It’s flattering to be asked to be a poster child for a major international campaign.

The language was veiled but the implication clear: Would I help a big company undertake a campaign to end energy poverty? The client? Peabody Coal, the largest private-sector coal company in the world. I told the caller that I wanted nothing to do with his client or his campaign. The logic didn’t work.

Yes, energy poverty is real, and no, coal is not an answer to it.

I’ve been in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan. When night falls in December, the temperature drops by 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit—it’s real dark, and real cold. I’ve spent nights with families who cook with wood, the women, especially, dying young from smoke.

Yes, energy poverty is real, and no, coal is not an answer to it. Tweet This Quote

But sorry, coal won’t help them. Yes, the Afghans could have burned coal in their homes, but when used domestically, coal is nasty. And Peabody has no interest in selling their product door-to-door. They dig big holes in the ground for one reason: to flow megatons of coal to powerplants—releasing gigatons of carbon into the air. From an environmental and health standpoint, mines are dangerous and polluting. In North Carolina, Tennessee and hundreds of other sites coal ash spills laced with heavy metals that cause cancer and neurological damage are polluting rivers, killing fish, and damaging communities. Big, coal-fired power plants are no longer an economical way to bring high quality life and energy services to poor people anywhere on the planet. Nothing about it makes sense.

Central-station power plants aren’t cheap. In states from Montana to Texas, utility regulators have denied permission for new ones because they cost more than wind. In places like India, where Enron flogged off power plants that no one in the US wanted, saddling the government with massive debt before going broke themselves. Someone has to pay for power from a plant before it’s a viable business. But poor people are poor. They can’t afford electricity that is priced high enough to pay off the capital cost of the plant. So they don’t. The plant either gets cancelled half way through, or only sells power to the urban elites. Either way, it’s no answer to energy poverty.

Coal-fired power plants are no longer an economical way to bring high quality life and energy services to poor people on the planet Tweet This Quote

If a country in an emerging market is going to sink a bunch of money into energy, why not invest a renewable grid of the future? So they are. A recent Bloomberg study reports that many developing countries are bypassing coal and leapfrogging to renewable power. It points out that fossil electricity averages $147.90 per megawatt hour (mWh) in the developing countries studied. New wind costs $82/mWh and solar costs $142/mWh. While a new power plant takes years to decades to build, renewables can be deployed in days to weeks. Think Progress quotes Ethan Zindler, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst, saying, “Clean energy is the low-cost option in a lot of [developing] countries. The technologies are cost-competitive right now. Not in the future, but right now.”

The New York Times agrees:

This an opportunity for entrepreneurs too. In Guatemala, Unreasonable entrepreneur Juan Rodriquez, founder of Quetsol (now called Kingo) provides solar lighting for $12 a month—already cheaper than the $16 a month that an average family spends on lighting.

Of course, Peabody has little interest in serving Guatemala’s poor market. Instead, they have created a veil of “energy poverty” that intends to put a moral face on its desire to keep selling coal in the US. But here, too, it makes no sense. Deutsche Bank analyst, Visal Shah, predicts that rooftop solar will be the cheapest electricity option for everyone in the US by 2016. This follows the Energy Darwinism report from Citi Group that has renewables cheaper than gas within ten years. Already, entrepreneurs are offering utility-scale solar at $50/mWh and new developments, such as solar cloth—a lightweight solar fabric that can be stretched across parking lots and rooftops—that could make solar ubiquitous and cheap. Stanford Professor, Dr. Mark Jacobson’s Solutions Project shows that energy efficiency and renewables can meet world demand better and cheaper than any future based on coal or nuclear power.

Energy efficiency and renewables can meet world demand better and cheaper than any future based on coal or nuclear power. Tweet This Quote

None of this, however, stopped Peabody’s marketing machine. It even ensnared Bill Gates to prove the line from the movie Dangerous Liaisons, “like most intellectuals he’s intensely stupid,” when in June, he trotted out the long-discredited Bjorn Lomborg to claim that coal can solve energy poverty. In an excellent exposé in Desmogblog, Graham Readfearn details the people supporting Lomborg’s project, and, you guessed it, they are the same ones who called me. Obviously Peabody found their poster child.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. The coal industry has a lot of money at stake. They’re desperate. Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that the value of the shares of some coal companies has fallen 90 percent since 2011. The report also predicts that clean energy will attract $5.5 trillion between now and 2030, a number I suspect is low.

Bill McKibben’s divestment campaign is biting: in 2013 Bloomberg reported that Storebrand ASA, which manages $74 billion of assets for Norway, sold out of 24 coal and tar-sand companies, including Peabody Energy. Norway’s Labour Party proposed banning the country’s $800 billion sovereign wealth fund from coal investments. When the Rockefellers divest from ownership in fossil fuels, the trend is on.

Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. Tweet This Quote

As I write, I’m on my home from China, which is are cutting its of rate of building coal plants as fast as it can. Coal use has fallen by 11 percent over the last year and imports have fallen 50 percent in 2014. Beijing even had clean air when we flew out this morning. All the coal plants and dirty industries were closed to impress the delegates in town for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. A senior business colleague told me that the Party, concerned that the poisonous air is undermining their legitimacy, is moving to renewable energy as part of the country’s new commitment to create an “Ecological Civilization.”

So no, Bill Gates, and no, Bjorn Lomborg, coal’s not the answer.

Desmogblog says it well:

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert public awareness.

Get your hipboots on; it’s gonna get deep. You’re gonna hear “energy poverty” in every venue that money can buy. But you won’t be hearing it from me.

Editor’s note: three days after Hunter left China, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to work together to cut US carbon emissions, Chinese use of coal, and add more renewable energy than total current US energy supply

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At a time when news about Africa has been dominated by Ebola, it’s worth observing that a highly encouraging change has been quietly spreading across the continent. Over the past five years, the number of Africans—mainly women—who have joined village-based savings and loan associations has soared to more than nine million. These groups are now operating in 40 countries in Africa. Globally, it’s estimated that 10.5 million people are members of formally trained savings groups in about 65 countries. (PDF) The big story about these groups, including their surprising success and emerging importance in development, comes from Africa.

“A giant informal economic system is emerging invisibly,” said Jeffrey Ashe, a micro-finance pioneer and co-author of the book “In Their Own Hands: How Savings Groups Are Revolutionizing Development.” “We can think of it as the amoeba model of microfinance. It’s financial inclusion without financial institutions—and each group has the DNA within itself to self-replicate.” (PDF)

The story dates back to 1991, when a Norwegian, Moira Eknes, working with CARE in a remote part of Niger, found that village women needed ongoing access to savings and credit, but had few options. In West Africa, as in many parts of the world, locals had long participated in traditional rotating savings clubs (locally called tontines, generically known as Roscas).

Eknes helped the women develop a simple methodology that allowed them to transform the groups into a self-generating, self-managing form of microfinance suitable for their basic needs. The approach became known as the Village Savings and Loan Association (V.S.L.A.) model and it began to spread.

The growth was supercharged in 2008 when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation injected more than $30 million of funding into the model. (PDF) Since then, CARE has brought the program to four million Africans. Catholic Relief Services and Plan International have each brought variants to more than a million people, and Oxfam America and Freedom from Hunger have scaled up an approach, called Saving for Change, to 650,000 members. More than a dozen other major international NGOs have advanced this work. Collectively, they aim to reach 50 million members by 2020.

What’s most significant about savings groups is that they are designed to be wholly managed by villagers themselves; by and large, they function as they are intended to function; and they reach impoverished people in remote rural areas who would otherwise go without any financial services, even microfinance.

The main expense is for training. Villagers are taught how to run their own meetings, develop bylaws, elect officers and keep records (where literacy levels are low, they use oral record-keeping systems). Groups usually have 20 to 25 members. Each week they collect savings. Members must contribute an amount within a set range, no more, no less. All the money is kept in a box. One standard is to have three locks and three key holders. All transactions are conducted openly before the group. Some systems use passbooks, others use ledgers.

Typically, members can apply for loans on a monthly basis. Villagers determine interest based on rules they have established themselves. They may exact fines for late payments or late meeting attendance. “All the money stays with the group, so there’s no question about extracting money off the backs of the poor to run institutions—or to enrich investors—as we’ve seen with some of the worst cases in microfinance,” said Ashe, who launched and led the Saving for Change initiative.

