Social Marketing for Safe Water

IITHEORETICAL BACKGROUND2. The BoP Proposition: Rethinking of Current Paradigms in thePrivate and Development Sector„If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizingthem as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, awhole new world of opportunity will open up.“(Prahalad, 2005)C.K. Prahalad’s and Stuart J. Hart’s groundbreaking piece “The Fortune at theBottom of the Pyramid”, which postulates that there is a huge untapped market withsignificant buying power at the bottom of the world’s economic pyramid, was thestarting point for a rethinking of current paradigms in the private and developmentsector. According to the authors, poor people who survive on just a few dollars a dayshould be seen as potential consumers, rather than as negligible charity cases. Untilrecently, private companies concentrated on the needs of the wealthy, while those ofthe worldwide four billion poor remained underserved (Prahalad & Hart, 2002). Butthere is a huge business potential to serve people living at the bottom of the pyramidwith affordable goods and services that are necessary to meet their basic needs.Moreover, there is an increased belief among the development community thatmarket-based approaches can help to reduce poverty, as traditional approacheshave not been notably successful.This chapter focuses on the origins, evolution and impact of the BoP propositionon the private and development sector, but also provides a critical examination ofpast BoP ventures and their shortcomings.2.1 The Untapped Market of the Global Poor: Business Opportunities for thePrivate Sector2.1.1 Combining Corporate Profit and Poverty AlleviationAccording to the World Bank’s private sector arm and a policy research group, thebottom of the pyramid has an estimated aggregated purchasing power representing amarket of 5 trillion US$ (WRI & IFC, 2007). This segment of the global population ischaracterized by an annual income of less than 1’500 US$ in local purchasing power,5