On the Ground

The following notes were written by Afshan Khan, of UNICEF.

1. The earthquake in Haiti is a double disaster…it is a massive hit on the Haitian people whose history is already too full of hardship. The country was crippled by four hurricanes last year. Access to clean water, sanitation, hospitals, and other infrastructure — roads and communication — was barely functioning to begin with — now, much has been wiped out.

2. Children are the humanitarian priority. Nearly half the population of Haiti is under 18 years of age, 38% are under the age of 14 — making children the first call, for assistance.

3. Life saving supplies, emergency experts, and equipment are arriving — Getting the supplies to those who need them is the key, and the absolute, number one, priority.

4. Aid is getting through - Three UNICEF planeloads have landed in Port au Prince and in Santa Domingo. More are on their way. The road between Santa Domingo and Port au Prince is now useable and today 35 metric tons of UNICEF supplies will travel that road.

5. Clean water is saving lives and preventing disease outbreaks or a second wave of disaster - UNICEF is leading on water distribution. Yesterday, we delivered 250,000 liters of water to 60,000 people. Water tanks are been erected in each zone of the city. Today, 50,000 liters went to 38 distribution points providing drinking water for 80,000 people. Today, we supplied the general hospital in Port au prince with 120,000 liters of bottled water. Repairing the water and sanitation systems is a priority.

6. Providing for children who are lost or have become separated from their families must be a priority - In the middle of the kind of upheaval they are living — it is crucial they be reunited with their families, or with someone they already know. They need to be found, fed and kept safe. We need to find the right combination of providing care and being careful – to make children are properly protected.

7. Schools are closed - And we will re-open them. While that work is going on, UNICEF is bringing in supplies for temporary schooling once “safe spaces” for children are identified. We know only too well that in the chaos of any emergency, one calming factor for children is to re-establish routines…key among them, is the comfort of going back to school — even if it is a makeshift school.

8. This is a complex emergency, and in some ways a unique one - A combination of factors is challenging us: The capital is destroyed and along with it critical emergency services and infrastructure that are needed for relief distribution. The UN and other humanitarian agencies have also been directly and severely affected; loss of staff, loss of family, loss of relatives…and still, to their credit and through their grief, continue to do the work that needs to be done for the children of Haiti.

Zahoor, a 2009 - 2010 AF Fellow, is currently working in Pakistan with FMIA, which provides micro-insurance products for low-income families. He has experience managing rural development programs and has worked in public-sector education in Pakistan. Zahoor holds a Masters in Sociology from the University of Peshawar and a M. Phil degree in Sociology from Malakand University.

The current wave of terrorism that the larger cities of Pakistan face lead us to assume that the insurgent elements pushed out of the Northwestern Mountains are now quite active in the plains and cities. It is true; some of these elements — including those who were pushed out of the highlands through military action — are currently taking refuge in urban spaces, generally in cities such as Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi.

No doubt, it is terrible and quite inhumane to kill civilians without any discrimination. But this seems to be the natural outcome of systemic brutality. Plains and cities are difficult to vacate and clean out of such elements immediately. That is why terrorist elements often find it easy to plan and execute dangerous attacks from cities. These types of attacks, however, are for two reasons starting to diminish. One reason is that these elements have lost much of their local sympathy with ever fewer allies throughout the county. The second reason is that people in Pakistan have accepted these problems as a fact — resigned themselves to understanding them as unfortunate but necessary stage that the country must go through. Both these reasons make me so hopeful about the prospect of a good future.

My stand on this situation, I repeat, is that the earlier it comes, the better it is! People have not seen or really observed the true face of extremist elopements and the subsequent miseries until quite recently. It might have grown into a size that could have never been controlled by future generations. And this is why I see it as an opportunity. As a nation, we are gaining the strength to be able to prevent, discourage and disenfranchise extremist elements in our society. Pakistan is also ever more capable of absorbing the extraordinary physical and emotional shocks of terrorist action, to know how our friends and enemies will develop an infrastructure to fight such insurgency, develop tools and equipment and, last but not the least, become responsible citizens, true Pakistanis.