Members take loans for a variety of reasons: to buy medicine, start a business, purchase animals, pay school fees, buy clothing, buy food during the lean season, invest in agriculture. Repayment terms vary. At the end of the group’s cycle, usually a year, the savings and profits (from fines or interest) are distributed. And the cycle begins again.

“What makes this nice as an intervention is that it needs no financial infrastructure to make it work,” explained Dean Karlan, a professor of economics at Yale University and president of Innovations for Poverty Action (I.P.A.), which conducted a three-year randomized controlled evaluation of the Saving for Change program in Mali, and CARE’s V.S.L.A. program in Ghana, Uganda and Malawi. “It needs no bricks and mortar. You just demonstrate it, walk people through it, and they can keep doing it.”

The I.P.A. study in Mali didn’t find that villagers in savings groups experienced big increases in income or consumption, Karlan said. What the savings groups did do was reduce one of the most debilitating aspects of poverty: vulnerability. “One of the things that savings is supposed to do is move money from times when you are flush to times when you are not flush,” he said. “We saw evidence that people in Saving for Change in Mali had higher food security. During the lean season—well after harvest, before the next harvest—we saw hunger go down. That’s a very important result.” (PDF)

Households involved in Saving for Change owned, on average, $120 more in livestock than those from the control group—a strategy used by people in Mali to reduce the risks from illness or droughts, the latter having become far more severe because of climate change.

Without savings groups, the villagers would have no other options for financial services. “For most of the areas we were working in, there is no microcredit,” Karlan said. “It’s too expensive to go out there.”

The savings groups have proven to be quite stable. And as members become skilled at managing the process by themselves, they often go on to train other villagers. Because the groups don’t require external capital, they’re not tied to the capacity of NGOs. However, I.P.A. found that organically replicating groups in Mali didn’t provide the same level of benefits to members as groups that received structured training.

Villagers are also reliable with loan repayment. “In an African village, people know one another and they can capitalize on that knowledge,” said Hugh Allen, chief executive of VSL Associates and a former senior adviser for CARE who has played a key role spreading the V.S.L.A. model and tracking savings groups at the global level. “If someone wants to take a loan to grow beans, their members might say: ‘Well, look, we know you know how to grow beans, but we think you’re being a bit ambitious.’ There’s this incredibly fine awareness of who their group members are that a financial institution cannot approach. You dare not diminish or degrade your social capital in this context.”

“We’ve seen groups working for eight or nine years without any support from us,” added Sophie Romana, director of community finance for Oxfam America. “In a day and age when everyone says international aid is inefficient, this doesn’t cost a lot of money and it can be a lifelong change. These women keep on meeting and saving together whether we’re there or not.”

As savings groups have multiplied, development organizations are looking ahead to next steps. One question is: How can the model be spread more cost effectively? Some organizations, including CARE, have enacted a fee structure in which villagers cover part of the cost of their own training. In the Saving for Change model advanced by Oxfam America and Freedom From Hunger, village-based volunteers are enlisted in some cases to train others.

But there may be other possibilities. “Up to this point the spread has been fairly mechanical,” said Kim Wilson, a microfinance expert who is a lecturer at the Fletcher School at Tufts University (and co-founder of a terrific website about micro-savings). “You have promoters who go out and form these groups. But have we looked at mass media, local radio or TV? Can we spread the word in a way that’s more efficient than we’ve been doing?”

Another question is: What should be done with this platform and the emerging management capacity and financial skill it represents? There are two schools of thought. Proponents like Ashe and Allen would like to see development organizations keep doing what they’ve been doing: spending their time and money training more groups. But the big development groups and funders have shifted their focus to building links between savings groups and banks, looking to create mobile banking services that work for both individuals and groups (a challenge given post-9/11 “Know Your Customer” banking regulations.)

Allen finds this change frustrating. “In the fine old tradition of international NGOs,” he said, “if you find something that works, be creative and go mess it up.”

Lauren Hendricks, executive director of CARE USA’s Access Africa initiative, favors the shift. “Savings groups are great,” she said, “but they’re not full financial inclusion. They don’t provide all the products that people need when they need them.” CARE is now working with banks and telecommunication companies to get them to recognize the financial history and skills of people in V.S.L.A. groups, and to offer products and services tailored to their needs. “We’d like to see savings groups become a pathway for formal financial inclusion,” she added.

Oxfam America is also pursuing opportunities to build up local knowledge through savings groups. “People want to come to these meetings because money is at stake,” Romana said. “If you happen to add some lessons on health or agriculture or small business, you’ve got an audience. That’s what’s exciting.”

“As with any single strategy, this is not going to lift people out of poverty,” Ashe said. “But it’s simple, low-cost and resilient—and it can be carried out by normal NGOs and spread virally. And what’s most important is that development is truly in people’s own hands.”

This post first appeared on the New York Times’ Fixes blog.

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Introducing The Girl Effect Accelerator

The Girl Effect Accelerator represents the first program of its kind: an international accelerator dedicated exclusively to scaling up ventures that are positioned to benefit millions of girls in poverty. Today, less than two cents of every international development dollar goes to girls—the very people who we believe could do most to end poverty. If we don’t put girls at the center of development, the world misses out on a tremendous opportunity for change. So, this past year our team at Unreasonable Group was privileged to partner with the Nike Foundation (co-founders of the Girl Effect) to launch this program in an effort to make girls visible to the entrepreneurial, business, and investment worlds.

If we don’t put girls at the center of development, the world misses out on a tremendous opportunity for change. Tweet This Quote

We launched our inaugural program this November just outside of San Francisco. Throughout the program, we aligned 10 ventures with world-class mentorship, strategic financing, and access to a global network of support. Our ultimate aim was to rapidly scale up the benefit these ventures can bring to girls in poverty. We are going to continue to work with each company on this mission into the years to come.

How we selected the companies

A lot of people ask us how we went about determining which companies should participate in the inaugural program. Unlike other Unreasonable programs where we have an open call for applications, for the Girl Effect Accelerator we scoured the globe and hand picked ventures we were convinced are best positioned to change the game for millions of girls. This was the basic selection criteria we used:

• For-profit model: Every venture invited into the program is leveraging a for profit business model.
• Market traction: We wanted to see a majority of selected companies have an annual revenue exceeding $500K in 2013. (Ultimately, the average company selected generated $2.2M in revenue in 2013)
• Highly scalable: We only invited ventures that we believe are setup to scale internationally and benefit girls in multiple countries.
• Commitment to girls: The leadership of each venture needed to demonstrate to us a clear commitment to fulfilling the Girl Effect vision.
• Tracking impact: Each invited venture agreed to actively measure their impact on girls living in poverty on a semi-annual basis.
• Local teams: We only invited ventures where a majority of their team members live and work in the countries they operate.

Of course, the best way to introduce you to the companies and how their work is positioned around girls is for them to tell you their stories on their own. To this end, in the proceeding 10 days we will feature a post with a TED-style talk that showcases the leadership of each of the companies and their unique potential to unleash the Girl Effect at scale. I hope you enjoy.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

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Arunachalam Muruganantham, founder of Jayaashree Industries had to miss the culminating event due to situations outside of his control. But we love his work so much, and because they were a GEA company, we wanted to share his TED talk.

Jayaashree Industries delivers an essential commodity—the sanitary pad—to poor girls and women at affordable rates. The company distributes locally made sanitary pad via women led franchises. Today, Jayashree Industries has franchises in over 1,300 villages across 23 states of India, and presence in over 24 countries.

I’m going to make India [into] a 100-percent-sanitary-napkin-using country in my lifetime. Tweet This Quote

In India, one in five girls drop out of school when they reach puberty due to lack of access to sanitary pads. Of the girls who remain in school, they will on average miss five school days a month due to lack of access to sanitary pads during menstruation. Jayashree Industries exists to eliminate these statistics.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post An Issue Keeping Millions of Girls Out of School and How One Venture is Solving It appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

Off.Grid:Electric uses solar to light the homes of families typically making $1-$4 per day. The average house who switches from kerosene lanterns to Off.Grid immediately receives 50x the light they had before at a cost lower than they were previously paying. Off.Grid:Electric is electrifying over 1000 homes per month.

