NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Marketing

NYT Magazine Asks: Can Cellphones Alleviate Poverty?

Derek Newberry — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:41:15 -0500

All of us at NextBillion.net were both humbled and thrilled to see the New York Times Sunday Magazine draw on our work - and the work of many colleagues - to write an extended piece on the impact of cell phone usage in emerging economies.

Sara Corbett's article follows Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase as he navigates the human terrain of countries like Ghana, Brazil and Uzbekistan, trying to figure out why a farmer in Kenya or a prostitute in Brazil is finding unique value in their cell phone. The article uses Jan's experience as a device for sparking a broader discussion on the potential for the booming cell phone market to increase incomes and quality of life among the BoP.

What was most interesting about the piece is that the author poses her central theme as a question, not an assertion: "Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?" In her narrative, while laying out the case that cell phones increase productivity, she does not present this technology as a silver bullet development solution.

Rather, we get a very rich, on-the-ground account of how technology is changing people's lives in BoP markets everywhere.

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Design for the Next Billion Customers

Rob Katz — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:34:50 -0500

Niti Bhan and Dave Tait, having just returned from exploratory research in Africa to understand the mindset and consumer behavior at the bottom of the pyramid, share their insights for designers hoping to serve this population. This research was part of a larger study conducted by Experientia, an Italy-based international experience design consultancy.

"Design has a social function and its true purpose is to improve people's lives."
--Nokia Design Manifesto

This theme shows up, in one form or another, on most of the application essays made to design schools. Young designers aspire to improve people's lives by creating products that matter. They dream of Eames, timeless designs and creating products that get called 'Classic.' But the real world soon starts putting commercial demands on the designer's time and talent, and the dream gets slowly wrapped up in dust, to be tucked away, as focus shifts to styling trendy products that catch the fickle consumer's eye. Planned obsolescence influence the very consumerism and market forces that now demand 'New!'

Don't Wait for the Rain: Social Marketing for KickStart's MoneyMaker

Rob Katz — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:39:31 -0500

NextBillion ally Cat Laine - editor of the excellent AIDG blog - posted a fantastic social marketing video earlier this week that I just had the chance to look at today. Entitled Don't Wait for the Rain, the video features Maasai rap artist Mr. Ebbo alongside actors portraying the MoneyMaker pump in action. It is a combination music video, advertisement and soap opera all rolled into one entertaining 5-minute package. It is not the first time Mr. Ebbo has signed onto a social or governmental cause.

I will embed it below, but if you can't see the video, click here for the YouTube link: Don't Wait for the Rain.

Lyrics are via the AIDG Blog - thanks Cat:

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“How to do Business at the BoP” - Conference Wrap-Up

Manuel Bueno — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 09:05:45 -0500

As Robert Katz posted last week, a BoP Conference entitled “How to do Business at the BoP” was held on February the 27th in Madrid. The conference had pretty impressive speakers and visitors, since it was mainly directed at the corporate world.

Robert was the first speaker of the day. He kicked off by explaining the reasons for BoP studies and briefly went through the three main penalties suffered by BoP customers: price, quality and access. After giving an overview of business strategies at the BoP, he presented “The Next 4 Billion” study and explained some of the most important conclusions that the study sheds light upon, such as the significant unmet needs in the ICT and Transport industries.

The second part of the conference introduced several BoP case studies from different industries, presented by members of the BoP companies themselves.

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Guest Post: President Bush Visits A to Z in Tanzania

Rob Katz — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:17:57 -0500

Guest blogger Brian Trelstad is the Chief Investment Officer of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund serving the 4 billion people living on less than $4 a day. Before joining Acumen Fund, Brian Trelstad spent four years at McKinsey & Company as a consultant in the healthcare and non-profit practices and as an editor of the McKinsey Quarterly. Prior to McKinsey, he worked as a case writer at Stanford University's Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and advised a number of early-stage technology companies.

By Brian Trelstad

(This article first appeared on the Acumen Fund blog.)

Yesterday's visit by President Bush to the A to Z Textile Mills factory in Arusha, Tanzania, was a tremendous boost for Africa's fight against malaria and for African economic development. A to Z is now the only manufacturer of long-lasting insecticide nets in Africa, supplying nearly 8% of the continent’s demand for these life-saving products and employing over 5,000 people.

ABE, another local company that we have supported, has a long-term supply agreement to produce Artemisia, and by the end of the year should be producing about 15% of the world's supply. ABE also employs thousands of farmers in cultivating a valuable cash crop.

As we reflect on our experience with these two malaria ventures, we think that the President’s Malaria Initiative could go further in spurring economic development in Africa with a few policy changes in the allocation of funding for malaria prevention and treatment commodities.

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Job - Director of Sales and Product Management, Envirofit International

Rob Katz — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:07:46 -0500

Position: Director of Sales and Product Management – Clean Cook Stoves India

Location: Based in Fort Collins, Colorado (approximately 40% of job will be international travel)

Organization: Envirofit International was established to develop well-engineered technology solutions to improve the human condition on a global scale, with a primary emphasis on applications in the developing world. Envirofit's goal is to develop and distribute well-engineered energy products for low-income markets that traditionally have been overlooked.

