A pit latrine inside a free public toilet facility in Limuru Town

“Mwambie asiingie huko!“ screamed the woman in the marketplace, Swahili for “don’t let her go in there!”.  The “her” she was referring to was me and the “there” was a public toilet. After stepping into the facility, which was a local municipal toilet, I realized the concerns of the woman, and almost instantly wished I had heeded her warning. I had seen a few government facilities in Nairobi before but the uncleanliness and stench were beyond anything I had previously experienced.  My colleague at Ecotact, Rehema, and I were on a tour of some of Ikotoilets’ competing facilities as part of a larger project to create procedures around the site selection process for Ecotact. This particular incident took place in the main marketplace in Limuru Town, about one hour outside of Nairobi.

The site that had been selected for an Ikotoilet facility in Limuru Town was near the main market area, where hundreds of people gathered everyday to sell spices, maize, grains and fruit. We were on a quest to understand whether it made sense to place an Ikotoilet facility in this area and to identify what factors made a “successful” facility in order to create a process to prevent entering failing localities in the future. Ultimately, the guidelines we created looked at factors ranging from the number of competing facilities within one kilometer of the proposed site and the foot traffic around it to the accessibility of water lines and the political support of the municipality.

Out of the 16 facility visits we completed, which included locations such as Nakuru, Machakos, Uhuru Park and Railways, we were able to start piecing together exactly what commonalities existed in the more successful facilities and what criteria we needed to include in our diligence process when choosing locations. Through our visits we found that the most meaningful insights came not necessarily from the council and municipality members we were working with, but rather, from the average person who worked, lived or transited through the location we were considering. In Nakuru, it was only through asking women sitting on the side of the street and men working at the nearby repair shop that we learned that there were two free facilities- one in a nearby marketplace and one behind a carwash, within 100 meters of where we were considering putting an Ikotoilet facility. The councilman was surprised to learn of this as they were not official, public facilities and he was not aware of their presence.

What was even more interesting was how people reacted to using these public facilities – although they were not in the best conditions, they were free and a large portion of the people we spoke to said they would opt to use a dirty facility for free rather than a clean one for 5 shillings. Of course in areas like Limuru Town, where the alternative was abhorrently dirty, not just unclean, they were willing to pay the 5 shillings. This made me reflect on the concept of dignity and at what point the cost outweighs the benefits of dignity.  At Acumen, we constantly talk about the importance of providing people with a sense of dignity, so I was surprised to find so many choosing to continue using the free facilities. However, I realized that dignity doesn’t necessarily stem from using a cleaner toilet – it comes from the fact that the members of the community have a choice of which facility to use.  They can decide their own standards and don’t have to use a dirty toilet because there is no other option. I realized that our role can only go so far as providing an alternative and allowing people the opportunity to redefine their standards because if it went any further, we would destroy that which we worked so hard to create: dignity, self-empowerment – choices.

Rabia Sarwar started Acumen Fund’s volunteer chapter in Dubai. This summer, she spent four months in Acumen Fund’s East Africa office in Nairobi working with Ecotact and recently returned to Dubai.

This concludes the 2010 Summer Spotlight series featuring posts by Acumen Fund Summer Associates from around the world.

The exterior of an Ikotoilet facility

Typical scenery in Bihar

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Patna to visit Husk Power, an Acumen Fund investee, with Acumen Fund’s Energy Portfolio Manager Karthik Chandrasekar. Husk Power is in the business of setting up mini power plants in Bihar, one of the poorer and more populous states along the Indian rice belt. I’d been spending the summer working on the energy portfolio and was excited to meet the Husk entrepreneurs. These were the guys who figured out how to roll out mini electric utilities in a state where close to 85% of the population lived in rural villages. It was a good trip, and in retrospect, I think I learned a few new (and useful) things.

One day, we were riding in a car with Gyanesh Pandey, CEO of Husk Power, when a very bored-looking policeman pulled us over and asked us to show him our vehicle registration papers. Our driver gave him our papers, which were photocopies, because in India, nobody keeps originals in their cars. The officer wasn’t satisfied. He didn’t want photocopies. He wanted money: 9,000 rupees in cash. If we paid him, he’d let us go, and if we didn’t, well, we just never asked. Unsure of what to do, we sat and waited in the stifling heat of the car. Then, for the next half hour, we watched Gyanesh and the policeman, in between long, drawn-out pauses, have a go. From what I could piece together (given my limited understanding of Hindi and the general confusion I was feeling at the time), the dialog went something like this (I think):

• Policeman: I want my money.
• Gyanesh: I got no money, but I’m happy to drive to an ATM with you and get you some money, but you need to write me an official receipt.
• Policeman: I’m not driving anywhere. But I like you, so I’ll give you a discount. I want some money.
• Gyanesh: On any other day, I’d pay you. But today, I’m with my Chinese business associate [then he points at me!] and it would be very shameful if he saw me paying you money. Think about how bad this would look!
• Policeman: Oh snap. [long pause]  Fine, just go.

In the aftermath, I asked Gyanesh and Karthik to explain their police strategies to me. They agreed that when dealing with corrupt law enforcement officers in India, one should never give in, but must be prepared to spend a lot of time hanging around. If one simply hangs around long enough, then sooner or later, the policeman will realize that his time would be better spent extracting income elsewhere. He was, after all, a businessman, and businessmen have their own businesses to run.

At Acumen Fund, there is a tradition where team members are sometimes asked to share ‘Aha!’ moments, brief stories about the things that stood out or inspired us over the past week. So when we returned to Hyderabad, I told my policeman story during one of our weekly staff meetings. It was good to hear the reactions of the team. One person commented on how Gyanesh seemed completely prepared in advance to be patient in such a difficult situation. He was street smart, but more importantly, made it a point never to cave in to the corrupt demands of the police officer. Another person pointed out that ‘hanging around’ is what so many of our entrepreneurs have to do in order to avoid paying bribes. As a result, investors needed to be patient and expect results over the longer term. At least one other person swore that ‘hanging around’ also worked on policemen in Tamil Nadu.

