Monday, July 25, 2005
Private sector and capital markets in development
A group of us have been organising meetings in New York to discuss the role of the private sector and capital markets in catalyzing economic development, be it in Africa, South and South-east Asia or Latin America. These meetings have been attended by people from a wide variety of backgrounds ranging from private equity and consulting to academics and entrepreneurs. We had our last meeting on Saturday, the 23rd at the Earth Institute at Columbia. We had two presentations: one by Jonathan Hoffman, the director of a new firm called Infraco, which is building core infrastructure projects across Africa, South Asia and S.E. Asia. The second presentation was by Rustom Masalawala, erstwhile portfolio manager at the Acumen Fund and now founder of a new start-up called Tajirika, which aims to provide lighting solutions in parts of Tanzania that are off the power grid.
We will have our next meeting sometime in late August, where we hope to move this effort beyond merely being a networking/exchange of ideas type event to something more concrete. So, if you have a genuine interest in the topic and would like to attend, please shoot me an e-mail (check bio) and we can discuss it further.
We will have our next meeting sometime in late August, where we hope to move this effort beyond merely being a networking/exchange of ideas type event to something more concrete. So, if you have a genuine interest in the topic and would like to attend, please shoot me an e-mail (check bio) and we can discuss it further.