There are number of other reason to believe that this country is facing the “climax” of terrorist action, in advance of its approaching end. Our media has developed enormous strength – in terms of the freedom and education of its citizenry – and to an extent that even recently the nation could not have imagined. Real time information resource-sharing by the media is resulting in making our politicians and public servants more responsible, with the pubic better educated.

Take as an example the sense of freedom and of responsibility that our judiciary is currently exhibiting! The Judiciary is even discussing corruption cases against a sitting government and a controversial President! How amazing and hopeful this is!

And look at the Pakistani Army! Are they not doing well themselves? Getting any number of martyrs and atrocities on daily basis; still focused, committed to their business and remaining on the front; not de-stabilizing the democratic government nor taking any stake in judicial activism. Is this not positive and hopeful too?

My hopes for the future of this country strengthen when I see boys and girls receiving equal education in the remotest and most far flung University, the University of Malakand, which is located in Lower Dir district. For those who know this geography, it goes without saying that this is indeed the epicenter of militancy and extremism; where until very recently, even schooling for girls was banned outright.

Despite the ongoing problems, I am at heart an optimist, and I am encouraged as I see huge number of youngster in my area working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which were so recently considered un-trustworthy agents of the west (and in particular America) with employees stigmatized. Pakistan is changing and finally realizing its potential. The path ahead is rocky, but it is ours and it is hopeful.

My experience shadowing Munir Ahmed and his team of enumerators revealed several stories that reinforced my conclusion that the search for black-and-white quantitative data is often colored by a cultural nuances and perceptions.

There are a few things enumerators must be cognizant of:

• Sometimes there is nothing you can do to elicit an honest answer/ correct data.
  While conducting research for an energy company on electricity utilization, Munir’s team had to attach a device onto the roofs of houses that measures the electricity output at the source (before it reaches the meter). When he and his team came to take the devices off houses the next day, one family had managed to collapse the whole roof in an apparent attempt to evade the exercise (without tampering with the devices) and avoid intrusion at any cost!

• You have to be smart and resourceful to get what you want.
  Munir and his team once travelled into rural Sindh to conduct agricultural surveys. The zamindaar (landowner) of the area did not grant permission for his team to come in and very pointedly told them they had no business speaking to “his” people. Instead of giving up, Munir thought about how to approach this particular problem and, banking on the culture of hospitality that is prevalent especially amongst the Sindhi people, he went back the next day with a strategy in mind. He asked the zamindaar, “What would you call people who have come from outside to visit the people of the land?” “Mehmaan (guests),” answered the landowner. “That is not how we have been treated,” pointed out Munir. Following this, the landowner saw things differently and welcomed them onto his property. He participated in the survey himself and even allowed the team to interview farmers individually. At the end of the day, the landowner sacrificed a goat in honor of his guests and everyone ate together.

• And sometimes you have to know when to walk away.
  One of our respondents, madrassah school teacher Mahmud-ul-Hasan told us he often conducts surveys as part of the national census team. He revealed that due to their conservative culture, Pathans are very difficult to interview. Once while taking census, his team asked a Pathan woman to complete a portion of their questionnaire.  Perceiving it as an invasion on her family’s privacy, she instead tore it in two. Over the next couple of days, the census team repeatedly asked for it back to no avail. When they approached her husband, he also refused, until a Pathan on his team who spoke Pashto explained the purpose of the census and appealed to his sense of brotherhood. The husband proceeded to go home to retrieve the questionnaire and scolded  his wife for withholding such important information.

As I learned, hard stats bring with them a degree of legitimacy that usually goes unquestioned, but you have to be careful to read between the numbers. Munir’s stories really underscore the necessity for the “soft” skills that go behind the quest for “hard” data.

Getting a true picture and perspective requires more than just asking questions. It requires listening and empathy and an understanding of cultural context. But it is this kind of effort that helps us to better understand the needs of low-income customers and the ways in which we can better serve them.