For me, the experience highlighted the unexpected challenges of operating in rural parts of India.

Ken Lee is a student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs pursuing his Master’s in International Affairs.  This summer, he was working on the energy portfolio in Acumen Fund’s India office.

The Summer Spotlight series features posts by Acumen Fund Summer Associates from around the world.

In 2006 I visited Kenya to look for water and sanitation deals, back when I was managing the water portfolio. It was on this trip that I first saw David Kuria’s prototype for pay toilets in the slums, which he eventually turned into Ecotact. David took me to a community he had been working with for over a year and introduced me to a community leader who carried himself as though he were the mayor of the village. He was dapper in his mustard polyester dress shirt and pants, and he proudly showed me all the investments his community had made in improving water and health services with revenues from a pay toilet that David Kuria had built with them. He showed me this water stand, pictured above, as well as a small clinic, to which they had added a maternity ward and HIV/AIDS diagnostic center. The sense of ownership and pride that he and members of the community felt was palpable.

I remember wanting to get a picture of him that would somehow highlight the impact of true leadership on a community, but he was always moving so fast, and wasn’t the type of person to pose in front of something and take credit for it. Everything that this community had built had come from revenues they generated from their own pay toilet, and from the work of the community to build the things they needed. I managed to get this photo of him at the water stand, but you can almost see the reluctance on his face. At the same time, I think you can see his seriousness and determination as someone who is committed to improving a community facing tremendous challenges. He is a local shopkeeper, but he is also a community leader, a role model, a reason to believe that what people want more than anything is to solve their own problems and, if possible, help others in need.

Yasmina Zaidman is the Director of Communications at Acumen Fund.

Villagers try to catch trees floating in the flooded Nelum river in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir on Friday, July 30, 2010. (AP Photo/Aftab Ahmed)

It was July 25^th, and I was on my way back home to Lower Dir in the Swat valley. Lush green rice fields and shiny clean newly constructed restaurants and huts along the right bank of River Swat were an enriching and peaceful sight. After a challenging five years period of terrorism, militancy, and consequent displacement of a massive number of villagers, I was pleasantly surprised to see reconstruction almost completed.

It’s hard to imagine now that was only three weeks ago.

It rained for the next three days continuously and heavily. The beautiful dense forests and high mountains and countless streams of my hometown could not stand it – the streams and rivers overflowed, flooded, and by day three we started seeing dead bodies, vehicles, shelters, broken trees, home appliances and so many other things floating downstream. The Swat River had washed out the major bridge connecting Lower Dir, Upper Dir and Chitral with rest of the country and – as I later found out – twenty four other such bridges in its path till the River Kabul at Nowshera. Flood water had caused the river to double in size, burst its banks and wash away everything in its path. With very little food, fuel and amenities in stock, and I was one of three million people of three districts remained stranded for next five days.

I cannot forget a crowd of what must have been tens of thousands of people on both side of the river all standing in long queues, children crying, veiled women struggling with their ‘parda’ in the middle of so many men and the elderly being pushed hard, waiting for hours in the scorching heat. I can’t forget a baby unconscious in the hands of its mother running madly for help in the crowd. It was chaos all the way- and those people are still isolated from the rest of the country.

A boy walks through flood destroyed homes on August 4, 2010 in Pabbi, near Nowshera, Pakistan. (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

Fortunately enough, day six I received help from my brother who had arranged a special escort by the Pakistan Army. What initially felt like a relief and a privilege very soon became guilt – which only started increasing as I moved across the river, and climaxed at the moment I made it to the other side. Instead of relief, I felt awful for the unfortunate people left on the other side. However, my journey had not yet ended – I was stuck for the next two days, and eventually managed to reach Nowshera. Nowshera used to be a small city which stood cheerily on both side of River Kabul, and was now completely and totally flooded. The M-1 the motorway that runs between Islamabad and Peshawar had hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had made it to this relatively high ground. Nothing was left on both side of the river and water had even entered into the city filling streets, houses and markets with water and mud all over. Conditions of the survivors were very poor, lying under open sky, empty handed with almost nothing to eat and drink.

Flooding is still occurring across the country, starting from in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where my home lies, and spreading down to Punjab, Sindh and now Baluchistan – all have been badly hit. Every day brings new reports of more villages inundated. Millions of people are affected, displaced and countless stranded. A third wave of flooding has started in the north and is expected to reach downstream in next few days. The scale of devastation is too enormous for my mind to imagine.

No doubt the situation is a test of our strength, our individual and collective faith, morality and humanity. However, in the words of someone else, what doesn’t kill us can only make us stronger. Though it is hard to hold optimism in this hour of dismay however, I feel some aspect of the catastrophe could be viewed positively as well. The aftermath of the flood is teaching us lesson to devise systems and strategies which could prevent and mitigate such catastrophes in future. Public opinion has now changed dramatically on construction of dams which were previously denied as being too controversial. And most of all, despite of all the differences that seem to divide us, we as a nation are united for a single cause now, working hand in hand to rebuild the lives of the millions who have lost everything in the face of the flood.

Muhammad Zahoor is a Class of 2010 Acumen Fund Fellow, currently working with FMIA in Pakistan.

Photo Credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

The world has been slow to react to the enormity of the floods in Pakistan. Acumen Fund has worked in Pakistan for the past 8 years and although we do not work in disaster relief, we are rallying our community to show its solidarity for Pakistan during this grave humanitarian crisis.

Stand with Pakistan and help send a message to the world: www.ontheground.pk

OnTheGround.pk is a site we’ve built for the global community to offer perspective on the ground in Pakistan. Show your support and help inform and inspire others by adding your name, uploading photos and news, and sharing stories of hope. We also encourage you to share opportunities from other organizations working on relief efforts. A list of  organizations you can trust can also be found here.

Thank you and please visit OnTheGround.pk today to help send a message to the world to stand together with Pakistan in this time of need.