Position Description: Envirofit is seeking a full time Director of Sales and Product Management to help design, develop, and distribute products that address major environmental problems in the developing world. Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Envirofit is currently developing a portfolio of clean biomass cook-stoves. The stove business goals are to design, develop and distribute 5+ million stoves in the next 5 years to countries on 3 continents (Asia, Africa and Latin America).

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Book Review: Paul Polak's Out of Poverty

Abigail Keene-Babcock — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:33:17 -0500

So far, 2008 has been a great year in terms of attention to BoP and market-based solutions to poverty. Out of Poverty, a new book by Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises (IDE), just hit the shelves this month and will certainly add to this momentum. IDE's recent receipt of a $27 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation only makes Polak's book timelier, as widespread recognition grows for his leadership role in the BoP space and his innovative design solutions (including the treadle pump and micro-drip irrigation) that have increased the incomes of over 2.5 million dollar-a-day families living in rural areas and subsisting from small farms.

I've now had the opportunity to read through Out of Poverty, and am impressed that the book truly reflects the down to earth style and substance of Polak and his work. In fact, what's most striking about Polak's approach to attacking poverty is its straightforward, flexible, and results-based orientation.

The book covers a lot of ground quickly, challenging leading development theorists (Jeff Sachs, Bill Easterly, and even C.K. Prahalad), explaining why markets are not serving the poor, and demonstrating, piece by piece, why for-profit mechanisms have and will continue to trump charity in terms of lifting people out of poverty.

On NextBillion.net, we have chronicled these arguments many times before, but I was pleasantly surprised at Polak's ability to connect them, on the level of tomatoes and cucumbers, with the nuts and bolts of his years spent, literally, in the field. Out of Poverty strikes a good balance between economic calculations and human anecdotes, staying true to the author's principal beliefs that one must "go to where the action is" and "talk to the people who have the problem and listen to what they say," while also pursuing only approaches that "can reach at least a million people and make their lives measurably better."

The book is certainly worth a read, and I hope to see it appear on the development academics' reading lists soon. Out of Poverty gets beyond the fractious discussions of "what's gone wrong?" or "which approach is right?" and offers a welcome dose of common sense for getting people out of poverty, quickly and permanently.

Job - Chief Operating Officer, Scojo Foundation

Abigail Keene-Babcock — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:48:17 -0500

Position: Chief Operating Officer

Location: Hyderabad, India with frequent international travel to the US, China, Africa and Latin America (30%)

Organization: Scojo Foundation is a global social enterprise, currently operating in 13 countries, which creates jobs and sustains livelihoods through the sale of affordable reading glasses to the 700 million people who require clear, up-close vision to read and work.

Scojo Foundation trains low-income men and women as "Scojo Vision Entrepreneurs" to start microfranchises that conduct vision screenings within local communities, sell affordable reading glasses, and refer those who require advanced eye care to reputable clinics.

Position Description: The COO is responsible for the leadership and management of Scojo Foundation’s global operations team and the achievement of Scojo Foundation’s operational and sales objectives. The position is a key member of the senior management team and is actively involved in shaping the future direction of the organization.

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Unilever Re-examines Emerging Markets Strategy

Abigail Keene-Babcock — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:37:02 -0500

When a consumer-goods company casts around for the best growth prospects, rarely does anything look more promising than emerging economies. These markets are growing so rapidly that within just two years they will account for half of all the world's consumer spending, estimates Harish Manwani, head of the Asian and African businesses of Unilever, a giant of the world's consumer-goods industries. But even with more than a century of experience in some of these countries, Unilever tripped up.

Few companies have had the head start in places like Africa, China, India and Latin America that Unilever enjoyed. Yet despite the Anglo-Dutch giant's formidable range of products and unprecedented depth of local knowledge, when rivals began to push harder its empire came under threat. Unilever was forced to re-examine its legacy and to act on what it found. Now the results are coming through.

Gates and Heifer to Raise Profitability of Dairy Farmers

Abigail Keene-Babcock — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:01:53 -0500

By Chuck Bartels

A $42.8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that was announced Friday will enable Heifer International to expand a program designed to reduce poverty among 1 million people living on rural dairy farms in three East African countries.

An important focus of the effort will be bringing more women into positions of responsibility, both on family farms and at regional milk chilling plants.

The grant is for parts of Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, where 179,000 families are to receive assistance.

Heifer intends to provide 169,000 head of cattle - better livestock than the cows now on the small family farms - and get another 10,000 families able to provide forage for the animals, said Sahr Lebbie, Heifer vice president for its Africa Program.

Lebbie said that the program has already succeeded on a smaller scale, and that women are a key part of managing the farms.

"The cow goes to the family unit. The man and the woman sign the contract," Lebbie said. "We have found out women-led cooperatives are led better than the men."

The quantity of milk that farmers in the region can now sell is small because of spoilage, Lebbie said.

Heifer will develop 30 collection points where farmers will be able to bring their milk, where it can be chilled before being sold. Farmer associations will own the chilling plants, as organized by Heifer. The project will be carried out with two other organizations: U.S.-based TechnoServe, which encourages business development as a way out of poverty, and the International Livestock Research Institute, an animal research group based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The project will help the farmers produce and sell their milk in a manner that is more profitable.