Yesterday, I visited a vision camp run by Acumen Fund investee Scojo Foundation, about 50 miles outside of Hyderabad.  I was joined by Vipin Sharma, who is the Operations and Partner Channel Manager at Scojo Foundation, India, and by Acumen Fund Fellow John Tucker.  Scojo holds these camps regularly, as an opportunity for their vision entrepreneurs to educate people about reading glasses and sell them high-quality glasses that cost around 150 rupees (about $4).

Presbyopia – ageing-related reduced vision – typically affects people age 35 and older. It is estimated that in India alone, 20 million people are short-sighted.  For people whose livelihood depends on good vision – tailors, weavers, and anybody reading or doing detailed work – a pair of Scojo glasses can pay for itself very quickly.

While many of the people coming to the camp have vision and eye problems, only a portion of them suffer from presbyopia. The rest receive referrals to ophthalmologists at local hospitals. For those suffering from short-sightedness, Scojo has an elegantly simple series of tests, first developed by the World Health Organization, to calculate someone’s prescription. In addition to the standard tests, illiterate customers are fitted with a pair of glasses and asked to thread a needle. Time and again, I watched as pride splashed a smile across Scojo customers’ faces as they got the needle through the thread.  Talk about seeing is believing!

There was a particularly powerful moment when a customer at the camp showed us a paper prescription with his diagnosis from an ophthalmologist.  The doctor offered the man a 400 rupee pair of glasses (more than twice the price of Scojo’s glasses).  However, the Vision Camp prescription matched that of the ophthalmologist – a testament to the quality of a Scojo diagnosis.  The man happily bought the Scojo glasses for 160 rupees, boasting to everyone around him about his high-quality, low-cost deal.

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Today, we had the pleasure of meeting with the MicroDrip team to discuss their drip irrigation systems being rolled out in the Thar desert region of Pakistan. Dr. Sono is the visionary founder of the Thardeep Rural Development Program (TRDP), which is incubating MicroDrip as a for-profit to serve poor farmers living in the desert. TRDP, the non-profit, provides support services, like education and training, to these farmers.

This is my second chance to meet Dr. Sono, who spoke at Acumen Fund’s 2007 Investor Gathering and Celebration last November. Dr. Sono was joined at the meeting by Saqib Khan, the COO of Micro Drip, and Javaid Chaudhry, MicroDrip’s Technical Sales Manager.

MicroDrip is a for-profit company that sells and distributes drip irrigation systems to farmers in the Thar region. Acumen Fund has supported the formation of MicroDrip as a for-profit company and is making a US $500,000 loan to support their growth.

Acumen Fund has been working with drip irrigation since 2003, when we first funded International Development Enterprises India (IDEI), an NGO that had the ingenuity to engineer drip systems that were inexpensive enough to make economic sense for farmers making as little as $1 a day. MicroDrip now buys these systems from Global Easy Water Products (GEWP) in India, a recent Acumen Fund investment in scaling the domestic and international distribution of affordable irrigation technologies available to smallholder farmers. This is a powerful partnership across the India/Pakistan border.

Drip systems are deceptively simple. Rubber tubing with tiny holes delivers water directly to the roots of plants. These systems can more than double farming yields, especially in parched areas, while requiring less water and fertilizer than flooding. Drip also allows farmers to plant three crops in a year instead of one, and has the potential to pay back the farmer’s investment in the system in one growing season.

So why is it so hard to grow MicroDrip and improve the live of hundreds, if not thousands, of smallholder farmers? Like Saiban, MicroDrip is creating a new market – one whose customers are some of the poorest people in the world – and this requires an amazing amount of experimentation and iteration.

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Editor’s note: Sasha Dichter is Acumen Fund’s Director of Business Development.

Earlier today, I visited Saiban’s development at Khuda Ki Basti-4, about 30 minutes outside of Lahore. Saiban’s potential seems limitless. Simple, clean, brick homes for people making between two and four dollars a day, in a self-contained community with full plumbing, electricity, commerce, schools, and even playgrounds. Someday, this will be a full, vibrant community of 2,500 people who have moved away from rental and slum dwellings.

There is still a long way to go. 45 families have already moved in to the Khuda Ki Basti-4 (KKB-4), out of 115 plots that have been sold and booked. There is also a 3-room school, a small playground, one shop in place and another three planned. Acumen Fund Fellow Jawad Aslam is even talking about putting in a soccer pitch. A few gardens are planted, and houses throughout the site are in various stages of construction. But, three years into this project, it still takes a lot of imagination to envision a full, thriving community of 500 families.

Jawad and the team at KKB-4 are in the business of overcoming challenges, whether it’s getting the permit for the site, bringing in power and sewage, or getting the access road to the site built – which took a full year longer than expected. Saiban’s customers are now able to get 10 year mortgages from the House Building Finance Corporation, which are the first mortgages ever to be provided to this segment of the Pakistani population. But it is a long, hot, dusty road, and nothing comes easy.