Kyle is a summer associate in the Pakistan office for Acumen Fund.  He is also a Master of International Affairs candidate at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.  Prior to graduate school, Kyle worked as a management consultant at The Lucas Group in Boston and as a research assistant at MIT’s Security Studies Program.  He holds a BA in Middle East Studies and Politics from The Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Shahzad Iqbal gazed across Jassar Farm’s sprouting field of maize deep in rural Punjab where a new sprinkler system sputtered around in endless circles.  Without warning, he kicked off his sandals, rolled up his pressed chinos, and bounded through the muddy field toward the device, narrowly missing the rotating blast of water.  The rest of the management team, myself, and a pack of local villagers watched from a safe distance as the CEO of the Farms wrestled the beast into a position he found more agreeable.  After instructing his staff member on how to properly set up the system, he returned grinning, feet encased in rich mud.  “Look how beautifully it works. See the quality of those plants?  Never before in these fields.”

Ensuring proper plant quality to use as cattle feed is part of any Pakistani dairy farmer’s job, but then Shahzad Iqbal is not your average Pakistani farmer.  After graduating with an MBA from Pakistan’s elite Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS) at just 22 years of age, he began a 16-year career international climb through the operations of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and British American Tobacco.  Before the age of 38, he sat at Union Bank where he successfully managed a team of over 2,500 responsible for 40% of all profit.  He was at the top of his game—highly educated, well paid, and well connected.

Then in 2007, Iqbal unexpectedly quit his job at the bank.  In a crisis of conscience, he realized that the corporate executive lifestyle was not compensating for his growing sense of personal mission to help his largely impoverished homeland of Pakistan.  The idea of Jassar Farms was born soon after, commencing months of intense research and a feverish search for financing until Acumen signed on.

As Batool Hassan eloquently described in a previous post, it is common for rural Pakistanis to own a few cows but the milk productivity of these animals is often up to a fifth lower than their cousins in more developed economies.  The disparity emerges from the highly advanced selective breeding techniques that Western farmers have developed and implemented.  With financing from Acumen Fund, however, Jassar Farms is playing catch-up by importing high-grade cow semen and embryos to breed a more productive dairy herd.  At the same time, it will sell quality semen produced on the farm to local farmers at affordable prices.  Within a few years, the Farm expects to multiply the amount of milk a poor Pakistani farmer can produce by several times.

From an American perspective, Iqbal fits a familiar archetype: Banker becomes disillusioned, quits his or her job, and joins the ministry or becomes a writer  (or starts a little non-profit call Acumen Fund).

But Pakistan is different.  As a Summer Associate without any prior experience in Pakistan, I did not fully understand Iqbal’s story until I found out that my own two-week project on the farm was longer than most urban Pakistanis will spend outside major cities in their entire lives.  By simple observation, it becomes clear that Pakistan’s disparity in wealth positively correlates with the urban and rural divide.

In many ways, Iqbal has become an outlier, spending most of the last three years out in the cow pens and hay fields of Jassar Farms with the goal of improving lives of Pakistan’s poor dairy farmers. “I’m completely mad.  You have to be in order to do this,” Iqbal disclosed with some measure of pride as he sat in the 120-degree heat at the farm.

Acumen Fund’s model of patient capital assumes that there are talented and passionate entrepreneurs who want to roll up their chinos to lift their countries up.  In the case of Pakistan and its divided culture, finding this type of leader is often one of Acumen Fund’s greatest challenges.  As Iqbal began washing his feet in a nearby irrigation canal, however, he proved that with a little bit of “madness” nothing is impossible.

As (social) venture capitalists, a question we ask ourselves a lot here at Acumen is how we can go about nurturing and mentoring our investees. One of the challenges we face as a socially driven venture capitalist is how to act as an incubator for our investees that are usually in their early ‘survivor’ stages. Most of our investees are in this stage - usually because they are pioneering products and services that no one has had the audacity to explore before.

A few weeks ago, Acumen Fund Pakistan held an Investee Workshop on Leadership and Talent Building in Early Stage Social Enterprises in an effort to share ideas and creative solutions on one of the most common problems our investees - and indeed most resource constrained enterprises in their survival stages - face: attracting talent. The CEOs of our investee companies attended, along with some of their HR personnel.