Our goal is to not just light a room, but to light the whole home. Tweet This Quote

Lighting solutions are critical for girls to be able to study at night, as they often have to help their families with work during the day. Off.Grid has seen an average of 2.5X increase in study hours for girls in homes that have modern electric light.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post It’s Not Just Solar, It’s Modern Energy For Millions Across Africa appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

According to the World Health Organization, four million premature babies die annually within the first four weeks of life—about 450 per hour. In rich countries, vulnerable babies unable to maintain their own body temperature are kept in incubators that cost as much as $20,000. Embrace Innovations has created an infant warmer costing under $300. More than 100,000 mothers in poverty have already benefitted from its lifesaving design.

Our hope is that every baby goes on to celebrate his or her first birthday. Tweet This Quote

Embrace is focused on empowering mothers who are not able to access traditional healthcare. The company is developing a line of products to prevent infant and maternal mortality in developing countries, designed specifically around empowering mothers in poverty.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post How This Startup Empowers Mothers in Poverty to Save Their Infants appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

In about ten years, every household in Sub-Saharan Africa that needs fuel can have access to clean and affordable fuel. Tweet This Quote

Eco-Fuel Africa converts thousands of tons of agricultural waste into clean, inexpensive, cooking fuel for Africans. Today, the company works with over 2,500 farmers and a network of over 600 women retailers (who earn $150+ a month from retailing Eco-Fuel’s briquettes).

Girls in East Africa spend upwards of five hours a day gathering fire wood for cooking fuel. Eco-Fuel’s briquettes eliminate this need and ensure girls don’t skip school to gather wood. Furthermore, Eco-Fuel economically empowers marginalized mothers by turning them into micro-entrepreneurs. This enables them to on average triple their income which they use to send their daughters to school.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

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Greenlight Planet has sold over three million solar home lights to off-grid families through an in-house network of over 5,000 active village direct sales agents.

We bring them light, and the promise of a more productive and healthier life. Tweet This Quote

In a third party study families using Greenlight solar lanterns reported their school-going children studied for 75 percent longer on average. Moving forward, Greenlight is keen to position their most affordable solar lantern, the $10 Eco, as a study light for rural off-grid Girls. In addition to giving Girls the ability to study at night, these lanterns also prevent the use of kerosene (which has major health implications for Girls and their mothers).

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post How One Startup is Bringing Solar to Millions of Families in Poverty appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

Over 85 percent of women in Sub-Saharan Africa are self-employed in the informal economy—many produce crafts and handmade goods to make or supplement very small incomes. But their sales are limited to inconsistent local demand or other markets all too often via extortionate middlemen.

If you put money into the hands of a woman, she will invest it wisely into her family’s future Tweet This Quote

Soko uses mobile technology to empower and provide equal access to opportunity for woman artisans across Africa. With Soko’s mobile tools, these women, as well as male artisans who share this vision, have access to a whole world of consumers, expanding their business horizons and entrepreneurial prospects.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post How Fashion Fused with Tech is Enabling Thousands of Women in Africa appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

Megan Mukuria is one of three entrepreneurs in residence who joined us for a portion of the program. We learned from their experience and as a community, helped to accelerate the growth of their projects.

Together we can help unleash girls and step boldly into the promise of their future Tweet This Quote

Megan founded ZanaAfrica with the conviction that sanitary pads and reproductive health education are not only a basic human right, but also address root causes of gender inequality. Based in Kenya, ZanaAfrica manufactures and distributes radically affordable sanitary pads, underwear and health comics. It has served over 12,000 girls and plan to reach at minimum one million by 2020.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in the first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post The Most Affordable Way to Keep Girls in School appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

Zubaida Bai is one of three entrepreneurs in residence who joined us for a portion of the program. We learned from their experience and as a community, helped to accelerate the growth of their projects.

We exist as a commitment to save lives and change lives one product at a time, one happy woman at a time Tweet This Quote

Zubaida is widely regarded as an expert and a leader in the field of engineering design for low-cost health products customized for the developing world. Zubaida’s work at the bottom of the pyramid demonstrates her passion for empowering underserved girls and women. Her company, Ayzh, designs vital healthcare products for girls and women in poverty. She has been awarded the TED Fellowship and Echoing Green Fellowship.

This post is part of a series profiling ventures in the first accelerator program dedicated to impacting the lives of millions of girls in poverty. For more information on the program, check out the Girl Effect Accelerator website.

The post How One Woman is Preventing Deaths of Women and Their Newborns appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

“The poor” are an artificial construct.

Impossible! I hear you say. I know poor people! We employ poor people in our value chains! Poor people buy our products! Not only that, but we have social impact investors who give us money because of our great track record in reaching and impacting the lives of the poor! And maybe, just maybe, some of you have the data to “prove” it.

The poor are an artificial construct. Tweet This Quote

But before we get too excited, hear me out. By saying that “the poor” is an artificial construct does not mean that people don’t experience poverty, or that poor people don’t exist. The idea that “the poor” are an artificial construct is not new. In fact, my friend Charles Knox-Vydmanov highlights this in his paper Why ‘The Poor’ Don’t Exist (And What This Means For Social Protection Policy). This idea stuck with me so I’ll explain why I think it has validity, then talk about what this means for reaching poor adolescent girls as a distinct group.

In order to understand what is meant by the poor being an artificial construct, I’ll talk about three things: poverty dynamics, problems with poverty measurement, and multi-dimensional poverty. Think of this as a sort of “Poverty 101” class, which you can use to think about your own business models, how you think about and measure social impact, and how you communicate with funders.

Poverty dynamics: First, what do we know about identifying the poor? Well, we know that when it comes to identifying or targeting, the poor are a moving target. This is because of something called volatility, or poverty churning. While those in deep poverty often stay there for many years, or even generations, those closer to the poverty line often dip in and out of poverty depending on a range of shocks and stresses experienced by households. In Indonesia, while the poverty rate is estimated to be 13.3 percent, the World Bank suggests that at least 43 percent of the population falls under the poverty line at least once between 2008 and 2010.

Poverty is dynamic. People move into and out of poverty Tweet This Quote

Indeed, World Bank research from both Pakistan and Indonesia suggests that households at 1.5 times the Poverty Line should be regarded as being at risk of spending some time in poverty over a three to five year period. This recognizes the fact that poverty is dynamic: people move into and out of poverty, and poverty is experienced frequently by those we call the poor, the vulnerable, the near poor, and a plethora of other terms!

Problems with poverty measurement: So, how do we identify the poor? The poor, the near poor and the non-poor don’t look all that different from one another—the differences in incomes between these groups are pretty infinitesimal. This is called a “flat distribution curve” in poverty analysis speak, and it is really common. The flat curve is illustrated in the below figure.

The cumulative distribution of consumption in Bangladesh, from the poorest household to the richest (BNLP = Basic Needs Poverty Line)

So, in Bangladesh, for example, while 32 percent of the population fall below the official poverty line, 80 percent of the population falls below two times the poverty line. And, there is very little difference between those 32 percent at the bottom, and those 48 percent just above them. You, and I, would not be able to see the difference at all if we visited these households, except perhaps at the extreme left of the distribution, where you have a relatively small group called the extreme poor, and at the far right, where you have the rich).

You might be thinking, “well, you and I might not be able to tell the difference between a person who earns $1.98 per day, so officially below the $2/day poverty line, and a person who earns $2.05/day, but surely with the right measurement tools—more sophisticated and objective than our own assessments—one can tell this?” Well, sorry to disappoint, but no.

Even the most sophisticated poverty measurement approaches employed by poverty-analysis gurus in the World Bank cannot tell us this. The most sophisticated approach that the WB has for identifying the poor is called the proxy means test (like means tests in formal economies, but instead of measuring income—difficult if not impossible in largely informal economies—it uses proxies for wealth such as housing materials, education of household head, assets, etc.). It has been shown that the proxy means test has huge errors associated with it—identifying those who are not poor as poor (an inclusion error), and those who are poor as not poor (an exclusion error). And by “huge errors,” I mean that if you were trying to identify the ten percent of the population who are the poorest, the errors would be in the order of 70 percent. A failure by any measure. This is illustrated in the below scatter graph.