There is talk of the need to get a critical mass of customers in order to show people that the development is for real. Jawad tells us that there are a lot of fly-by-night housing schemes in Pakistan, where people simply put down money and get nothing in return. More common still are developments where land is purchased by speculators who either hold or flip their empty plots, and no houses are built for 10 or 15 years. So Saiban’s proposition of building a community that will be vibrant and full of homes in less than five years’ time is more aggressive than it seems. They have done it before in Karachi, and all the pieces are in place to have similar success at KKB-4.

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Dorah’s Senye Clinic in Kibera has a new addition today: A small refrigerator that allows her to add immunizations to her list of services.

“I’ve always had to send customers to immunize their children elsewhere,” Dorah describes. “No smart business-person sends customers away.”

With limited resources, Dorah has to work extra hard to meet customer demands. But she continues to find innovative ways to meet her customers needs. And they respond … Dorah is one of the most successful franchisees in the network.

I arrive to Senye today just in time to see Grace bring her 2 month old son to the clinic. Grace could take Trevor down the road for free immunizations, but chooses to pay the small fee at Senye because: 1) Dorah met her demand and 2) Dorah provides unmatched customer service. Despite 12 hour days and a long commute, Dorah treats her customers with dignity, personal attention, and quality care.

Even in a resource-constrained environment, basic business principles remain true: Meeting customer demand and providing quality service means happier and more loyal customers. Grace & Trevor will be back in a month for their next check up.

(This post first appeared on the Acumen Fund Fellows’ blog, Immersion)

We have a deal!

With those words, Kofi Annan announced recently that Kenya’s leaders had agreed to share power in a coalition government. I was on my way back from Embu when the radio DJ interrupted Rihanna’s “Umbrella” - a favorite here - to announce the news. My taxi driver, Samuel, pulled over and gave me a big hug and we both got choked up. “At last,” he said with a huge grin. After weeks of anxiously watching violence and then negotiations, celebration erupted in the streets and bars of Nairobi and Kisumu.

Spirits are generally high at the moment, though not everyone is celebrating yet. I sent my friend Alex an IM: “Good news?” “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he replied. The 2-page document signed by Kibaki and Odinga is big on symbolism, but not on details of the way forward. It remains to be seen if the two men, who ran on very different platforms, will be able to agree on anything. And as a colleague pointed out: “What makes you think Kibaki will follow through this time?” (Kibaki backed out on a power-sharing agreement with Odinga in 2002.) (more…)

Yesterday’s visit by President Bush to the A to Z Textile Mills factory in Arusha, Tanzania, was a tremendous boost for Africa’s fight against malaria and for African economic development. A to Z is now the only manufacturer of long-lasting insecticide nets in Africa, supplying nearly 8% of the continent’s demand for these life-saving products and employing over 5,000 people. ABE, another local company that we have supported, has a long-term supply agreement to produce Artemisia, and by the end of the year should be producing about 15% of the world’s supply. ABE also employs thousands of farmers in cultivating a valuable cash crop. 

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

(Photo: Gabriel Kadidi)
It has been several weeks since both Pakistan and Kenya began to experience political and social unrest. As Jacqueline initially reported (here and here), Acumen Fund’s communities on the ground remain safe, but the environment in both countries has taken a decided turn for the worse.

The past weeks in Kenya have been heartbreaking. Tremendous excitement about an election year has turned to frustration over the process and its impact on the country’s stability.  Kenya was on the rise as an economic model for East Africa. Acumen Fund investee Jamii Bora had overcome legal obstacles to begin to realize the dream of Nairobi’s poorest to build a new town for its members. By December, nearly 500 homes were under construction…Dedan — JB’s bicycle messenger who had lost a leg as a young boy — had qualified to compete in the Beijing Paralympics. There was a sense of forward progress and real opportunity. But the view held by many involved in Jamii Bora’s work has now been turned upside down.

First, there is an unexpected stop-work order on the construction of Kaputiei town. Just before Christmas, an opposition group threatens to dismantle JB’s proud new homes. Then, the presidential election. What initially appear to be containable pockets of rioting in the urban slums yields to myriad disruptions throughout the country, opening up historical political grievances and tribal tensions in the worst cases. Particularly in the slums, there are accounts of looting, people being killed and maimed, homes and businesses being destroyed. By year’s end, Ingrid Munro, Jamii Bora’s trustee, writes: “Hell has broken out. President being sworn in at this moment. Pray for us.” 

We reach out to our friends and colleagues at Jamii Bora. Ingrid, Consolata, Kennedy, Elijah, Richard … they all respond. Joseph – no reply, Gabriel – no reply. Both Joseph and Gabriel are Kikuyus living in the heart of the Kibera slum.  (more…)

The Acumen Fund team is devastated by the tragic events in Pakistan. We mourn the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and are worried about the many families and individuals affected all across the country. I wanted to let our community know where things stand, especially as far as the Acumen community goes, and we will keep in touch as events unfold.