The workshop kicked off with self-reflective note from our CEOs.  Many of the activities and group exercises in the early part of the workshop were very insightful in exemplifying the role the participants play as leaders and team players. For example, in one exercise, participants made repeated mistakes.  Their desire to avoid looking foolish led them to mimic those who went before, even though the first participants had not necessarily made the right choice. Realizing that mimicry is common in social and group settings, leaders become cognizant of the rule of ‘leading by example’. Living by your philosophy is the only way to see that culture permeates throughout your organization.

In another activity – this time a timed game of strategy – many of the participants admitted afterwards that they had a hard time relinquishing control. It was apparent how the (sometimes unconscious) reluctance to empower a team undermined the team’s authority, effectiveness, and efficiency and ultimately impeded team motivation and goal achievement.  Ramiz Allawala, our highly talented facilitator, also helped us recognize that there is an ‘internal’ and ‘external’ view to our companies and it is important to have a team member be able to step back and act as a ‘bird’s eye view’ when we are all too busy getting our hands dirty in order to assess the bigger picture.

Another common concern echoed by the CEOs was talent acquisition. Resource constrained social enterprises cannot compete with the compensation packages of larger for-profits, and attracting the right talent is largely a matter of finding creative ways in which to appeal to the social conscience of the talent pool while balancing their needs of professional growth. One of our CEOs added that the problem of talent acquisition is only likely to exacerbate once the economy turns around. Certainly many of us have wondered how instrumental the recession has been in helping social organizations (including Acumen) attract talent.

The ensuing discussion provided valuable insights into thinking how to creatively position the opportunities in an organization. Through shared stories, it became obvious that not only does one have to think of alternative, unorthodox channels to find the right talent, but also creative ways in which to appeal to the talent pool.

For example, Jawad Aslam (2008 Acumen Fellow and current CEO of Ansaar Management Company, a low-income housing development in Lahore) learned the necessity of networking and alternative channel hunting to find candidates that were suitably matched to his organization when he stumbled across a website called www.muppies.org for Muslim Urban Professionals living abroad. Here he had a pool of qualified individuals, who had a vested interest in giving back to their country. In order to appeal to not only their social conscience, but their self interest as well, he devised the position as a 2-year engagement with a high degree of responsibility during which they would be involved in the start-up of his company. In this way he ensured their professional interests were met, and kept it as a short term engagement to attract anyone who might be temporarily out of work due to the recession. In return, AMC will benefit from much needed expertise in its early, most crucial stage.

As the other CEOs chimed in with their experiences, we heaved a collective A-Ha! moment – one of the reasons why our investees have had trouble attracting talent is that the social entrepreneurship space in Pakistan has not found a place in the people’s consciousness yet. There is still ambiguity around it and the community here needs to understand the alternative between the NGO, traditional aid and CSR models of social development (Acumen Fund Pakistan hopes to be instrumental in perpetuating this paradigm shift).

Even as the day wound down, energies were high. We received an overwhelming positive response from the investees regarding their interaction with one another. As one of our CEO’s remarked, there is something great to be gained in hearing your concerns as a social entrepreneur echoed amongst a group of like minded people.

It is worth mentioning that the success of our workshop was largely due to the excellence of our facilitator, Ramiz Allawala of Gulfstone Training, himself an entrepreneur in his past career. Through his experience and background, he was able to relate to the discussion and offer insightful experiences and examples to draw from. A definite takeaway for us was that entrepreneurs appreciate communicating and consulting with other entrepreneurs as they have all experienced similar growing pains, and we should keep this in mind when thinking of the management assistance or mentoring we try to provide for our investees.

This post was originally posted on the Ripple Effect blog by Acumen Fund’s Sangeeta Chowdry - Ripple Effect Project Manager.

At the edges of the Thar desert in Rajasthan, in the region of Marwar -The Land of Death- Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, a Ripple Effect pilot awardee, has been working to bring water security to village communities. This is no small challenge in a region where the average annual rainfall is a mere 100-500mm and the water table is declining at a rate of 1-2 meters a year. The focus of communities here is to get access to any water at all – let alone safe water. It is in this environment that JBF has, amongst other water harvesting initiatives, been running a reverse-osmosis treatment plant in Pachpadra, about 100 km from Jodhpur.

