Social investment

The following list of electronic resources provides rapid access to key references on the main topics of the dossier:

• Audio-visual materials
• Documents

Audio-visual materials 

• Congo Business Case 
  The Congo Business Case blog shows what it takes to do business in Africa. Daniel Knoop and Joris Heijne seek to contribute to the development of Congo's huge agricultural potential by starting up a company. Cameraman Hans Bouma follows them on their journey.
• Video presentation Mali Biocarburant SA 
  Mali Biocarburant SA is a joint venture company set up by KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) and financed through public and private investments. A farmers’ union is a shareholder in the joint venture.
• Yiriwa S.A. - General presentation and factsheets 2009/2010
  The Yiriwa SA company, founded in 2008 in Bamako, Mali, organizes the production, processing and sales of organic agricultural products. It has three shareholders: Annona Sustainable Investment Fund, based in Amsterdam; ICCO (Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation) based in Utrecht; and AK-O/Mavideniz, the commercial partner based in Germany.

Documents 

• Annona Sustainable Investment Fund (2009) Fighting poverty by investing in sustainable enterprises 
  The Annona Sustainable Investment Fund invests in small and medium-sized enterprises in Africa and Latin America by providing share capital.
• Barney Gonzalez, M.J. (2008) Challenges and opportunities for the business sector in the fight against poverty: The case of Brazil’s Amazon River estuary
  This paper explores the actions and strategies of three companies, and the dilemmas and bottlenecks they faced in their attempts to contribute to sustainability and poverty alleviation through business operations in the Amazon. The results of the paper are based on three case studies carried out by the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) using a quick-scan approach, as part of KIT's research into corporate social responsibility from the perspective of social and gender equity.
• Doran, A.; N. McFadyen & R.C Vogel (2009) The missing middle in agricultural finance: relieving the capital constraint on smallholder groups and other agricultural SMEs
  The unmet needs for finance of producer associations and other SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) in agriculture, for transactions in the range £5,000-500,000 constitute the missing middle. The crucial issue is how to overcome the barriers to scaling-up the private sector's response.
• Kolk, A.; R. van Tulder & E. Kostwinder 2008) Business and partnerships for development
  This paper analyses the characteristics of development activities undertaken by companies individually and jointly via public-private, private-nonprofit and tripartite partnerships, using multinationals originating from the Netherlands as empirical setting.
• Koning, M. de & B. de Steenhuijsen Piters (2009) Farmers as shareholders: a close look at recent experience
  A bulletin based on the experiences of four companies that are partly owned by farmers in Africa and South America who supply these companies with cocoa, coffee, tea and cotton. The start-up of two companies (Kuyichi and Divine) invoved a mixture of donor money and capital from social investment banks.
• Lundy, M. (2010) Goldilocks and the too small, too big problem of agroenterprise investment
  Rural SMEs (small and medium enterprises) face significant barriers to accessing funding because they are too large for microcredit but too small or marginal for commercial credit from banks or from governments. Recent work has called this the "missing middle". 
• Peppelenbos, L. (2008) Pro-poor market development: an approach and quick-scan screening tool for pro-poor business propositions
  This working paper describes the approach of KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) to pro-poor market development in 2 sections: (1) conceptual framework for strategic thinking about pro-poor market development; (2) a practical working tool to guide decisions about investments in pro-poor business ventures.
• Roxburgh, C. et al. (2010) Lions on the move: The progress and potential of African economies
  Africa's collective economy grew very little during the last two decades of the 20th century. But sometime in the late 1990s, the continent began to stir. GDP growth picked up and then bounded ahead, rising faster and faster through 2008. Today, while Asia's tiger economies continue to expand rapidly, the authors foresee the potential rise of economic lions in Africa's future.
• UNEP FI & PRI (2010) Universal ownership: why environmental externalities matter to institutional investors
  Large institutional investors are, in effect, "Universal Owners", as they often have highly-diversified and long-term portfolios that are representative of global capital markets. Their portfolios are inevitably exposed to growing and widespread costs from environmental damage caused by companies. Institutional investors can, and should, act collectively to reduce financial risk from environmental impacts.
• Vermeulen, S. & L. Cotula (2010) Making the most of agricultural investment: a survey of business models that provide opportunities for smallholders
  Inclusive business models provide alternatives to large-scale land acquisitions, bringing benefits to small farmers and protecting their land rights, while ensuring returns to companies. These include: Contract farming; Management and lease contracts; Joint ventures; Upstream and downstream business links.
• World Bank (2006) Agriculture investment sourcebook, Module 7 - Investment in agribusiness and market development 
  Private sector and market development require a suitable enabling environment, characterized by a stable macroeconomic climate with adequate commercial laws and financial services, a well-functioning legal system, and adequate infrastructure. Enhancing private sector and market development in a way that includes the poor presents a key challenge to development efforts.