Proxy means test:?Theoretical exclusion and inclusion errors (Bangladesh)

In this scatter graph, everyone below the horizontal red line is assessed as being poor. Everyone to left of vertical red line is below the poverty line. So, everyone to the right of the vertical line and below the horizontal line has been wrongly identified as poor. Everyone above the horizontal line has been identified as non-poor; this is correct for those to the right of the vertical line, but not for those to the left, who are indeed poor. Accurate identification of the poor would see all of the dots tightly clustered in the bottom left box (the poor who are rightly included) and the top right box (the non-poor who are rightly excluded). But you can see the magnitude of the errors by looking at the top left box, and the bottom right box.

When we look at poverty multi-dimensionally, we see that there is no one group we can refer to as “the poor.” Tweet This Quote

And don’t forget, as I discussed above, this is measuring poverty at one moment in time and doesn’t take into account the “churning” that is constantly going on around the poverty line. Think about the above scatter graph, but with all the dots moving!

Multi-dimensional poverty: Finally, when we look at poverty multi-dimensionally (by which I mean looking at aspects of poverty not captured by income measures, such as health and education outcomes, or access to clean water or housing quality), we see that there is no one group we can refer to as “the poor.” A group of “poor” identified using one approach, are often distinct from another group of “poor” identified using another approach. In other words, those who experience income poverty don’t necessarily experience poverty in other aspects of their lives.

The below figure shows that, while deprivations in different areas—such as housing and water and sanitation—can be experienced by the same group of “poor” (especially by the extreme poor), this is not always, or even usually, the case. Some “poor” don’t experience these deprivations, and some “non-poor” do. The below graphic taken from data in Indonesia shows how, for example, income poverty and deprivations in housing and in water and sanitation do not correlate perfectly.

Multi-dimensional poverty correlation

What does this mean for girl poverty and for working with “poor girls?”

What are the implications for the slipperiness of poverty as a concept and the inability to accurately identify the poor on how we understand girl poverty and work with “poor girls”?

First, as with the rest of “the poor” apart from the extremes, it is impossible to know which girls are living in poverty and which are not. Why is this? In summary:

• A girl living on $1.99 a day and one living on $2.01 a day might look exactly the same.
• A girl living on $1.75 a day might actually have higher well-being than a girl living on $2.25 a day.
• A girl who has $2.25 one day might have $1.25 the next.
• A girl in a better off household might have fewer own economic resources, and less access to household resources than a girl in a very poor household.
• Income poverty does not always correlate with other aspects of poverty—such as deprivations in education, health, and housing), so it is difficult to say unequivocally which girls are poor and which are not, as different groups of girls will be poor using different dimensions.

So, should we throw up our hands in despair, lose sleep, or worse, walk away? Absolutely not. And there are two main reasons we should not be overly concerned.

It is impossible to know which girls are living in poverty and which are not. Tweet This Quote

Firstly, the base of the pyramid in the most developing countries is so wide that reaching ANY girls outside of the most advantaged (the girls in that far right hand side of the distribution) will mean you are reaching girls on less than $4/day, and probably some on less than $2/day. If we look at the graphics below, we see that 63 percent, 67 percent and 82 percent of households in Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda are living on less than $2/day. If you include households not officially “poor” but vulnerable to falling into poverty, say on $3 or $4/day, practically the whole pyramid would be a base.

So, though we might not be talking about the very poorest and most vulnerable girls who are “last mile” (or the far left side of the distribution), we are talking about girls who are vulnerable, and who experience poverty.

Poverty is experienced as more than just a lack of access to financial resources, and this is very true for adolescent girls. Tweet This Quote

Secondly, poverty is experienced multi-dimensionally, and is more than just a lack of access to financial resources. And this is as true for adolescent girls as for anyone else. When girls talk about their experiences of “poverty” or “vulnerability,” they do talk about inability to buy basic necessities such as food, school supplies, and sanitary pads, and inability to pay school fees and pay transport costs. But they also talk about safety concerns, about feeling isolated and not having friends or anyone to talk to, about being tired because they have so much household work to do, about feeling worthless and hopeless, about having no control over what happens to them and not being able to achieve their dreams. These much more multi-dimensional notions of poverty are not anything that we can measure monetarily, but they are just as meaningful, if not more so, to girls, and can be just as powerful areas of impact.

Poverty is dynamic, and people experience different types of vulnerability and deprivation at different times. Tweet This Quote

In closing, I want to restate that poverty is real and so are poor people, but also emphasize that “the poor” are not a static, identifiable group. Poverty is dynamic, and people experience different types of vulnerability and deprivation at different times. Measuring poverty is a difficult endeavor, and the outcomes inevitably inaccurate, so don’t to get too caught up in trying to accurately identify whether it is “the poor” or “poor girls”—defined by income or consumption measures—who are benefitting from your products and services. Impact on aspects of well-being beyond income and consumption are often much more meaningful and easier changes to measure. For example, measuring change for girls who are “off track” and therefore most as risk, such as girls out of school before or at the age of 15. We know that these girls are at the greatest risk of the worst possible outcomes, including early marriage, early pregnancy, HIV, and trafficking.

I intend to explore this and other girl impact metric issues in the next post, but please give me your questions and ideas below! In particular, what would you like me to talk about in relation to gender and poverty—and in particular adolescent girls—in future blogs?

The post Poor Girls and Girl Poverty: Debunking Artificial Constructs appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

Evidence, not assumptions, need to be a driving factor in any program demanding funding and claiming impact.

The Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) has emerged as an area of interest in relation to maintaining adolescent girls’ school attendance, with the ultimate goal of reducing dropout rates and supporting adolescent girls to achieve better educational outcomes.

Evidence, not assumptions, need to be a driving factor in any program demanding funding and claiming impact. Tweet This Quote

Despite this interest, there is a dearth of evidence in support of any causal relationship between menstruation and girls’ school attendance. Many advocacy campaigns, interventions, and pitches for investment are based on the assumption that distribution of sanitary products will lead to improved school attendance, performance, progression, and better outcomes for girls.

But, with larger and larger amounts of funding and resources being put into MHM efforts, it’s increasingly important to make sure that the various approaches are backed by real impact data.

There is a dearth of evidence in support of any causal relationship between menstruation and girls’ school attendance. Tweet This Quote

I have become particularly interested in the evidence around menstruation and schooling outcomes for adolescent girls during my recent work in East Africa with startups. Through my work, I’ve met with almost every local player in the market, and have heard the arguments that sanitary pads reduce adolescent girls’ absenteeism, keeping girls in school, and thus improving schooling outcomes. I’m seeing a couple of problems with these claims that need to be addressed in order for us to make real progress.

Insufficient evidence

There is a weak understanding of what counts as evidence amongst many MHM businesses. One business has claimed that provision of their sanitary pads in schools lead to a 75 percent decrease in school absenteeism amongst adolescent girls. When I enquired what absenteeism was before (the baseline), in order to understand the magnitude of the reduction, they were not able to provide data on this. This was important because if girls were only missing on average 0.2 days of school per month, a reduction of 75 percent only meant that girls were attending, on average, an additional 1.5 hours per month. Not much of an impact in anyone’s books.

There is a weak understanding of what counts as evidence amongst many MHM businesses. Tweet This Quote

A number of businesses make claims that they can “ensure girls stay in school” based on anecdotal evidence, either of what they saw their sisters or other female relatives experience, or tales from the field. While these stories are no doubt true, and legitimate, this is not evidence.

Others use statistics, claiming that “65 percent of girls in East Africa could win back up to six weeks of school each year if given affordable, dignified means to manage their periods.” Still others claim that this amount is two months of school every year. One company claimes: “Hundreds of thousands of young girls… miss school on a regular basis because they don’t have access to safe and affordable sanitary pads.” In chasing down the data to substantiate these claims I, and others, have been given small-scale qualitative studies and poorly designed quantitative studies—or we have just hit back holes and stone walls.

And even if the evidence for MHM interventions did show evidence of an increase in .5, or 1 or more days of school per month, if this cannot be linked to better school performance, likelihood of re-enrolling the following year, likelihood to transition to secondary school, and higher literacy levels, then I question whether this could be considered impact worth investing in.

Fortunately, some MHM businesses I have spoken with also understand this evidentiary problem, and they are in the process of designing more robust quantitative research to better understand the relationship between MHM and schooling outcomes. This is exactly what we need going forward.

But what is the state of the evidence at present?

What is the evidence?

This leads me to the second—killer—problem. Sanitary pad companies are over-claiming impacts on the basis of poor, limited or no data. Here is what four independent studies from Kenya, Zambia, Malawi and Nepal say.