Ripple Effect and JBF have been working together to develop a sustainable business model to extend access to safe drinking water to households located at a distance from the RO plant. This model not only aims to meet the water needs of these communities but also to provide a source of empowerment through livelihood provision to the members of local self-help groups.

The model that is being operationalized has water from the reverse-osmosis plant delivered to several distribution outlets run by members of the local self-help group where it is then sold on to other households. By reaching both wholesale and retail users, the output of the plant is being tripled and local incomes increased. The careful and collaborative business planning that went into the model has enhanced its potential for viability and sustainability – costs of operations have been carefully determined; a break-even analysis has been performed; and a tiered pricing strategy implemented.

Planning can, however, only go so far. Critical to the success of this model is the buy-in of the community – water quality was not previously seen as a high priority – and a powerful awareness-raising and marketing campaign was essential. In this area JBF’s passionate work made all the difference. In a few short weeks multiple meetings and discussions were held with self-help groups; market surveys of hundreds of households were completed; individuals selected and trained to run outlets; many hours of physical labour dedicated to gearing the plant to handle the up-scaled operations; and multiple community awareness activities have been undertaken and will continue. It has been most heartening to watch the skeptical village Sarpanch, turn into the foremost champion of the project and lead a rally through the village to announce the work! The local media too has picked up on the work being done and has publicized this swaach (safe) water initiative.

It has been truly remarkable to have been on this journey with JBF and to see the synergies from effective public, private, community partnership. At the time of writing this, the demand of the water at the outlets has already reached twice the initial target!

We wanted to share a notable and amusing article in today’s Wall Street Journal—“The Infomercial Comes to Life in India’s Remotest Villages.” In the article, reporter Eric Bellman captures the creative approaches that many major consumer products companies are using to reach the rural Indian consumer. He shadows one of the army of salesman that global advertising agencies are dispatching to promote products by staging dances, skits, music, demonstrations and game shows in remote villages of 100 houses or less. Bellman also aptly highlights that rural markets in India (and many other low income countries) have been relatively insulated from the global recession and that India’s rural consumer spending is actually increasing.

This article really captures the cardinal rule of understanding your customer. The methods include everything from recognizing the cultural context—first approaching the village elders for permission to perform—to using alternative media like live entertainment to grab the new customer. These lessons translate to social enterprises in obvious ways.

Some of our investees have already mastered these creative marketing strategies. Global Easy Water Products’ (GEWP) parent organization, International Development Enterprises – India (IDE-I), has produced a number of short Bollywood movies featuring their KB Drip irrigation products. KB Drip salesmen will arrive at a village market, set up their projector and let the crowd form. Here are two examples of these masterpieces (with English subtitles):

KB Drip video 1

KB Drip video 2

Of course, the devil’s advocate to this article might argue that this type of advertising could be exploitative and persuade poor families (who have limited access to information) to buy things that they do not actually need. Aneel Karnani, a professor at the University of Michigan, has accused our sector of “Romanticizing the Poor” and of exploiting the poor’s “bad choices”. But, it is food for thought on whether you believe a rural poor consumer in India deserves the freedom of choice and whether they are adequately informed to make appropriate consumer choices for themselves and their families.

“This looks just like South Jersey!” In true Acumen fashion, I had an “Aha” moment driving through rural Punjab on the way to see Acumen Pakistan’s newest investment, Jassar Farms. Located two and a half hours outside Lahore in Narowal, the region is surrounded on three sides by India and is only three kilometers from the border. So why did it look like South Jersey? Punjab is the breadbasket of Pakistan with a beautiful sea of green fields on both sides. As we drove deeper into the heart of Punjab, we passed fields of rice and wheat and sugar cane, all sporadically peppered with brick kilns. Even at the farm itself, spread across 250 acres of land, there were fields of sorghum, alfalfa, and corn, all being grown to process into livestock feed at the farm. At the farm, I met up with Shehzad Iqbal, social entrepreneur and CEO of Jassar Farms who had a thing or two to share about dairy farming in Pakistan and the social impact of this new line of business. Jassar Farms is a corporate dairy farming business focused on dairy and breed improvement of poor livestock farmers aiming to increase milk productivity. Here are a few interesting facts about dairy farming in Pakistan:

