation of the poorest nations through medical advances.

Countries today prosper or fail to the extent that they embrace basic business principles.

Ok... so he was talking about the importance of an MBA education not private sector development in developing countries. He might be interested in our earlier discussion on the relevance of MBA programs in developing countries.

Note: Mark Thoma has most of the FT article if you don't have a subscription.

Day-trading to escape poverty

Mr. Mishra is a distinctively Indian type of investor. His office is this cramped Internet cafe, strewn with discarded paper teacups. At home, he doesn't have his own computer, Internet connection or even reliable electricity. His portfolio is tiny. His profit target is $10 a day…

Even with the market falling, Mr. Mishra says he makes more money buying on the dips than he could in his previous job selling engine parts for ships. There, the $6 a day he earned wasn't enough to support his wife, two children and mother, who live in a small apartment in the noisy suburbs of this city formerly known as Bombay. He says he earns an average $15 a day from day trading.

Two years ago, he took $1,000 in navy pension money and began trading at Web World. Since then, he has doubled his take-home pay. Every morning he takes a crowded 90-minute train ride to downtown Mumbai and shows up for "work" at the back corner of the cafe before the opening bell at 9:55.

Read the full WSJ article, which includes a great description of the internet cafe trading floors and strategies. Though of course the toughest part may be actually getting that $1000 loan to begin with.

Update: HedgeFundGuy and his readers have more commentary.

'Crime' wave in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's staggering inflation has turned bakers into criminals (aka economic actors):

“A TOTAL OF 282 bakeries have been arrested for selling bread above the controlled price,” state radio reported on Friday... So I went to another bakery where the Greek owner conceals loaves in brown paper bags under the counter, and glances shiftily around the shop before he hands it over to you, as if it’s a parcel of mbanje (marijuana).

Jan Raath, of the Times Online, reports that everything is illegal in Harare.

Update: Commentary on the government's contention that economic sanctions are to blame, from a Zimbabwe Independent columnist. At the recent annual congress of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, "to a major extent the impression given to the private sector is that the government pretends at consultation so that, if and when things go wrong, it can disclaim culpability, and can attribute the fault to the private sector."

NGOs agree to a code of conduct

The NGO community has long been pushing the corporate sector to adopt codes of conduct to uphold best practice on everything from ethics to environmental impact. Nor are they afraid of publicizing corporate failures to adhere to said codes. However, the legitimacy of such demands from civil society has been undermined somewhat by the lack of accountability and clear governance of many NGO themselves. As Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International notes:

It is increasingly the case that NGOs get hostile media reporting, asking “Who are these NGOs accountable to?” We can no longer avoid facing up to this.

To meet this challenge, 11 leading NGOs, including Oxfam, Greenpeace and Amnesty International, recently signed a voluntary “accountability charter” promising transparency to match that demanded of business and government. Read the Accountability Charter in full.

Reforming an African utility company

Reforming an African electricity company requires tough love, persistence -- and a little luck. Just ask Jean-David Bile, a civil engineer in the central African country of Cameroon. Bile runs AES Corp.'s electricity operation in Cameroon, a national grid that is chiefly powered by two large dams and was formerly fully owned by the infamously corrupt government of Cameroon.

Bile is rooting out corruption at the electricity company, cracking down on customer theft, improving the flow of electricity -- and ending the practice of hiring people to satisfy the demands of politicians and traditional chiefs. His achievements don't always endear him to his fellow Cameroonians. Once, the chief of a village near his biggest dam implored him to hire some of his relatives. When Bile refused, the chief hurled a juju curse against him, but Bile still refused. "To implement dramatic reforms you have to be tough on your own people, or you'll never make it," he says.

Read Pascal Zachary’s whole article in EnergyBizInsider. Via Michael Giberson, who also reminds me of the movie "Power Trip". Mike describes the movie as:

Prioritizing ‘inconvenient truths’

Hunger and disease vs. climate change – the UN asks which of these is more important to saving the world?

Given a notional $50 billion, how would the ambassadors spend it to make the world a better place? Their conclusions were strikingly similar to the Copenhagen Consensus. After hearing presentations from experts on each problem, they drew up a list of priorities. The top four were basic health care, better water and sanitation, more schools and better nutrition for children. Averting climate change came last.

The ambassadors thought it wiser to spend money on things they knew would work. Promoting breast-feeding, for example, costs very little and is proven to save lives. It also helps infants grow up stronger and more intelligent, which means they will earn more as adults. Vitamin A supplements cost as little as $1, save lives and stop people from going blind. And so on.

Why does climate change score so low?