The Adolescent Girls Empowerment Programme in Zambia collected data from 5,241 girls in 2013 for a baseline study¹. Among those girls who reported having missed days of school in the past year, the reasons given (with multiple responses possible) were:

1. Student sick/ill: 54%
2. Other: 29% (the majority of which had to do with financial issues, lack of money for books, fees, uniforms)
3. Household responsibilities:  15%
4. Uniform dirty: 8%
5. Rather do something else: 5%
6. Funeral/bereavement: 5%
7. Menstruation: 1%

In Kenya, baseline data from a study in Kilifi² that surveyed 2,500 girls recorded reasons for girls missing school (over a 3 month period) in number of days missed as:

1. Sickness: 2.6 days
2. Lack of school fees/materials: 1.7 days
3. Death/sickness of family/friend: .93 days
4. Menstruation: .45 days
5. Housework: .25 days
6. Care for family: .19 days

So, menstruation does not appear to be a major cause of girls missing school in either Zambia or in Kenya. In Zambia, illness, poverty, and household responsibilities are all far more important. In Kenya, sickness, poverty and family care and responsibilities were far more important. While some claim that “sickness” might also cover the effects of menstruation, studies that allow multiple responses, as the above do, minimize this risk.

For those who reported missing school due to menstruation in the Kilifi study, the reason given was:

1. In pain: 70%
2. Nothing to manage period: 45%
3. Scared to have accident at school: 20%
4. Embarrassed: 12%
5. Scared to be teased: 12%
6. No private place at school to manage period: 4%

So, even for those who were missing school due to menstruation, not having anything to manage their periods was not the most important driver—pain was. And, taken together, being scared about being embarrassed should others find out about their periods (reasons three through five), taken together account for 44 percent of reasons, and are therefore just as important as having nothing to manage their periods (at 45 percent). This suggests a need not only for girls to have greater ability to manage their periods (which would reduce this fear), but also approaches that build girls’ confidence, and boys’ understanding and support for girls.

Menstruation does not appear to be a major cause of girls missing school in either Zambia or in Kenya. Tweet This Quote

The Malawi Schooling and Adolescent Study (MSAS)³ is a school-based survey of 1,675 students between 14 and 16 years old sampled from 59 primary schools and their catchment areas in two rural districts in southern Malawi. This longitudinal study on adolescence and school quality found that, “although one-third of female students reported missing at least one day of school during their previous menstrual period, menstruation accounts only for a small proportion of all female absenteeism and does not create a gender gap in absenteeism.”

So, menstruation is not one of the main reasons for absenteeism, and does not disproportionately disadvantage girls over boys in regards to absenteeism.

Menstruation is not one of the main reasons for absenteeism, and does not disproportionately disadvantage girls over boys in regards to absenteeism. Tweet This Quote

In Nepal, an RCT (Randomized Controlled Trial)⁴ found no effect of the use of menstrual cups on absenteeism amongst girls who used the menstrual cups regularly during their periods. Girls in the study were randomly allocated a menstrual cup for use during their monthly period and were followed for fifteen months to measure the effects of having modern sanitary products on schooling. The study found that, while girls were three percentage points less likely to attend school on days of their period, there was no significant effect of being allocated a menstrual cup on school attendance.

There were also no effects on test scores, self-reported measures of self-esteem or gynecological health. They conclude that these results suggest that policy claims that barriers to girls’ schooling and activities during menstrual periods due to lack of modern sanitary protection may not be warranted. We need to be really cautious with the finding, as what Oster and Thornton appear to have been testing is impact of better menstruation technology on school performance, not whether access to any menstruation management product improves school performance (98 percent of all the girls in the study were already using some form of menstrual management).

Girls deserve access to menstrual hygiene information and products as a human right. Tweet This Quote

So, even with a better way to manage their periods, girls are not attending more. This supports the findings from Zambia and Kenya above that girls miss school for a number of different reasons that are generally more important than menstruation.

The best evidence comes from a recent systematic review on menstrual hygiene management by Sumpter and Torondel.⁵ Not only did they highlight a plethora of methodological problems with the studies that they reviewed, but after looking at the 11 studies that were investigating the relationship between menstrual hygiene products and psychosocial outcomes including education, they concluded that “there was no quantitative evidence that improvements in [menstrual] management methods reduce school absenteeism.”

The reasons why girls miss school and drop out of school are complex, and require multi-pronged contextual solutions underpinned by robust evidence. Tweet This Quote

I want to finish by stating that I absolutely think that girls deserve access to menstrual hygiene information and products as a human right. But, if you are looking for a silver bullet that will reduce absenteeism, keep girls in school longer and lead to better schooling outcomes, the current state of the evidence suggests that menstrual pads are not that bullet.

In fact, it is unlikely that a silver bullet exists at all. The reasons why girls miss school and drop out of school are complex, and require multi-pronged contextual solutions underpinned by robust evidence. I suggest that in an environment of scare resources, and lots of competing claims for these resources, investors need to demand better evidence, and social impact ventures need to do more to supply this. I’ll be looking forward to reading more about the impact of MHM products on schooling outcomes from those companies who are committed to exploring this issue through robust research and evaluation.

¹ Unpublished data. For more information on study see: http://www.popcouncil.org/research/adolescent-girls-empowerment-program

² Unpublished data. For more information see: http://www.popcouncil.org/research/building-an-evidence-base-to-delay-marriage-in-sub-saharan-africa

³ Monica Grant, Cynthia Lloyd and Barbara Mensch. “Menstruation and School Absenteeism: Evidence from Rural Malawi”. Comparative Education Review. Vol. 57, No. 2 (May 2013), pp. 260-284

⁴ Oster, E and Thornton, T. Menstruation and Education in Nepal NBER Working Paper No. 14853, April 2009.

⁵ Sumpter C, Torondel B (2013) A Systematic Review of the Health and Social Effects of Menstrual Hygiene Management. PLoS ONE 8(4): e62004. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062004

Last updated: August 10, 2015

The post Bloody Myths: Why I Don’t Think Sanitary Pads Impact Girls’ Educational Outcomes appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

On an otherwise reasonable evening in July, over 600 people packed an auditorium in Boulder, Colorado, for the culmination of the 2015 Unreasonable Institute. They came to watch 12 ventures take the stage and present their solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges.

The entrepreneur in this video is Gavin Armstrong of Lucky Iron Fish.

What urgent need do you address?

Iron deficiency is the number one challenge facing the planet today in terms of health and economic impact, affecting 3.5 billion people around the world—that’s half of the world’s population. Symptoms cause reduced work capacity, reduced ability to concentrate in school, and a loss on global GDP of $70 billion per year. Iron deficiency exists in every country around the world, and with global rates on the rise, an astounding number of Cambodians suffer from it. Iron supplements are too expensive and simply aren’t working. We need the lucky iron fish.

We’re committed to having a social impact in every facet of how we do business. Tweet This Quote

What solution do you propose?

The lucky iron fish is a simple solution for this global problem. It’s small, shaped like a fish, and fits in the palm of a hand. To use it, you simply boil drinking water or make soup, put the fish in your pot, and boil it for 10 minutes with a little citrus. The little iron fish releases up to 90% of daily iron intake and will last for 5 years, benefiting the entire family for only $5. Its unique design features, such as a smile that fades away over time letting you know when to replace it, make the lucky iron fish easy to use. We partner with local Cambodians for design and production, and we use biodegradable packaging produced by a co-op that hires disabled Cambodians. Our international packaging is even made from recycled materials. We have improved the lives of over 100,000 Cambodians so far, and our unreasonable goal is to put a fish in every pot around the world.

I came across Schumacher’s writing almost 20 years ago during my time at Sussex University. I was only three years into my global development journey, having spent a decade working in the technology sector until everything changed after a trip to Zambia in 1993. Shumacher’s call for appropriate technologies resonated on so many levels, and seemed to sit in stark contrast to many of the active—and failed—policies of the development system.

My sense has always been that we need to support the people closest to the problem. Tweet This Quote

Sadly, despite the rhetoric, little has really changed, and many ICT4D projects simply follow big brother’s bad practice. This is why, for the best part of the last 13 years, I’ve been relentlessly focused on development ‘outside the system’, and how we might support the grassroots response to many of the problems out there. In 2005, FrontlineSMS was specifically built with this—and Shumacher’s vision—in mind.

