This study explores the initiatives of the public and private sector in the context of the alleviation of poverty of the rural poor in Bangladesh. The central thesis is that the public sector has made a significant departure, at least in theory, towards the conceptualisation of the rural poor programme in a way that the private sector, particularly the non-governmental organisations, have been performing for the last two decades. This study emphasises the recognition by the NGOs, particularly the "moderate ones, that the nature of both the problems and the solutions change in the process. Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the "moderate" NGO under study, has gone through a "learn as it goes", responsive, inductive process. This study argues quite the contrary with the public sector initiative. It was only prior to the preparation of the Third Five Year Plan that debates were initiated to seriously criticise the rather sterile two-tier cooperative model for rural poor mobilisation around employment generation and acquisition of assets. Presently, BRDB opened the "flood-gate", which so long prevented the NGOs to contribute to the formulation of the training module of BRDB rural poor programme towards human development and institution building. Although it has been argued that "moderate" NGOs, like BRAC, are not institutions setting about to prove a specific model or theory of development in a dogmatic or absolutist sense, it would be difficult to say that they are not guided by an ideology, as this study argues, when the NGOs themselves have accepted the "Freire-type-conscientisation", which in itself is a loaded concept. This study presents a "mobilising" NGO, where the concept of "conscientisation" has been shown to transcend the limits of present day thinking of moderate NGOs.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Poverty is an extremely significant issue for Indian society with some estimates suggesting that up to 75% of the Indian population may be poor and deprived of basic necessities to sustain a normally healthy life. Microfinance and social protection are considered as important micro-level strategies to reduce poverty. Literature reveals that both strategies suffer from significant service delivery constraints causing exclusion of a large majority of poor households from access to microfinance, and inclusion and exclusion errors and elite capture of social protection programmes. This research explored whether outreach of microfinance and impact of social protection may be enhanced if microfinance products are built on the provisions of social protection for the poor households, and services of microfinance and social protection are synergistically delivered leveraging on the strengths of each other. The research further explored if it is feasible to employ a State institution, India Post, towards such synergistic service delivery. In order to further these research objectives, financial needs of poor households were estimated, and structures and mechanisms causing the exclusion of the poor from microfinance were investigated, by drawing empirical data from three Indian states. States were sampled while acknowledging that the poor are largely excluded from microfinance in two states of UP and Gujarat, and are almost totally included in the state of AP. This provided me with an opportunity to identify structures and mechanisms excluding the poor from microfinance provisions in UP and Gujarat, and contrast it with the situation in AP to further refine and enrich our understanding. Philosophical basis for design and methodology for this research is provided by critical realism, according to which the goal of social research is to understand the world in order to change it for better. The research is primarily based on the data collected through qualitative research methods as such methods are more suited than quantitative methods to critical realistic intensive studies, attempting to uncover underlying structures and mechanisms causing a social phenomenon. Research findings suggest that the financial needs of poor households in UP and Gujarat either remain unmet, or are met through informal mechanisms which are costly and exploitative. Poor are also not able to entirely access their entitled benefits from social protection programmes; as such programmes generate their own financial needs, which remain largely unmet. It was observed that social protection programmes have a favourable political environment in India and are being increasingly employed as a means to fight poverty. Such programmes therefore constitute an important aspect of the financial environment of the poor. Microfinance programme in AP reaches the poor partly because it is also meeting the financial needs generated by the provisions of social protection and thus the poor households find it useful. Poor also become attractive clients for microfinance due to the assured benefits they receive from the social protection programmes. Thus it addresses both demand and supply side constraints which keep a majority of the poor out of the ambit of microfinance in UP and Gujarat. Such social protection-linked service delivery of microfinance was further observed to be enhancing the impact of social protection as well as of microfinance. It is further argued that India Post is suitably located to deliver such social protection-linked microfinance services due to its close proximity to the rural population, and its personnel being known to and trusted by the local communities. India Post network also has a long and rich experience of delivering financial services. Being a government department, it is in a better position than similarly placed agencies such as banks and NGOs, to coordinate with other government departments offering social protection. Moreover, it has a valuable information-capital on the households that can be leveraged to efficiently identify the prospective recipients of the social protection programmes.

Increasingly, developed countries' markets, which are usually characterized by wealthy customers, are getting saturated. This has necessitated that multinational corporations (MNCs) seek new solutions for their future growth and profitability. One of the markets that has attracted the attention of MNCs is the bottom of the economic pyramid (BOP), which comprises four billion people. However, reaching this market, characterized as having a low income of less than $2 a day, is not easily achievable. Corporations have to revisit their prior business models and develop winwin solutions that serve the needs of the poor and create profits. To conceptualize the market-based initiatives of MNCs at the BOP, this research employs the concept of corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE). CSE is defined in this research as the process of innovatively identifying and exploiting social opportunities in large and established organizations with the aim of creating economic and social value. The research questions that this dissertation seeks to answer are concerned with exploring the antecedents and outcomes of CSE. First, built upon three related strands of literature - social entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility - this research attempts to provide a preliminary understanding of the potential antecedents and outcomes of CSE. Then, by employing multiple qualitative and exploratory case studies, CSE and its antecedents and outcomes are empirically investigated in eight multinational companies in India. The research identifies demand conditions and stakeholder expectations as the environmental factors that predict CSE. Three organizational characteristics - management support, a network orientation towards social sector organizations, and the availability of financial resources - are also found to be determining factors. The outcomes are identified associal value creation, long-term profitability and legitimacy. These antecedents and outcomes are theoretically explained and supported by contingency theory, the contingent resource-based view and stakeholder theory.