One of my tasks was to survey the commercial investment landscape and develop recommendations to help scale AMC’s model. With for-profit social enterprises like AMC, it’s natural to look at attracting commercial investors to help expand business. Since I used to work in real estate investment, I quickly reached out to former colleagues to help come up with ideas based on best practices in the industry. But, before long, I began to ask myself: “Why am I going back and conducting business with the same greedy capital markets which I left behind?” I became interested in the concept of Patient Capital because I thought it would challenge the norms in the present financial markets, which I had begun to question. However, upon hearing the word “scale,” I immediately began to think about the amount of capital necessary to invest into more housing development projects. How could we attract commercial investors? What kind of legal structure would promise liquidity for our investors? What is the best way to maximize financial efficiency?

But, were these the right questions to think about how to scale social impact? Is Patient Capital only patient until the enterprise is ready for traditional capital markets?

If the ultimate goal is to provide affordable homes to as many of Pakistan’s poor as possible, scale through the attraction of commercial capital does not need to be the focus of AMC’s organizational growth. Instead, when AMC proves that it’s model is profitable, it will provide other existing or potential housing developers incentive to replicate or adopt a similar model. The followers can be non-profit organizations or even the government, and there should be open space for creative collaboration among these different players.

However, scale cannot be just about seeing replication of AMC’s model because the problem is more often about the lack of systems and infrastructure. For instance, influencing public policy is a powerful way to scale impacts. AMC is now working with local government officials to change regulations on the planning of housing projects to make them more suitable to affordable homes. These changes could benefit not only AMC, but the entire market for affordable housing. There is also a more fundamental challenge to scaling the model. When Jawad worked for Saiban, the not-for-profit inspiration for AMC, it took him 18 months to obtain the proper approvals on the development plan because he refused to pay bribes. Fighting to rid of corruption would also result in a positive ripple effect across the housing development sector in this country.

If we can think of Patient Capital as not just a grace period for social entrepreneurs before tapping the “impatient” commercial markets, but instead as a new model of investment that is challenging the current systems of capitalism, scale could be defined and understood in a broader context. Attracting commercial investors is a fine pursuit. But we need to think outside the box and experiment with new ways of investment rather than simply adopting and accommodating the existing conduct of the commercial sector. This is the powers I see with Patient Capital. If we can move beyond thinking solely in terms of financial return, we can begin to explore innovative models that go beyond the simplistic dualism of for-profit vs. not-for-profit and private vs. public. Working for a social enterprise start-up in Pakistan has helped me reflect on my own mindset based on my private sector experience, and to think more deeply about what scale really means.

Nanako Kudo was a 2010 Summer Associate working for Acumen Fund investee Ansaar Management Company (AMC) in Lahore, Pakistan. Nanako is pursuing a Master’s degree in International Development and Social Change at Clark University.

Photo Credit: Yehia Houry

Most people know about Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia: National Geographic documentaries, Blockbuster movies, “Reality” slum tours, Harvard case studies, you name it. But how many have heard of Pratap Nagar, Golibar Rd, Mahim Creek, and Kamathipura? All slums in Mumbai which remain unnoticed to the outside world.

With 55% of the city’s population living in slums, which barely cover 5% of the city’s land, these jam-packed communities are subject to many problems, affecting water, sanitation, hygiene, housing and electricity, to name just a few. These poor human living conditions and an absolute lack of basic services make people much more prone to diseases and accidents.

That’s why Dial 1298, one of Acumen’s investees in India and the first reliable ambulance and emergency medical response service in India, has initiated a pilot program for a community of 50,000 people in Kamraj Nagar, one of the many ‘forgotten slums’ of Mumbai. With the help of our two partners, SNEHA, an organization that empowers women and children within slum households, and LIHS, experts at providing life support and EMS education in emergency situations, we are providing emergency health training for young community leaders in the slums, and will soon start placing ambulances locally for awareness and education. This project, whose initial research was conducted by Acumen Fellow Joanna Harries, will pave the way to a cost-effective customized BPL (below the poverty line) marketing plan that would be financially self-sustainable.

This picture was taken during one of our trainings, when a little girl saw the commotion around the bright yellow ambulance and decided to join in the fun. The 1298 poster behind her was actually grabbed from my bag and put up on the door by one of the health center volunteers who got really excited at the prospect of finally having a reliable ambulance service in her community.

The harsh infrastructure conditions in these slums do make me realize just how difficult it is for an ambulance to reach a patient within the “golden hour”, the span of time crucial for his survival. But I would like to believe that having a vehicle parked closer to the community and conducting as many emergency training sessions as we can afford to, coupled with a customized marketing campaign aimed at creating a paradigm shift in people’s minds about a reliable ambulance service affordable to everyone, will make a difference. We are off to a slow, but steady, start.

Yehia Houry is a Class of 2010 Acumen Fund Fellow who has spent the past 9 months in Mumbai working with Dial 1298.

Photo Credit: Jacqueline Novogratz

This picture was taken in a village near Kala Shah Kaku outside Lahore, when I made my first visit to the site for Saiban’s Khuda ki Basti 4 with the Acumen Fund team and Jawad Aslam almost exactly four years ago. It remains one of my favourite photographs – not just because of the lush green background and the idyllic landscape, but because every time I see it, I can almost hear the laughter in these boys voices. They walked with us from the village to the basti, chatting, giggling and playing all the way, happy in the moment – as every child deserves to be.

The fields and pathways were flooded from recent monsoon rains and at one point we actually had to roll up our pants and tiptoe through calf-deep waters, flip-flops in hand. But apart from mud-caked flip-flops, wet, dirty clothes, and a few slips, in a few minutes we were able to make it through the flooded fields to the housing site where the first model house had just been built for what was to become a thriving community a few years later.

Seeing the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan right now with more than 1,600 killed and over 14 million people impacted, by the incessant rains and overflowing rivers, families homeless and displaced, I cant help but think about these kids and so many others like them. Where are they, 4 years from when we met? What does their village look like today? How have their lives been impacted by the floods and rains? Are they going to school? Are they still laughing and playing?