• Pakistan is the 5th largest producer of milk worldwide, yet one cow has the productivity level of only 1/5th of a Western cow.
• On average, the milk production of one cow is approximately 1,800 liters of milk per year.
• As a comparison, one western cow has a milk yield in the range of 8000 – 10000 liters per year.
• In the normal 9-10 year lifespan of a cow, she can give birth 9 times in her lifecycle and is lactating 270 - 305 days per year.
• The milk producing livestock in Pakistan is divided almost equally between buffalo and cow. Pakistan is among the top producers of buffalo milk globally but herds most commonly suffer from poor farm care, poor quality feed and lack breed improvement. While buffalo breed improvement could reap great benefits, breed enhancement through artificial insemination has been less studied in buffalos as compared to cows, worldwide.
• Through experiments in artificial insemination and other methods of livestock breed enhancement, there is strong potential to improve the gene pool of cattle offspring.
• If a cow is on average producing 1,800 liters of milk per year and it is artificially inseminated with a bull who’s mother and grandmother averaged, were producing for example, 10,000 liters of milk per year, then the cow’s female offspring will have the genetic potential to produce the average of the two (10,000 + 1,800)/2 = 5,900) and thereby slowly improve the milk production capability generationally.

This is where Shahzad really explained the social impact of the business idea. In the Pakistan agriculture sector, over 75% of livestock owners are poor farmers owning less than four cows.

The cost of importing high quality bull semen doses costs between $75-$100 and is essentially unaffordable to rural, dairy farmers who own 2-5 cows per household. Shahzad gave the example of a local farmer, Mohammad Butta, who owns two cows and has a family of five. Mohammad milks the cows in the morning and then sets off to work his fields. With a family of five and a household income of $75 per month, he cannot afford the high cost of imported semen dosages. So by producing semen doses locally and making it affordable to the rural livestock farmer, Jassar Farms has the potential to increase incomes of farmers from increased milk yields.

This is the first Acumen Fund investment in agriculture and specifically in the livestock and diary space and it will be interesting to see the value and impact this new business innovation may yield.

Acumen Fund has long admired the TiE - “The Indus Entrepreneurs” network - an impressive and fast-growing community of top Indian entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers and management professionals. TiE demonstrates the power of community with 53 Chapters in 12 countries, spread across 5 continents.

We are excited to share that D.Light Design, one of Acumen Fund’s portfolio companies, has been nominated as a finalist for TiEcon 2009’s 50 “Hot Emerging Companies” award. From among 1,200 nominees, finalists have undergone a rigorous screening process by TiE’s industry judges. D.Light Design’s mission is to deliver safe and affordable lighting and power solutions to households that lack reliable energy supply. It is exciting to see a social enterprise be considered as a peer among fast-growth commercial companies. This is evidence of the potential to for companies to achieve scale and profitability, while having a material impact on the quality of life of the poor.

The TiE Awards will be decided by collective voices. Voting closes tomorrow on May 7, 2009. We encourage our community to get involved-vote for D.Light Design and other innovative new Indian companies.

A tiny bead of sweat ran down the ridge of my nose.  It reached the end, teetered for a split second, then dropped quietly onto the doctor’s desk.  I sat behind the desk, inside the Vijay Nagar Women of India clinic, which is tucked into a government-built housing project in the Bandra East area of Mumbai.  As the sweat hit the desk, it made a soft splat, and little Natra’s eyes followed it down.  About 3 years old, he seemed pretty interested in the inability of this strange white man to deal with the Mumbai heat – not surprising, all things considered.