My sense has always been that we need to support the people closest to the problem. Not only do they often have a better understanding, but they also get the local context (cultural, geographic, economic and so on). As outsiders, we often do not.

As Ahmed Djoghlaf pointed out during the current climate talks, “It’s difficult for someone living up on the 38th floor to know what is going on in the basement.” The same applies in global development, where many of the organisations that drive the agenda are based far away from the problems they’re trying to solve.

Until local actors drive more of the development agenda, there will inevitably be a disconnect; whenever there’s a disconnect, there should be caution. Tweet This Quote

Until local actors drive more of the development agenda, there will inevitably be a disconnect. And whenever there’s a disconnect, there should be caution. We may have the money, and what we believe to be the better technology and expertise, but history tells us that we often struggle to apply them in ways that result in meaningful change, or any change at all.

This quote from William Macaskill’s new book, Doing Good Better, should be printed off and pinned on the wall of every development agency working overseas. It should be the starting point, and opening question, to anything and everything we do.

It’s time to vacate those offices on the 38th floor and move our thinking a little closer to the basement. We still might not get everything right, but it’s almost certainly a better starting point. Just ask Schumacher. He’s been saying it for 50 years.

The post Halting the Push-Push of Global Development appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

This post is part of a series of stories featuring the entrepreneurs who participated in Unreasonable East Africa’s 2015 program. 

“What is poverty?” a Ugandan financial workshop leader asked Molly Burke and other attendants. Another Ugandan woman replied, “Poverty is not having transportation to leave my community. It’s seeing other people leave and access greater opportunity—getting to bigger markets or even a health clinic—and it’s you who is stuck.”

Poverty is not having transportation to leave the community. It’s seeing other people leave and access greater opportunity. Tweet This Quote

Burke credits this moment as a huge motivation for ensuring distance isn’t a barrier to opportunity for people living in rural communities across Uganda. She is co-founder and executive director of Bicycles Against Poverty (BAP), an organization based in Gulu that uses a microfinance model to distribute bikes, turning what would normally take hours walking in the sun into a quick jaunt to access critical services.

“Bicycles are a true treasure in Uganda,” says Burke, who sees bikes as a key driving force for economic development. “They aren’t readily available. Over two-thirds of the population travels by walking, and they live in the rural areas. That translates into hours just to get to clean water, markets and health centers.”

Co-founder Muyambi Muyambi grew up in southern Uganda, but ended up traveling to Northern Uganda, a war-affected region, to learn more about his country. The region achieved peace after rebel groups disbanded in 2005, but the 20-year-long civil war disrupted life in cataclysmic ways. He decided it was here that needed the most development, and he was determined to figure out how.

Distance shouldn’t be a barrier to opportunity for people living in rural communities. Tweet This Quote

On a scholarship at Bucknell University, Muyambi met Burke. “He told me that bikes are everything in Uganda,” Burke reflects. “It made sense, but I didn’t understand until I traveled there. The impact doesn’t just fall into one specific area.”

Muyambi and Burke partnered in 2008, and the nonprofit Bicycles Against Poverty was born. Their approach is to eradicate poverty at its source by creating access to markets and critical services for millions of Ugandans, especially farmers.

For example, with the ability to travel to a distant market, a farmer can access better prices and return with more goods to increase their profit margin. This spurs a cycle of reinvestment to grow a small business. In a lease to own model, BAP provides the bikes to a local farmer for a 15 USD deposit, followed by 7 USD per month for a year, totaling approximately 100 USD.

Bikes are a key driving force for economic development. Tweet This Quote

But sometimes lack of transportation isn’t a missed day at the market, but a matter of life or death. For parents living in remote areas, getting to a health center in a timely manner is crucial because of epidemic sicknesses like dysentery.

“Previously, we had a mother who had to pay a month’s worth of wages to afford to hire a motorcycle to get to the clinic, but then she couldn’t afford the medicine,” says Burke. Faced with this conundrum, the mother had to choose whether to walk and risk taking the extra time, but save the money for the medicine. “People are constantly trying to weigh the costs, and it’s a lose-lose.”

Dissatisfied, the duo is working to change that cost-benefit analysis across the country. In the last five years, they’ve distributed over 1,600 bikes. Farmers who participate in BAP earn on average 390 USD annually. A study in Uganda showed that bikes increase income by 35% per year, so that’s an additional 136.50 USD per farmer per year. To date, BAP has increased profits for farmers by 218,400 USD per year.

With the ability to travel to a distant market, an entrepreneur can access better prices and return with more goods to increase their profit margin. Tweet This Quote

To reach even more participants, Burke partnered with key groups already networked across the region, including Save the Children, CARE International, and VSO International.

The partners make introductions into new communities, helping BAP build trust quickly. The pre-existing infrastructures developed by the partners make marketing, credit verification and thus rapid scaling much easier. Through this new partnership model, BAP sold the same amount of bikes in only one year as they have in the last five.

“There’s more accountability for our loan structure this way,” says Burke. “Loan officers are appointed in the community and are always available to other members. The relationships are key.”

The bicycle is a means to achieve upward mobility. Tweet This Quote

By 2017, Bicycles Against Poverty wants to distribute 15,000 bicycles across the entire country. They are recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative University Outstanding Commitment Award, and the founders were named Travelers of the Year by National Geographic in 2013.

“We are committed to ensuring that people can afford the transportation themselves,” says Burke. “The bicycle is a means to achieve upward mobility.”

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The post How Bicycles are Transporting People Out of Poverty appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

This post is part of a series of stories featuring the entrepreneurs who participated in Unreasonable Mexico’s second annual program.

In Mexico, 46% of the country’s 122 million citizens live under the poverty line. Even though several of the country’s 31 states have reduced their respective poverty rates over the past couple of decades, the overall proportion of people living in poverty hasn’t changed much since 1992. This means poverty is swelling disproportionately in certain states—most often rural areas with large indigenous populations.

Between 2012 and 2014, the total number of Mexicans living in poverty grew by about 2 million—two-thirds of whom live in Veracruz and the State of Mexico. The states of Oaxaca, Michoacán and Morelos showed similar spikes. The decline of poverty in some areas and the increase in others have contributed to Mexico ranking first in the OECD for the highest rate of income inequality.

The overall proportion of Mexicans living in poverty hasn’t changed much since 1992. Tweet This Quote

Since 2002, Gabriela Micelli and Cesar Velazquez have worked tirelessly to combat this widespread inequality among the indigenous populations in Mexico. They have focused their efforts in Chiapas, where nearly 76% of the people remain in poverty—making it the poorest state in Mexico.

Micelli and Velázquez founded their organization, CONIDER (an acronym that in English translates to “Comprehensive Consulting Services for Sustainable Rural Development”) to help these rural communities design financially sustainable solutions to meet their unique needs.

A group of women supported by CONIDER learning how to turn their craft into an income-generating mechanism.

According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, 15% of the population in Mexico identifies as indigenous. Chiapas alone contains approximately 13.5% of Mexico’s entire indigenous population, and the people speak over 50 indigenous languages. In Oaxaca, over half of the population considers themselves indigenous. Faced with this complex cultural rarity, traditional top-down government aid has proved ineffective when it has failed to take into account the unique situations of each community.

“In these communities, government programs often don’t work because the people can’t take ownership over the projects,” said Micelli. This leads to unproductive resources, she continued, and a loss of trust among the local people. “We are going to the most marginalized communities that have the most needs, but we aren’t going to waste the resources. We are going to work differently to regain their confidence.”

Between 2012 and 2014, the total number of Mexicans living in poverty grew by about 2 million. Tweet This Quote

Over the last decade, CONIDER has worked to fine-tune its development model that requires engagement from local populations—starting small with ten communities in the city of Sitalá, Chiapas. Initially, the organization adopted a methodology from the Food and Agriculture Organization to implement a food security initiative, supporting families in designing projects like raising chickens and cultivating basic grains.

Then, in 2013, they partnered with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to increase the variety of food and nutrition projects, expand into new communities, and implement literacy and leadership training workshops. Examples of projects have included painting schools, building greenhouses, beekeeping and coffee growing.

A greenhouse built by a rural Mexican community with support from CONIDER.