These are overwhelming questions and its hard to stay positive at times like these, when so many have lost so much and the general feeling of hopelessness is so pervasive. But we must move ahead, do more, act more, help more and reach out to those that need assistance. In Pakistan and around the world, individuals and organizations are coming together to provide disaster relief. We need to address the immediate needs now. And in the long run, focus on sustainable solutions to lift people out of poverty and to provide them with opportunities that celebrate dignity, not build dependence.

Misbah Naqvi is a Business Development Manager in our NY office and previously worked with our Pakistan team in Karachi.

A field visit to Nakuru, Kenya, one of the proposed sites of new Ecotact pay-per-user ‘Ikotoilets’.

I vividly recall growing up in a rural part of Central Kenya, a thin shy boy (an undoing which I’ve been trying to shake all these years!) and waking every morning before the break of dawn and walking barefoot several kilometers to school. At Kianjeneni Primary School, we scooped out drinking water with our jerricans from Karia, a small dam which we shared with a diesel powered generator pumping water to a neighboring coffee milling factory. We did this in earnest, oblivious of the effects of the consumption of untreated and contaminated water. My weekends were spent either grazing my father’s cow or tilling the land and we would be rewarded with bumper harvests safely tucked away in the granaries.

The farming methods and inputs employed were localized, for example maize, beans and other crops from previous harvests were used as seeds for the new season, and the use of organic ferilizer (made by heaping several layers of maize stalks and other farm material and sandwiched by wood ash). Our energy sources came from paraffin and firewood, which was scarce even then. Today societies have been transformed as technology improves, easing communication. However, life is tougher today due to low food security which is traceable to reduced crop yields because of the vagaries of the weather, land overuse and inaccessibility of inputs that lead to higher rates of rural-urban migration.

I have been working at the East Africa office mapping out the energy sector- solar BoP distribution and biogas as well as conducting business plan reviews, financial analysis of projections and performing desktop research as part of the initial deal filter process. A large untapped market of renewable energy (RE) still exists, but most initiatives are driven by misconceptions about the BoP consumer.

A clear understanding is needed: how do you integrate your branding campaign with the nature of this consumer segment? For example, you cannot sell on the premise of pollution or environmental concerns. My upcountry neighbor, Mama Jerotich, cares little about the smoke that has been billowing from her roof for years and its effects on her health. The approach of suggesting substituting your routine energy needs (kerosene, firewood) with a one-off investment in biogas or solar LED light will not increase the uptake.

Opportunities do exist around  building a well-funded marketing campaign that will be a success with the locals (e.g. liaising with agriculture extension officers during field visits) and selling the goods as aspirational – an understanding from the end user’s perspective. However, there exist lots of challenges with some RE technologies. After visiting farmers who have installed biogas and analyzing their profile, it is quite clear to me that biogas, even with an embedded subsidy component and ready financing, is hard to scale up and is a product for the middle income segment.

A recent interesting article argues that thriving clean energy ventures are driven by more than lust for profit. I have met very few entrepreneurs who have been bitten by the social entrepreneurial bug. I had an opportunity to interact with Skylink Innovators (winner of the Ashden Awards and Bid Network Business Plan Competition). The tenacity and determination of Agnes, a director, complements very well the technical engineer Kinoti. It was amazing to hear their many innovative ideas including firing bricks using rice husks which would employ thousands of jobless young people. They have in place a staggered paying system on installations. In three years, they have managed to install over 200 biogas plants, most of them in households, which is no mean feat. The biggest challenge is to arouse more of these entrepreneurs, who are ready to follow that narrow path – trading off higher margins for greater humanity impact. This path is closer to a calling.

Martin Theuri is an MBA student at the University of Nairobi’s School of Business. While not in class, he also runs a start-up consulting firm proffering financial solutions to SMEs and NGOs. Prior to that, he was a Research and Corporate Analyst at NIC Capital Investment Bank.

What the Future will launch this Saturday, July 31 on CNBC World, and the first episode – aptly named “Choice Not Charity” – features the work of Acumen Fund and of investees Jamii Bora and Ecotact.

The show will air on Saturday at 8:30 pm and again at 11:30 pm EST. (Then again on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. EST). In the US, you can find where to watch here. Elsewhere, please check your local provider for listings for CNBC World.

If you have trouble catching it on TV, video is also available on the What the Future website – watch part 1, part 2 and part 3.

We’d love to hear what you think – please join the discussion on our online community!

Raghunath Prasad Chauhan is from Tamkua village in one of the most remote corners of Bihar, India. Tamkua, which means “well of darkness,” is one of the first villages that was electrified by Husk Power Systems, a company that provides a very real alternative source of energy in a state that is electricity-starved and one of the poorest in the country.

This is the first time Raghunath is getting electricity. He now has dreams of educating his four children and hopes that his son becomes an engineer and finds a good job. The Tamkua market now comes alive at night and children from villages like Tamkua gather under the lights in ready and study in groups. The incidence of theft and snake bites has also been reduced because the area now has power. This company, that lives by the vision ‘Power to Empower,’ is creating believers out of people who never thought that they would have access to electricity.

Watch the video on Acumen’s website and learn more about Husk Power Systems.

Karthik Chandrasekar is an Acumen Fund Energy Portfolio Manager based out of our Hyderabad office in India. Karthik is always on the move looking for entrepreneurs bringing renewable energy solutions to the poor. Follow him on Twitter – @quickgunmurugun .

Here at Acumen Fund, we often refer to the direct social impact of our investments: number of bednets sold, healthy babies delivered, seeds sown, microfinance loans disbursed, etc.  But there are secondary impacts to Acumen’s investments, too – most notably, employment.

I snapped this photo of a young man, whose name I didn’t catch, taking a quick break at the end of a long day installing a Global Easy Water Products drip irrigation system.  I visited the farm, a 4-hour drive outside Aurangabad, last May, as the thermometer topped 45 degrees Celsius.  Despite the heat, farmers like Ramakrishnan Mahajan must quickly sow their fields and set up their irrigation systems during a short cotton-planting window – which is why he asked his GEWP sales rep to hire a group of six local farmboys to lend a hand.  Each of the boys – including the one pictured here – earned 200 rupees per day over 2 days of work.  For those keeping track at home, that’s about USD $4.50 per worker, per day.

