Our housing entrepreneur, Tasneem Siddiqui, recently wrote this article in Pakistan Dawn. Tasneem is right not only about Pakistan but about the whole world — people are tired of waiting for governments to do things and are taking solutions into their own hands. Acumen Fund exists to identify, support, strengthen and highlight these initiatives which are driven by private citizens and companies for the most part. It is why we don’t focus first on policy, look warily at “pilot projects” and must have a good reason to go to conferences that move from theory and not what is happening on the ground. What the world needs now are concrete examples of real people doing real enterprises that bring scalable solutions to the poor - and that see the poor as consumers and not as passive recipients of charity.

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 6-8 - Islamabad to Karachi

Over my last two days in Pakistan, we meet with many individuals and organizations, including a potential pipeline deal to create a new housing development company for the poor. We speak with other organizations doing relief and reconstruction work, like the large Poverty Alleviation Fund and the umbrella organization for all of the National Rural Support Program groups. In short, we meet a number of potential partners.

On our last day, we reconnect with Tasneem Siddiqui, the entrepreneur behind our low-cost housing investment and overall expert in the field. Like our other partners, Tasneem believes there is potential in an organization that manages supplies and delivers needed design and management assistance for longer-term housing. People will take care of themselves, he cautions, but we need to look at where and how to add value as we start thinking a bit differently about the delivery of critical goods to the poor. This is especially true of housing after disasters and is also especially difficult in such highly distorted situations. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 6 - Balakot

We make our way down from the mountains again into terraced land surrounded by rolling hills. This part of Pakistan is so much poorer than Kashmir. Many of the people are Afghan refugees, living in tented villages for more than two decades now. The thought that some of the new “refugees” from the earthquake might spend the rest of their lives in tents took my breath away.

We finally reach the tent city. All of the men are out working so only women and children remain in the twenty or so tents that house a total of about 50 people. We all sit inside of one of the distributed tents. Twenty or so women pile in with me, as do about a dozen children who gather closest around. The women are polite but angry. They are cold, they tell me, and don’t have enough quilts and blankets. The tents aren’t winterized and their children are getting sick. Life is hard, they say. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 6 - Balakot

Balakot lies at the beginning of the Kaghan Valley. It was a major stop en route to the mountain areas known for tourism, with a resident population, including those in the valley around it, of around 40,000. On October 8, in a matter of minutes, the initial shock of the earthquake killed tens of thousands. It is estimated that in total, 75% of all residents ultimately were killed.

Seventy-five percent. Three out of four people. Thirty thousand people.

The city itself is a heap of dust and rubble spread over little hills and concentrated by the river, whose edge is littered with broken concrete - shards of what used to be small buildings. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 5 - Muzaffarabad

The earthquake in Pakistan has caused the greatest logistical nightmare ever faced with a natural disaster. People have lost their homes across an area as big as England. Families are scattered to the tops of high mountains in rugged, unforgiving territory with terrible roads and a harsh winter season that will make transport all but impossible in some areas.

In a tiny office above a bank in the middle of Muzaffarabad, we find The Citizens’ Foundation (TCF), which is mounting a powerful citizens’ effort to do something positive about the disaster. The operation is run by a dynamic entrepreneur, Adnan Asdar. When the earthquake hit, he quickly decided to give a year of his life to making a contribution. His wife and two young children remain in Karachi, and he visits every couple of months. That’s his way - a no-fuss, quick-decision kind of man with a big heart that he is unafraid to follow. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 4 - Bagh

The village is a cluster of about 1,000 houses on a hillside, most of which were destroyed or badly damaged. Huge piles of timber over here and stones over there have been accumulated, and as far as the eye can see are piles of rubble and twisted metal roofs - all that is left of what served as homes for generations.

With a half-million homes to repair or rebuild, there is no way that aid agencies will reach everyone. People will have to build their own homes - which is why the government is promising $2,500 per family to this end. Whether families spend the money on a new home immediately or spend it on other things and then start rebuilding slowly over generations, as is the tradition, does not seem to be a concern to the government. The problem, of course, is that this laissez-faire approach will not ensure structures able to withstand another earthquake or natural disaster. It will most definitely result in higher materials prices - it already has - although some people will indeed build improved homes. The lost opportunity seems to be a failure to create systems and incentives that both result in better homes as well as improved local communities and jobs. With a $5 billion infusion, both are possible. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 4 - Islamabad to Bagh

We have been driving for six hours and have traveled about a hundred miles. Most of the debris has been cleared from the roads, although gravel and stones stand in patches on the sides. We join a convoy of a half-dozen magnificent Pakistani trucks carrying tents and corrugated tin sheets, mattresses and other provisions, and head straight to the valley where you can see a number of distinct tent cities.

Our destination is the area where the National Rural Support Program (NRSP) is working. The organization is a public-private partnership that works with government to provide assistance and community development to rural areas of Pakistan. An entire infrastructure of tents for living, tents for training, latrines, offices and demonstration areas has been established, and aid workers have been living here for six weeks now. We were greeted by Ahmed Saeed, a dynamic architect with a degree in environmental studies and urban planning. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 3 - Islamabad
Islamabad is decidedly colder than Karachi, and already I start wondering whether I have enough warm clothing. This country is amazing. In this one week, we will go from eighty-degree weather in Karachi to fifty in Islamabad to near zero in the mountains. We will go from the sea to the foothills of some of the grandest mountains on earth. And we will meet some of the most cosmopolitan people, who offer fine cognac and think nothing of weekend trips to London, as well as tribals who live in conservative systems that feel a world away from modern life. What does it mean to be Pakistani? And what role will nationalism play as the world becomes more and more interconnected? (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 2 - Karachi
Many people in the region believed the end of the world had come when the earthquake hit. After a loud scream from the earth, the world opened up and great waves of fire and dust exploded for what seemed like an eternity. According to the local people, the Prophet said the world would end - kayamat would come - when the earth did just this. It will take time to heal the loss of so many lives and homes.

There is understandably a lot of skepticism about the long-term reconstruction efforts. The five billion dollars pledged by the international community is a lot of money. If the earthquake survivors are left worse off than they were before the disaster, those affected will be failed in a moral sense, a pragmatic sense, a human sense. The government of Pakistan recognizes that no top-down approach will effectively build a half-million homes across an area the size of England. (more…)

Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz has been visiting earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan, and documenting her travels in a journal. Excerpts of each day’s entry will be posted.

December 2 - Karachi
To say the earthquake in Pakistan is devastating does little to reveal the extent of damage, its cost, and what the rebuilding, rehabilitation and rebirth is going to take. In so many places in Pakistan, people are starting over after having lost three or four generations’ worth of savings, not only in terms of their homes, which are their main asset, but in terms of their families’ assets, their blankets and water jugs.

(more…)