BoP Learning Lab – Waste Management

The Fourth 2009 Lunch-hour workshop will take place on Thursday, 25 June 2009.

TIME: 12:30 – 14:00 (coffee/tea & sandwiches supplied)
VENUE: Open Innovation Studio, 27 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town

Waste management: a business opportunity at the BoP?

The City of Cape Town, with its huge wealth gap, geographical constraints and human diversity, is faced with some of the world’s most interesting challenges with regards to urban planning, spatial organisation, public transport and the environment, to name but a few. Mr Barry Coetzee, Head of Integrated Waste Management Policy, will talk to us about the City of Cape Town’s approach to serving the needs of lower income communities in terms of waste management, tackling the dual challenge of providing urban waste management solutions in poor, high-density urban environments while at the same time creating employment opportunities and encouraging entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid.

A vast majority of Southern Africa’s more than 240m people live below the poverty line. Even in South Africa, by far the region’s strongest and most modern economy, 75% of the population earn less than R1800* per month.

It is the mission of this generation, our generation of Southern Africans, to reduce this gap, and allow us to build a better society. Brick by brick, the work of each contributes to the progress of all. In this battle for a common ideal, businesses are vehicles of social transformation. Their ability to engage at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP) is crucial to our development and prosperity.

Businesses are emerging as an engine of positive social change as well as economic upliftment. But the challenges are huge. Identifying the right business models, learning from each other’s experience, exchanging intelligence and keeping pace with new developments is crucial in order to have a meaningful impact on the lives of people at the BoP.

The BoP Learning Lab is meant to provide sources of inspiration, to be the toolbox with which the Southern African corporate fabric can maximise its social impact at the bottom of the pyramid.

* World Resource Institute, 2008

More info on www.bop.org.za.

To confirm your attendance, please phone Norma Saayman on 021-918-4238 or e-mail to ns5@usb.sun.ac.za.