Since 2003, Global Easy Water Products reports that its customers have paid for more than 410,000 man-hours of installation labor.  At rates similar to what Mr. Mahajan paid his crew, that’s more than USD $225,000 of employment income being plowed back into the local economies of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Now if only this worker had a bottle of clean, fresh WaterHealth International branded Dr. Water to cool him down after the work was done…but that’s the subject of another photo for another day.

Rob Katz is a Portfolio Associate at Acumen and co-founder of NextBillion.net.

The Photo of the Week series features images chosen by Acumen Fund staff and community members — favorite photos they’ve taken in the field or pulled from the archive. Look for it every Tuesday.

Alex Sungubi is one of the founding members of the Blue Sweater Book Club in Nairobi. Pictured here, he's walking through Kibera with a donated copy of Seth Godin's book Tribes.

I am currently in Nairobi, Kenya as we work to build what will be the first in a series of leadership development initiatives around the world.  In the next ten years, we plan to invest in thousands of leaders who are building and driving groundbreaking social change initiatives as entrepreneurs and also as intra-preneurs within businesses, public sector organizations, and leading NGOs.  We believe that by connecting and investing in these individuals, we will create an interconnected web of global leaders who share values, are driving change, and have a deep commitment to building a more inclusive economy and social system.   My current trip to Nairobi has been one of listening and learning from Kenyan perspectives on leadership and development so that we build a program that will have real and lasting impact.  The journey has been rich with stories, but I wanted to share one.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet two fantastic individuals who reminded me of the power of the human spirit at work.  The first is Jessica – young, fearless, resourceful, and completely and utterly resilient (my favorite qualities in a social sector leader).  This young woman is a recent graduate of Wesleyan College and is doing some incredible work in Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa, with her partner Kennedy (both Echoing Green Fellows).  They have built an all-girls school in the heart of Kibera and while the school is free, they’ve developed a model that ensures repayment in other ways. The parents must commit 5 weeks of work to the school each year and run services around the school they charge for like: pay per use toilets, a community center, and a health center.

I met Jessica at a fancy shopping mall, which is where I thought we would hold our meeting.  So of course I showed up in white pants, a nice silk shirt, long flowing scarf, gold bangles, and before I know it she whisks me away from the comfort of the mega mall to a nearby mutatu (small local bus transport) which we crammed into for the ride to the slums. As I sat there smushed between two people – body odor filling the bus, only to be over powered by the smell of burning garbage – in an instant I was back in Senegal (where I lived at 20-years-old) taking the local road, the hard road everywhere, at any cost. We exited the mutatu, I looked down at my already dirt and grease stained white pants, and jumped onto the red dusty road that leads into Kibera.  We walked together, followed by groups of shouting kids who were dying to hold my hand, touch my leg, and just be noticed. Honestly, I had almost forgotten what that was like since my last few trips have been focused on meetings with business executives and government leaders.

As we walked down the road, Jessica buzzed with energy to tell me what she was doing, so inspired, proud and accomplished for a young woman.  When we finally arrived at the school, I met Kennedy, one of those people who just radiates energy and wisdom beyond his years. He stood in front of their community site in a rainbow-colored tiedye shirt and jeans, with a huge Kenyan smile. They told their story, and I shared mine, and as Kennedy told me he admired me because I was “way up there” but also “way down here” I sat there thinking, “How can this young man admire me?”

After our conversation, Kennedy walked me down the long winding road out of Kibera.  We passed many men yelling in Swahili, ”Who is the white woman with you?” (Kennedy translated).  He stopped to chat with a man who was making wooden bed frames.  They exchanged greetings and we were off. Kennedy told me how about 4 years ago he had raised 2000 Shillings ($25) and invested it in 20 businesses in Kibera.  For his small investment he asked that the borrowers not pay him back, but instead pay it forward.  The man selling the bed frames was doing quite well and now had the ability to pay it forward and also pay Kennedy back.  I felt a tinge of guilt flow through my body as I thought about the last thing I did with $25.

Kennedy was born in Kibera to a girl of 15; he never knew his father.  At the age of 9 he was living on the streets and was angry at the world, but then at 12 he met a priest who helped to educate him.  Kennedy told me he was determined to learn English so he could speak to the “white people.”  He’s currently in his second year at Wesleyan in Connecticut.

As he shared with me his story, I looked around and was so intensely reminded of the pain and sadness that exists and has existed in the world.  In a world with such injustice, such poverty, how do people not live with constant anger, frustration and sadness?  How can those of us who have been given so much live right next to it and allow it to exist?  I wonder if there ever will be a point when we can find a place where we are all truly given the opportunity to realize our potential as individuals and as a world.  Acknowledgment and forgiveness are such hard things to achieve.

And then there are people like Kennedy and Jessica, who remind us that there is hope and that things can change.  As we work to build this new initiative for Acumen and develop the next generation of leaders around the world, we plan to invest in more individuals that can show the world positive change is not only possible, but it is already happening.

Blair Miller is Talent Manager for Acumen Fund and runs the Acumen Fellows Program. She just returned to New York from three weeks in East Africa where she was working to develop Acumen’s Fellows Program globally.

We’ve just posted a video to Acumen’s website that gives a fantastic glimpse into the types of communities where WaterHealth International (WHI) works — delivering safe, affordable drinking water. We had the opportunity to visit the Nehru Nagar Colony, a rural community situated 40 minutes outside the city of Vijayawada in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Several women in the community told us that before WaterHealth installed its plant, people collected water from a nearby pond or small “step” wells. Water quality from these sources is very poor; during our visit, we noticed cattle bathing in the nearby pond and a frog swimming in the step well. The water had a murky green tint to it, and tested positive for bacteriological contamination. Not exactly the stuff you’d want in your cup.

