Dear Colleagues, Barry Coetzee raises an issue I know is the focus of research, for example, within Community Economics, and is certainly the object of a popular debate here in the United States.
A parallel example: Recently a number of communities in the USA have passed regulations effectively barring a major company, Walmart, from locating in their markets, apparently because they recognized the broader impacts that might have on the mix of employment, economic growth, etc. Much of the conversation here seems to focus on how large corporations can somehow address low-income market segments. Barry Coetzee seems to be wondering if we're addressing the right question. Cheers! Jeff ---- Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade Office for Energy and Information Technology RRB 4.06-066 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20523-3800 Tel +1 (202) 712-1956, Cell +1 (301) 728-2160, Fax +1 (202) 216-3466 Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.usaid.gov Keyword:ICT On Monday, November 8, 2004, Barry Coetzee wrote: > Our philosophy is that we HAVE to make the "poor" (the majority of our > population) profitable. They will be our only market once the MNCs have > 'cherry-picked' the top-end of their market. My experience is that there > are very few partnerships with MNCs. They buy-out the locals if they see > any profits. However, as their focus is actually their home states, they > do not want to build on the local industry, but to further distribute > the products and services that they developed at the head-office. Thus, > my experience is that, in general, MNCs look after their own interests. > In Africa that tends to be the top end of the market. The result of this > is that the difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" tends to > increase with the advent of MNCs. ..snip... ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