Natra and his mother, Surekha, had agreed to take a survey about healthcare administered by Acumen Fund Fellow Joanna Harries and her colleague, Rubina Dsouza.  Joanna and Rubina work for Dial 1298 for Ambulance, a professionally-run, high quality ambulance service run in Mumbai (51 ambulances) and Kerala (30 ambulances). You dial 1298 to get a fully-equipped ambulance with doctor and medical equipment on-board.  1298 is affiliated with the Ambulance Access for All Foundation, whose mission is to provide high-quality service for all Indians, regardless of income. 

But will poor Indians call an ambulance?  That’s what Joanna and Rubina are working to find out.  Service for all is not only a noble goal, it’s good business as well – after all, some 40 to 60 percent of Mumbaikers live below the poverty line, in slums.  If you fail to serve this customer segment, you miss a huge number of calls – and your ambulances can run below capacity.

Effectively serving this market begins with listening, and that’s what Joanna and Rubina are doing.  They have been spending time visiting various Women of India clinics, all of which are located in slum areas, and asking a simple, 5-question survey: what do you do when you get sick?; how do you get to the hospital?; which (if any) ambulances do you call?; why wouldn’t you call an ambulance?; who helps you when you get sick?

Joanna and Rubina and I did eight surveys today, just the tip of the iceberg.  What is interesting is that 1298 takes its commitment to the low-income segments seriously – both in terms of social impact and in terms of business sense.  The company is marketing in a number of innovative ways – tying up with schools, hospitals, train stations, and more.  Slum outreach is an element of their business plan.  Regardless of income level, growing 1298’s customer base is an awareness game – call it marketing, brand management, outreach, whatever – you have to have potential customers know about your service before you earn their business.

Where do you live - in a house, an apartment, a condo, a dorm room? Is that an easy question to answer? If so, you’re in the minority worldwide - especially in a country like Pakistan, where more than 30 percent of the population lives in squatter settlements and an even larger percentage is effectively shut out of the home ownership market due to speculation, land prices and a difficult bureaucracy.

Affordable housing - and how best to provide it for low-income customers - is something Acumen Fund has been exploring for years now - especially in Pakistan. Along the way, our team has discovered some things that work, and many more that don’t. While these learnings made for great intra-team discussions and e-mails, we felt it was time to start sharing what we know - and what we don’t know - with our sector at large.

Along these lines, be sure to check out the latest additions to our Knowledge Center. Aun Rahman, Pakistan Country Director, and I recently completed a paper entitled The Challenges of Expanding Saiban: Scaling Affordable Housing for Low-Income Communities in Pakistan. In it, we describe how an entrepreneur named Tasneem Siddiqui has extended land title and housing to tens of thousands of previously un-served families. We also explore how Saiban - an Acumen Fund investee - is expanding into different geographies and the early lessons learned from this expansion.

The Pakistan team is also hard at work behind the camera. We now have two new videos to share, “My Story: Jawad Aslam, Class of 2008 Fellow” and “From Squatters to Homeowners”. Both videos follow Acumen Fund 2008 Fellow Jawad Aslam as he works to help build a community at Khuda Ki Basti 4, outside Lahore.

Photo credit: Flickr user malla_mi; used under a Creative Commons license

I recently gave a keynote address in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Engineers Without Borders, an amazing group of 12,000 students and activist-engineers who devote themselves to working on global issues at the community level, using their engineering skills as well as a values system grounded in a belief in community partnership. Exciting.

While there, I discovered that Milwaukee is positioning itself as the “Silicon Valley of Water”. Situated on a Great Lake, with four great universities in the area, a history of producing top engineers and a dying industrial sector, a vision focused on bringing forth technologies for clean water on a global basis is thrilling. (John Schmid at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote an excellent article connecting this to Acumen; do take a minute to read it.)

I also couldn’t help but think that this approach of retooling some of America’s own cities to focus on transforming other parts of the world could have an incredible impact on transforming the cities themselves. It is this virtual cycle that we need not only to be aware of but to pursue avidly, and to communicate effectively. My mentor John Gardner would often tell me that sometimes you have to “push the inevitable”. Taking our best and brightest and asking them to focus on solving some of the world’s toughest problems from a sense both of humility as well as audacity is what is needed at this critical time in our shared history on the planet.