By contrast, the water flowing out of WHI’s plant – filtered and disinfected with ultraviolet light – was crystal clear and free of disease-causing microbes. WHI conducts a full battery of chemical and bacteriological tests frequently to ensure this high standard of quality. And on this brutally hot day, the water was also delicious – a key reason why customers choose to buy. Women also mentioned health improvements from using the water and savings on medical costs, which is the real reason WHI does this work.

Check out the video and let us know what you think.

Marc Manara is a Water Portfolio Manager for Acumen Fund, based in New York.

In March I travelled to Kenya’s beautiful Central Province to establish a sales initiative with the Nyala Dairy Cooperative in Ndaragwa.  Besides the welcome change of climate (I ate dinner in front a roaring fire in order to stay warm) I was thoroughly impressed with Nyala as an organization. Watch this video on Nyala’s impressively efficient operations and learn how D.light partnered with them to market solar lights to dairy farmers across the region.  Enjoy!

This video originally appeared on Acumen Fellow Kevin Martin’s blog. Kevin, a member of the Class of 2010, is working in Tanzania with D.Light.

I was in Pakistan for the past two weeks conducting training with our local team in Karachi and working with some of our investees. I took this photo during a walk through the narrow lanes of the Old City section of Lahore, Pakistan. I was wandering along just taking in the amazing sights and sounds of the marketplace when I heard a faint electronic sound. In a city with often-inconsistent power, the vaguely familiar sound caught my attention. After a bit of searching I found a worn wooden door partially open.  I was delighted to find a small, dark room filled with four old stand-alone video games (think Pac-man, circa 1984) and a bunch of excited kids yelling, lit only by the light of the games. The boy in the center happened to turn just as I was snapping this picture, flashing a happy smile, that of any child at play. It reminded me of the universality of the need for fun and the pleasure of a few minutes of escape from the pressures of daily life.

Harry Dellane is the Director of Talent for Acumen Fund. While he is based in the New York City office, he spent two weeks at the Pakistan office earlier this month.

The Photo of the Week series features images chosen by Acumen Fund staff and community members — favorite photos they’ve taken in the field or pulled from the archive. Look for it every Tuesday.

Gynocare Fistula Center

In March, I had the opportunity to make a two-day field visit to Kenya’s second largest health sector hub – Eldoret – with my friend and colleague, Rob Katz. The purpose of our visit was simple – to map out the local healthcare provider landscape: identifying key players and the systemic issues in developing models to serve the poor. Of course, we hoped to uncover another entrepreneur or two brave enough to tackle these issues in a way that reflected our Acumen Fund mission – delivering services to the poor with integrity, dignity, and quality.

In theory, investing in sustainable and scalable enterprises as a means of delivering social impact seems straightforward enough. However, the reality of Acumen’s mission for the past 9 years – learned over countless due diligence trips and new field visits like this one – is that finding these pioneering enterprises within our parameters is a challenge. Furthermore, there are so many ways to approach these challenges, and Acumen Fund cannot support them all. Along the journey, we often find opportunities that don’t quite fit our investment criteria, but are ones we wish we could help because of their noble missions and the leaders behind them. In Eldoret, we came across one such opportunity in the form of Dr. Hillary Mabeya and the Gynocare Fistula Center.

After starting his medical career in Nairobi as an obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Mabeya first began visiting rural regions of the country as a member of AMREF’s Flying Doctor program. During these missions, he became increasingly aware of the plight of gynecologic fistula patients. These patients were often either young female victims of sexual abuse or obstructed labor survivors, who now faced daily physical difficulties in the most routine of tasks. In addition, once victimized, they could not marry and faced social ostracization, as well as the economic challenges of supporting themselves. Soon, Dr. Mabeya began increasing his tours of the region to serve these patients specifically – all operations and services were voluntary and free of charge.

Ultimately, Dr. Mabeya moved his family from Nairobi to Eldoret to be closer to these regions, to set up a higher quality, affordable facility – the Gynocare Fistula Center. In addition to all surgical and gynecological services offered at his clinic, there is also counseling, education, trainings, and other programs to support socio-economic development of women. Though currently a standalone clinic with limited facilities, he hoped to be able grow and eventually, expand across the region.

Dr. Mabeya had the character of all that we hope for in our entrepreneurs. He was extremely intelligent, compassionate, and dedicated to delivering help to those who needed it the most. Most importantly, he was invested in creating a better quality of life for them, beyond just a one-time operation. His commitment could not have been clearer. In the post-election violence of 2008 – he was one of the few doctors to remain open and operational, often conducting surgeries free of charge despite threats to his own life. He teared up as he told us that as a father of three daughters, he just wanted to ensure daughters like his own were taken care of, and given a means to support themselves to thrive and be economically independent.

Through his clinic, Dr. Mabeya is trying to make a scalable, and sustainable social impact. But in the time since he has opened the center, he has been struggling to cover his costs. His staff is often paid through his supplementary salary at the government teaching hospital, and the counselor at the center is actually an unpaid Mrs. Mabeya. With low price points, he is serving the poorest of the poor, but future projections don’t look promising, and surgeries are often done free of charge. Despite knowing his business is bleeding, he is committed to trying to make it work by stretching his personal finances as far as possible.

So while the Gynocare Center had the right mission, it had neither the margin nor as yet, as a small standalone private enterprise, the mandate for an Acumen investment.

This is the messy reality and challenge of investing in social enterprises. There are a committed few, those who seek to serve the greatest needs and beyond. But doing so in a financially-viable and sustainable manner is the hurdle. So while we may not be able to support Dr. Mabeya and his Gynocare Center as an investment, we wholeheartedly support his mission, and everything that he represents.

Manasa Tanuku just finished an internship for Acumen’s East Africa office, working specifically on the Health Portfolio. Prior to Acumen, Manasa was in M&A investing banking and holds a BSc in Finance and International Business from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Academically and professionally, I am interested in private sector development in emerging markets. Acumen Fund’s unique investment approach – its efforts to promote sustainable business models that serve the bottom of the social and economic pyramid – attracted me to the organization.  I have spent the past few weeks at Acumen Fund evaluating business ventures in India’s agriculture sector.  In particular, I am evaluating companies in the dairy sector and businesses that use mobile phone technology to provide information to farmers.