The major cities are experiencing a great deal of unrest — riots and a general breakdown so that all of the shops have been closed and emotions remaining very tense. The government has declared three days of national mourning but has indicated that January 8 general elections remain on schedule. 

All of our team members and our two Acumen fellows are safe and at home. Our investees’ teams also are safe, though a couple of TRDP vehicles were attacked.  We send our thoughts and prayers to team members, partners, investees, advisors, customers and friends, as well as to Pakistan as a whole. It has been a remarkable journey for Acumen Fund to have created such a strong community that has never been more needed.

Please keep Pakistan in your hearts as we move into 2008.

With hopes for a more peaceful world,
Jacqueline

As the holidays approach, I thought it appropriate to share this piece of news with you from our Housing Portfolio.  We have an investment in Jamii Bora, a community development organization founded by Ingrid Monro. She has been working with slumdwellers in Nairobi for more than a decade, helping form a community that runs their own microfinance institution and, most recently, housing development company. Our investment is focused on helping to build houses for people who want to change their own lives. Ingrid shares our values and belief in the power of every human being and it was her resolve that enable her to start Jamii Bora with a group of fifty beggars (there are now more than 150,000 members). This is a story about one of them who has literally grown up with the organization. (more…)

I’m sure you all have heard about the bomb blasts in Pakistan that have killed more than 125 people and left hundreds injured. Our team is safe and working today, but we are proceeding with caution and closely watching any fallout that might develop.�
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I know I share with you a deep sadness for what has happened, for the families of those who were killed, for Pakistan, for the world so in need of good news and more hopes for peace. In looking at the crowds who gathered for Benazir Bhutto, it was striking to see hundreds of thousands of working class people who, whether warranted or not, want to hope for more opportunities. Nothing justifies such carnage. Our own sense of urgency around the work we do can only be strengthened. I’m also feeling very proud of our Pakistani team and partners who refuse to accept the status quo and are serving as role models for a different way of building opportunities that last for people who too often are ignored.
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This week was the two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake that hit northern Pakistan and Kashmir. While we pay our respects to the 75,000+ people who lost their lives, we are also aware that many of those left behind are still struggling to lead normal lives. While some progress has undoubtedly been made, the sheer scale of the impact - hundreds of thousands injured, thousands of schools and over 275,000 homes destroyed – and the tough terrain has made rebuilding and reconstruction an extremely challenging task for the authorities. 

This article highlights some of the remaining challenges, two years on, in rebuilding homes in the affected areas. As the next winter approaches, thousands are still without homes and are living in temporary shelters. Prices of materials, transport and labour have shot up and the compensation paid out by the government is not sufficient to help most people rebuild their homes. The situation is made worse by corruption, red tape and the lack of funds.

While these issues are obviously exacerbated in the post-earthquake era, at Acumen Fund we have seen how poor people struggle with very similar issues in trying to build and purchase homes. As we develop and invest in appropriate and successful models for housing low-income consumers, our work in this sector is beginning to provide breakthrough insights which, we hope, can one day assist those who may be impacted by a disaster like this earthquake.

Written with David Lehr and John Paul

A while back, I posted my impressions of being a mobile consumer in East Africa, ranging from interactions with the woman who cleans my apartment to the varied uses of mobile telephony Acumen Fund sees among its portfolio companies. Things have evolved. Since then, my landlord fired her and the replacement cleaner, settling on a dynamic young woman named Juddy. She too communicates through mobiles, except in those instances where she runs out of prepaid phone credits and we resort to old-style human contact. My own account has been migrated to “postpaid,” meaning I receive a (outrageously high) bill at the end of the month instead of buying the prepaid credit that accounts for the majority of mobile usage here. Meanwhile, across the country, SMS short codes are becoming ubiquitous for radio show call-ins, university and government programs, health data collection and more, as mobile phones solidify their position as the connectivity platform of choice for the world’s majority.

Acumen Fund’s thinking on the potential for mobile phone applications in the developing world has moved forward as well. I finished the Nick Sullivan book — You Can Hear Me Now — that sketches out the birth of the Village Phone business in the late 90s. The original model allowed entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, primarily women, to buy $420 phones with microcredit loans and then pay them off over time with revenues from selling calls at a markup. To Sullivan, two keys to that model’s success were the smart foreign capital coming into the sector and the dynamic local talent willing to take entrepreneurial risk in order to make something happen. Today, as the cost of phones drops steadily, many are betting on value-added services on mobiles as the next boom. I have seen three aspiring business plans along such lines in the past month alone. Mobile applications are inherently scalable since they are automated, available over a wide area, and there is virtually zero cost to add customers. And a la Sullivan, enterprising service providers are going way beyond ringtones and games to test these enterprise applications in developing countries.

Our Business Technology Solutions Team is studying the ongoing innovations in the mobile application space, particularly in the social enterprise arena, to analyze potential benefits to Acumen Fund’s low-income target market and the businesses that serve it. (more…)