Bottom of the Pyramid

bottom of the pyramid = BOP

Concept and movement which proposes that the world's poor are an effective market that can be both beneficial for companies and for the poor themselves.

Description

From http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006704.html:

"Base of the pyramid efforts aim at bringing the world's poorest people into the global economy by marketing goods and services to them which help better meet their needs. At its worst, this becomes a means of wringing micro-profits from the poor without in any meaningful way changing their circumstances. At its best, however, it brings transformative tools, from micro-finance and micro-insurance, to needed goods made available at an affordable price, into the lives of the poor.

Together, social entrepreneurship and base of the pyramid approaches illuminate a much broader trend, which is to treat entrenched social and sustainability difficulties as problems capable of solution through the conscious and context-sensitive application of innovation." (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006704.html)

Critique

Here's a critical approach to the movement and the concept:

Kareen Karnani writes that:

"Poor people – at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) – represent a very attractive market opportunity. The 'BOP proposition' argues that selling to the poor can simultaneously be profitable and help eradicate poverty. This is at best a harmless illusion and potentially a dangerous delusion. This paper shows that the BOP argument is riddled with fallacies, and proposes an alternative perspective on how the private sector can help alleviate poverty. Rather than focusing on the poor as consumers, we need to view the poor as producers. The only way to alleviate poverty is to raise the real income of the poor."

More Information

BOP developments can be monitored at the Nextbillion.net blog.