After evaluating these experiences, CONIDER developed it’s own five-pillar methodology called MODECI (another acronym that translates to “Model of Integrated Community Development”). The areas of focus include:

1. Food systems and nutrition
2. Strengthening skills of local leadership
3. Sustainable use of natural resources
4. Income generation
5. Communication and dissemination of the model to other communities

The process requires the participation of community members to identify problems, hold planning sessions, organize skill-building workshops, implement projects and ultimately monitor and evaluate them. At the same time, the participants improve their health, economic opportunity and community solidarity.

“One community we started working with used to have a lot of internal conflicts,” said Velázquez. “The community was established only 15-16 years ago, but they had never had a town festival. Last year was their first one, celebrating Mother’s Day, and the whole community participated. It was very emotional because it was unifying.”

In Chiapas, nearly 76 percent of the people remain in poverty—making it the poorest state in Mexico. Tweet This Quote

From 2014-2015, CONIDER worked with 38 indigenous communities and over 1,000 families. The projects designed by the community members helped 135 children overcome malnutrition, over 80 women achieve literacy, and 45 women and men train to assume leadership roles.

But this is just the beginning for CONIDER. Now, with their methodology solidified, Micelli and Velazquez are positioned to launch a larger and more systematic pilot program over five years. Since the organization funds its operations through donations (like the one with the Kellogg Foundation), the pilot will start as soon as they can secure their next big partnership.

In the first year, CONIDER will operate programs in five of the most impoverished Mexican states: Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Puebla and Veracruz. In total, they will launch in 50 different towns, each with a population around 3,000, to promote the model and establish local alliances.

A couple of men in Chiapas participating in an English literacy class facilitated by CONIDER.

In the second year, the team plans to expand to 500 more communities in the states of Yucatán, Michoacán, Hidalgo, Campeche, Morelos, Nayarit, San Luis Potosí and Tabasco. In the last three years, and largely depending on the partnerships they are able to secure, CONIDER ambitiously aims to bring MODECI to 2,900 more communities.

Around 15 percent of the population in Mexico identifies as indigenous. Tweet This Quote

Throughout this pilot, the organization plans to track metrics of their impact, such as number of projects implemented by community members and percentage of families benefitted in each community. Their overarching targets include reducing malnutrition by 40%, increasing the availability of nutritious food by 30%, reducing the illiterate adult population by 40%, and training at least 30 leaders in each community to carry on the projects and guide the design of new ones.

“There are many problems to resolve in the country, but especially the issue of poverty,” said Velázquez. “There’s a history of paternalism in these rural communities, where the people depend on support from the outside. So this dependency generates a lot of problems. We want to start changing this injustice.”

According to Micelli and Velázquez, CONIDER’s biggest priority is to develop a solid foundation of partners, collaborators and donors. With the appropriate alliances in place, in the next decade CONIDER believes they can reach one million people across Mexico.

Love CONIDER?

Learn More Here!

The post Enabling Indigenous Mexicans to Design a Better Future appeared first on UNREASONABLE.is.

This post is part of a series of stories featuring the entrepreneurs who participated in Unreasonable Mexico’s second annual program.

Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the Earth four times. Of the plastics produced, we only recover (or divert from landfills) about five percent. Left in landfills, certain varieties can take up to 1,000 years to decompose, leaking toxins into the soil and water in the meantime. It’s estimated that 10-20 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year.

Enough plastic is thrown away each year to circle the Earth four times. Tweet This Quote

Mexico ranks as the 12th largest plastics consumer in the world, consuming over 5 million tons of plastic each year. Growing up in the state of Puebla, Carlos Daniel González remembers the prevalence of this pollution and its damage to his community.

“As a kid, I remember seeing all of the plastic and the contamination it caused, for us and for the animals,” said González. “I’ve always cared about the environment, so I decided I had to create and lead a solution.”

In 2013, he founded EcoDomum to build durable, affordable homes using recycled plastic. Furthermore, González decided to employ his environmental solution to address another serious problem in his country—Mexicans living in extreme poverty.

A sample of the various types of plastic collected by EcoDomum.

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as “living on the edge of subsistence with an average daily consumption of $1.25 or less.” In Mexico, 11.5 million people—nearly 10% of the country’s entire population—live in extreme poverty. Puebla, where EcoDomum is headquartered, is one of the poorest states in Mexico with 64 percent of the population living in poverty. According to González, this often means people in his neighborhood lack the basic needs of food and housing.

“I live in a place with a lot of poverty and problems of marginalization,” said González. “Some people live in truly deplorable conditions, places you can’t even call houses. My vision is very clear. I have the conviction to help the most people I can have a dignified life by getting rid of extreme poverty, cleaning up my country at the same time.”

Certain plastic varieties can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Tweet This Quote

EcoDomum does this by collecting plastic, melting it down and shaping it into large panels, and using those panels as the walls and roofs to build insulated houses.

According to González, the process is relatively simple. First, the company collects all kinds of used plastic—from soda bottles to old toys—and separates it to find the types that melt without emitting harmful fumes. Then, they put the plastic into a machine to chop it up. Next, the pieces are placed in an oven that heats up to 350 degrees Celsius (over 600 degrees Fahrenheit), taking approximately half an hour to melt all of the material. Finally, the liquid goes through a hydraulic press, which simultaneously compresses and crystallizes the plastic into the shape of the panels.

Close-up of EcoDomum plastic panel.

Each panel is nearly eight feet long, four feet wide and approximately one inch thick. Houses are typically around 430-460 square feet and contain two rooms plus one bathroom, one living room and a kitchen. Constructing a house requires 80 panels, and at its current capacity, EcoDomum’s plant produces 120 panels a day, transforming and repurposing 5.5 tons of what was once plastic waste.

“It only takes seven days to build a house that uses two tons of plastic,” said González. Furthermore, the durable, impermeable and affordable properties of plastic that have given it a competitive advantage for decades apply to these houses as well. “[A house] keeps you warm, the costs are low, it’s great for the environment, and it will last 100 years without falling apart. These are just some of our value propositions.”

In Mexico, 11.5 million people live in extreme poverty—under $1.25 a day. Tweet This Quote

Although the startup built two prototype houses, EcoDomum primarily sells the panels individually—a roof for 600 pesos (33 USD), an exterior wall for 650 pesos (36 USD), and an interior wall for 500 pesos (28 USD)—to local governments and organizations that take care of the construction of subsidized housing. Families only have to pay 5,000 pesos (approximately 280 USD) for a 430 square foot house.

In addition to helping the environment and housing those in need, EcoDomum also stimulates the local economy by paying trash collectors a higher rate for their work. According to González, trash collectors in Mexico are paid abusive wages by large companies, around 1.5 pesos (6 cents) for 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). He thought if he could form alliances with these companies, paying them to pay higher wages to their employees, he could ensure a constant supply of material for his company’s panels. It worked, and he nearly doubled the wages of several trash collectors.

An EcoDomum prototype house built using its plastic panels.

To date, the startup has constructed five hundred 135 square foot rooms for the city of Huauchinango, Puebla. The city of Chiconcuhutla contracted the company to build 150 houses, 460 square feet each. Currently, EcoDomum is working on a contract from the city of Pahuatlán for another 150 homes. In 2016, the company is set to move into a larger warehouse and start expanding throughout all of Mexico.

“This has the potential to grow exponentially,” said González. “The problem of trash is huge in my country. In the whole world, there’s a ton of trash. In the next year, I want to grow the company ten-fold. First, we will concentrate in Mexico, but in 3-5 years, we want to go to other countries. There is poverty everywhere. The world is a house for everyone, and it’s worth it to fight for expanding this business. I will dedicate the rest of my life to this.”

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Six years ago, General Motors, the biggest, most powerful corporation in the world, was brought to its knees by failing to react quickly and effectively to competition from Japanese imports, which were smaller, more fuel efficient, and cheaper cars.

Companies like Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft will soon face the same do-or-die crossroads General Motors did if they don’t react quickly and effectively to the challenge of earning attractive profits at scale from emerging markets. This will require nothing less than a revolution in how businesses currently design, price, market, and distribute their products. I plan to spend the rest of my life helping foment that revolution.