Two weeks ago, I spent four days working with an entrepreneur in the dairy sector and visiting the rural villages where he planned to establish a milk procurement network.  Although India is the world leader in absolute milk production, generating approximately 100 million metric tons/year, the country’s agriculture sector is inefficient and undeveloped.  India’s agriculture sector employs over 50% of the workforce, yet agriculture and livestock account for only 20% of its GDP.  The agriculture sector employs a disproportionate number of the poor; there are 260 million smallholder farmers living on less than one dollar a day.  Two main reasons for this lack of productivity are the size of the unorganized sector and the dearth of private firms operating in the organized sector.  The unorganized sector is large, accounting for approximately 70% of all milk production.  Meanwhile, the organized dairy market is currently dominated by large state-sponsored cooperatives, which were originally formed in the 1970s under the World Bank’s Operation Flood program to ensure adequate domestic supply of dairy products.

The organized sector’s low penetration and failure to provide consistent extension services negatively impact farmers’ productivity and income.  This void creates an opportunity for middle-men who purchase milk from farmers at irregular intervals, use opaque pricing, and have inefficient procurement networks, all of which decrease quality and discourage farmers from producing more milk.  Without proper procurement networks and extension services, farmers do not view milk production as a profitable activity.  They typically resort to subsistence farming, which generates lower, less consistent seasonal income and is directly tied to the amount of land farmers own.  Consequently, there are opportunities for firms to establish sustainable sourcing networks in rural areas, which would increase farmers’ productivity and income.

Last Sunday, I woke up at 4:30 AM to observe and interview farmers at a vegetable market in Hyderabad and at farms outside of the city who were using a cell phone application to obtain pricing information and connecting with buyers.  The goal of the technology is to balance supply and demand and boost farmers’ incomes.  Many markets do not operate efficiently because of imperfect information.  Prices signal to both buyers and sellers the value each attributes to a good.  Without access to correct pricing, farmers lose potential income by selling their goods below market price.   Even before dawn, the market was chaotic.  Farmers and buyers congregated between piles of chile peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants, shouting out prices and talking about the harvests.   It was fascinating to see farmers use the application in person and learn about their frustrations.  The visit underscored the difficulty for businesses in not only creating products that serve the bottom of the pyramid, but also developing sustainable revenue models.

Jason Ballet is a joint MA/MBA student at SAIS/Johns Hopkins and Columbia Business School.  This summer, he is working on the agriculture portfolio in Acumen Fund’s India office. The Summer Spotlight series features posts by Acumen Fund Summer Associates from around the world.

AyurVAID / AyurSEVA Hospitals is a chain of Ayurveda hospitals with a reach across the four southern states in India.  Through a new health checkup camp initiative, recently launched in partnership with a Bangalore-based NGO, I interact nonverbally everyday with hundreds of people from BoP populations; almost all the people we consult with at the camps speak Kannada, Tamil, Urdu or Hindi, and I speak English and Japanese.

Every other day we go to different low-income areas and set up a camp for the day. Surrounded by a variety of aromas, noises and straying animals, the staff members of our partner NGO quietly register unorganized laborers for a small fee and give them access to bank accounts and insurance products under a scorching sun.  Registered members enjoy the immediate benefit of our health checkup screening.  Many bring self-prescribed tablets and ask doctors’ opinions for the first time.  Some bring lab results and clinical documentation, seeking  further advice.  A variety of health complaints and medical histories are assessed through detailed consultations conducted by our doctors.

I communicate with those patients by sharing the stories with the doctors, managing their clinical data, and observing their candid reactions to our onsite medicine sales and marketing pitch.  I hear their stories of resilience in a simple but hard life.  I see a high prevalence of tubectomy and anemia amongst the women, and undernourishment amongst the male construction workers.

Recently, we started selling medicines at the campsites in small packets containing a week-long dosage.  Although many expected the distribution of free medicine, we sell these products for a small fee as we are not solely a charitable hospital.  I see big smiles in the faces of patients, nonetheless, and the medicines are selling well.  I hear them saying, “I just wanted to try this. After all, the doctor listened to me for 10 minutes and it costs me only three cups of tea.”

Sometimes we can help but other times we cannot.   We categorize the patients into three risk levels and give priority to those who are at high risk.  Often, though, I feel helpless to the high-risk patients because there is still no system to support them—they are not insured and treatment costs are too high even at our AyurSEVA Hospitals.  Some take on debt to afford their treatments, but this is where I think AyurSEVA needs to develop an innovative health insurance product.  We are working hard to connect our camp activities to our hospital system for higher impact, scale and sustainability.  It takes time, though.

As for now, we are busy hearing the stories of masons, housekeepers and vendors on busy colorful alleys in Bangalore.

Satoko Okamoto is a 2010 Acumen Fellow working with AyurVAID Hospitals in Bangalore.

A couple of weeks ago, D.light let me run wild and have some fun with Photoshop. We wanted to launch an advertising campaign geared towards safari lodges, and well, this is what I came up with.

My wife, Blair, a master at language and puns, generated the slogans and in about 20 minutes we had a dozen ideas for future ads.  This was an inordinate amount of fun and harked back to my art school days, brainstorming and sketching late into the night.

The full range of advertisements were debuted this month at the Karibu Fair, the annual tourism expo held in Arusha in Northern Tanzania.   We will continue to introduce the ads to lodges throughout the high tourist season. This is a small project, as the safari lodges are not our target customers.

Nonetheless it was great fun, and as I wrote this post we received our first safari lodge order for a case of our Nova S200 lights, presumably not to feed to the crocs… Enjoy!

Kevin Martin is an Acumen Fellow in the Class of 2010, currently working with D.Light in Tanzania.