It’s time for a revolution in how corporations design, price, market and distribute their products. Tweet This Quote

Thirty million people shop at Walmart every day. But, there are three billion people in the world who will never set foot inside a Walmart store. They include 2.6 billion potential customers who live on less than two dollars a day. Most live in rural areas in developing countries and earn their livelihoods from one or two acre farms.

Many more live in urban slums and live on what they can earn from informal enterprises, like small shops selling consumer items or tailoring enterprises. I’ve had long personal conversations over the past 30 years with more than 3,000 of these customers who are routinely bypassed by existing markets, and they have become my teachers and my friends.

Coca-Cola sells what amounts to aspirational branded fizzy sugar-water for about 25 cents a bottle in villages all over India. In those same villages, 50 percent of the children are malnourished. What would happen to Coca-Cola if a well-financed Chinese company started selling a nutritious soft drink at a nickel a pop in millions of villages around the world? I believe Coca-Cola could quickly find itself in the same position General Motors faced four years ago.

The opportunities to create profitable businesses serving 3 billion bypassed customers are almost limitless. Tweet This Quote

The Gates Foundation has helped millions of people move out of poverty, and improved the health and education of millions more. But as far as I know, Microsoft, the parent company, does not make a single product that sells to the 2.6 billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day.

The opportunities to create profitable businesses serving three billion bypassed customers are almost limitless. For example, there are a billion people who will never connect to electricity. That’s about the same as the total population of the United States and Europe combined. There are another billion people who don’t have access to safe drinking water. Many of them get sick and some of them die because of it.

Why aren’t existing businesses successfully involved in emerging markets? There are three main reasons:

1. They don’t see a profit in it.
2. They don’t have a clue how to design the radically affordable products and services that poor people need.
3. They don’t know how to design and operate profitable last-mile supply chains.

Future corporations will remain competitive by creating vibrant new markets serving 2 dollar a day customers at scale. Tweet This Quote

Three key practical strategies need to be incorporated by businesses serving 2 dollar a day customers:

1. Small margin x large volume = attractive bottom line profits. Supermarkets used this formula to replace mom and pop grocery stores, and Walmart improved on it. For emerging markets, it’s really the Walmart strategy x 100.
2. Design for radical affordability. A movement, called design for the other 90 percent, gained a lot of momentum. It means learning to design things that are affordable enough for people who live on less than 2 USD a day and that are also income generating.
3. Implement profitable last-mile supply chains. Spring Health, the company I started with my partners in India, will, if successful, create a model platform for profitable last mile supply chains to small rural villages in India.

Designing for the other 90 percent means things that are radically affordable and income generating. Tweet This Quote

The mission of Spring Health is to sell safe drinking water at scale to people who don’t have access to it now. There are some 300 million people in eastern India alone that don’t have access to safe drinking water. Most of them live in small villages with 100 to 300 families, and those villages have little in the way of markets. But every one of these small villages has three or more mom-and-pop shops. They sell everything from cigarettes to soap to candy to cookies and all kinds of consumable household items.

This design revolution will create millions of jobs and help more than a billion people move out of poverty. Tweet This Quote

What Spring Health did is build a 3,000 liter cement tank for about 100 USD next to each shop, purifying the water in it using a radically affordable water purifier liquid. The shopkeeper sells the purified water at a cost of less than half a cent a liter to people in the village. Our customers, most of whom live on less than 2 dollars a day, report they are experiencing a major drop in illnesses and medical bills—each family estimates they pay between 25 and 250 USD a year for medicines to stop diarrhea, visits to clinics and doctors, electrolyte replacements, IVs, and hospital stays to treat the illnesses they get from drinking bad water.

I believe there are thousands of opportunities, like the one Spring Health saw in India, for creating new markets and new companies to serve the three billion customers in the world who are bypassed by current markets. It will take nothing less than a revolution to accomplish this. But the outcome of this revolution will be to create millions of new jobs, help more than a billion people move out of poverty, and take a giant step toward ending environmental imbalance on the planet.

Paul’s TEDxMileHigh Talk in Denver, Colorado

A version of this post originally published on UNREASONABLE.is in December 2013. It has been updated and reposted to inspire further conversation.

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Mayan culture last grabbed major headlines in 2012. The Mayan calendar marked the end of a 5,200-year era, and fanatics hyped up an approaching doomsday. The end of time did not come, though, and the fanciful speculation by non-Mayans ceased. What endures within the Mayan culture is discrimination and exploitation. There is no spotlight on this silent plight.

Despite a rich inheritance of natural resources and a culture steeped in history, many modern Mayans live at, or below, the poverty level. Tweet This Quote

Mayan people make up 21 percent of Mexico’s indigenous population, according to a 2015 census by the National Community for Development of Indigenous Communities. The Mayans descend from a sophisticated, ancient civilization. Its peak was between the years 250-900 C.E. Within the Mayan Empire, UNESCO named three sites to its World Heritage list.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve, stretching across Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, is a natural conservation project to study and protect a rare fog coated ecosystem known as a “cloud forest.” The fertile land provides a stable climate for coffee production, which earns some of the highest quality ratings in the world.

But, despite a rich inheritance of natural resources and a culture steeped in history, many modern Mayans live at, or below, the Mexican poverty level. According to the United Nations, around 72 percent of all indigenous Mayans are impoverished.

A historic Catholic Church in Chamula, where traditional Mayan ceremonies take place // Photo by Bosler.

La Mano del Mono, founded by Mauricio Miramontes, is based in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. This company puts the prosperity of indigenous communities at the center of its business. By leading hiking, rafting and walking tours and with an eye on environmental education, La Mano del Mono inspires groups to take committed actions towards conservation by showing them how the Mayans live.

Participants connected the dots between nature, sustainability and urbanization. La Mano del Mono helps each group develop a conservation strategy for their own organization or business. In Chiapas, for example, the company empowered different tourism enterprises and the local government to develop the recycling program in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Another experience inspired local business to change their value chain to include more than 70 percent of local providers. Yet another tour showed local businesses how waterways are impacted by pollution. At the foundation of his success is the ability to create common goals across various cultures and organizations.

According to the United Nations, around 72 percent of all indigenous Mayans are impoverished. Tweet This Quote

As we toured San Lorenzo Zinacantán and San Juan Chamula, we were joined by Native Education College of British Columbia. The college instructors and students were here to learn about ecotourism as a solution for their own indigenous communities in British Columbia.

Our guide, with Mayan roots, spoke English, Spanish and French and lent legitimacy to our presence as we observed ceremonies like orchestrated chanting in a church. He also arranged for us to try “pox” (pronounced posh)—a grain alcohol brewed in Zinacantán. He wove stories around the mountains, graveyards, and my favorite site, a greenhouse project that distributes flowers across the State.

The greenhouse project based in Zinacantán that distributes flowers // Photo by Bosler.

“These communities are used to being taken advantage of, and it’s important to follow through with what you say you’re going to do,” said Miramontes. A majority of the profits from tours like ours are shared with the communities, where locals receive steady work as tour guides, storytellers, cooks and shopkeepers.

A woman in Zinacantán, Juana Perez Hernández, cried as she recounted how hard life was for her before receiving tourists in her village. She’s now able to employ 15 women, most of them single moms, by selling traditional weavings with elaborate flower patterns stitched into garments.

The UN General Assembly stresses ecotourism as a positive impact on income generation, job creation, education and thus on the fight against poverty. Tweet This Quote

In addition to running tours, La Mano del Mono recently recently implemented “Market Ready Mexico,” a curriculum which will bring community-based ecotourism enterprises closer to tourism markets in order to strengthen sustainable livelihoods. Often, many communities have a strong potential and willingness to host, but they lack the know-how.

A Tzotzil Mayan woman selling her traditional textiles in Zinacantán // Photo by Bosler.

Ecotourism is gaining popularity as the new way to travel. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution stressing ecotourism’s role as “a positive impact on income generation, job creation and education and thus on the fight against poverty and hunger.”

La Mano del Mono is an uncommon mix of a company: part tourism, part environmental educator, part advocate for cultural preservation. It operates as an ecotourism company, but it’s equally invested in the long-term prosperity of the communities it offers tours within. The tours are as much about the wow factor of the waterfalls and history of a region, as about our role in ensuring that their legacy continues.

This is a piece from Cayte’s recent trip to San Cristobal de las Casas, Zinacantán and Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico. She was hosted by La Mano del Mono, a company from the 2014 Unreasonable Mexico Institute.

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