Acumen Investee Saiban in Pakistan

• Jacqueline reflects on her visit to a Saiban housing complex in Pakistan in her article for the Huffington Post.
• Former Acumen Fellow Jawad Aslam spent many months working for Saiban, and has since founded AMC, another housing investment for Acumen Fund. Watch Jawad’s inspiring speech from the NYC *spark! event last month.
• See more photos of Saiban.

More news:

• A powerful article by Harsh Mandar in The Hindu on marginalized communities in India and the lack of choice and dignity.
• NextBillion ran a great series on energy serving the BoP.
• Acumen hits the fashion news for its new partnership with Salvatore Ferragamo.
• Throughout the year, FORA.tv will host a series on social entrepreneurship with leaders in the sector like Professor Yunus of Grameen Bank, Sally Osberg of The Skoll Foundation, Mary Houghton at ShoreBank, William Foote of Root Capital, Jacaqueline Novogratz and others.

May is one of the hottest months in India.  The sun beats down relentlessly as the country waits for the monsoons to bring some relief.  This May, however, one enterprising company was prepared to take advantage of that overpowering sunlight.  Ziqitza Healthcare, an Acumen Fund investee that operates ambulance services in several regions of India, recently launched 25 new ambulances with roof-mounted solar panels in Trivandrum district in the southern state of Kerala.  It can now put the sun to use in saving more lives.

This innovative fleet of ambulances is the outgrowth of a pilot initiative that Ziqitza undertook in 2008, in my final days as an Acumen Fellow with the ambulance service.   Striving to make its life-saving emergency medical services more accessible to the base of the pyramid, Ziqitza experimented with mounting a solar panel on the roof of one of its ambulances in Mumbai.  I had the privilege of documenting the early days of this initiative, and was eager to hear about its progress when I made a recent return visit to Mumbai.

I caught up with Radheesh V., Ziqitza’s Head of Operations and the person who got the first solar ambulance up and running.  According to Radheesh, this innovation offers several advantages to the ambulance service:

• Cost savings:  Ziqitza’s life-support ambulances carry a range of advanced medical equipment on board.  When used, this equipment drains the ambulance’s battery.  After a call, the ambulance crew often has to drive the ambulance around to recharge the battery.  This wastes expensive fuel, which is one of the primary operating costs of the service.  Ambulances that have been idle for several days must also be driven around to keep the batteries charged.  The solar panel reduces the ambulance’s fuel consumption; Ziqitza’s rough estimates indicate that the panel could pay for itself within one to two years.
• Reliability:  Ambulances that stand idle for several days may not start immediately due to drained batteries, creating problems in the event of an emergency call.  A solar panel eliminates this operational risk, allowing Ziqitza to offer even more reliable life-saving services.
• Environmental benefits:  By reducing emissions from fuel consumption, solar ambulances are more eco-friendly, an innovation which can appeal to state governments and other partners.  In recognition of these benefits, Forbes.com featured the pilot solar ambulance as one of ten “Eco-Friendly Innovations”.

Ziqitza’s positive experience with the pilot ambulance has paid off.  After the company won a government contract to operate emergency services throughout Kerala, it had to provide technical specifications for the ambulances to the state government, which purchases the vehicles.  Among Ziqitza’s specifications for the first set of 25 ambulances was a solar panel mounted on each roof.  The state government followed through on this request, and Trivandrum district is now benefitting from lower cost, more reliable, and greener life-saving ambulances.  I was thrilled to hear that what began as an experiment in reducing costs is beginning to achieve real scale in India.

This successful story of scaling up an innovation illustrates a broader point about the advantages of working at the BOP.  The imperative of reducing costs to make goods and services more accessible to low income consumers can drive companies to experiment in new and creative ways.   The innovations that are generated are beneficial not only to the BOP; they can also offer advantages to firms and consumers in wealthier markets.  Ziqitza’s innovative application of solar technology should serve as inspiration to companies elsewhere that are seeking new ways to gain a competitive advantage.  And hopefully it will encourage others to develop new and creative applications for energy-saving technologies.

Chris Walker was an Acumen Fellow working with Ziqitza Healthcare in the Class of 2008. He is now Senior Associate of Innovative Finance for the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).

On June 7th, PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer aired part 2 of the story on Acumen. In January, PBS accompanied Jacqueline on her trip to Kenya. This segment is the second installment in a two-part series and focuses on Jamii Bora’s innovative work in providing safe, affordable housing for communities throughout Nairobi, specifically profiling one customer, Jane.  Also see our blog post on part 1 of the series, which highlights the work of Ecotact.

Sonya Khan is on the leadership team of Acumen Fund’s Dubai volunteer chapter. Dubai for Acumen’s Spring Benefit successfully raised more than $10,000 for Acumen Fund. The Dubai chapter is Acumen Fund’s third official chapter and we are excited to welcome them to our Acumen Fund Partner community.

Surveying the crowd of professionals mingling at Dubai for Acumen’s first fundraising event in the heart of Dubai’s financial district, I felt a surge of satisfaction.  Only a week earlier, as the volunteers made our final push for ticket sales, we weren’t sure how many people to expect for our first event. Unlike many of the other cities where Acumen Fund and its Chapters operate; in Dubai, Acumen Fund was a completely alien concept.   The objective of the event was to make an impact on Dubai’s professional community and to get the word out about Acumen Fund, so numbers mattered.  Volunteers had been sending out emails, making phone calls, and talking to co-workers, friends, and acquaintances for weeks in a bid to reach as many people as possible and it had clearly paid off – the Chapter ultimately sold 300 tickets. The atmosphere at the art gallery was animated; people strolled through nibbling on canapés, enjoying the accompaniments of the pianist, some still in business suits straight from the office, others glammed up for an evening out.  Small groups gathered around scattered TV monitors, watching videos of various Acumen Fund projects and hearing Jacqueline Novogratz speak.  Once the presentation started, the chatter quickly died down and attention turned to the informational part of the evening.

Dubai draws many people from around the world through its reputation for decadence and the lure of a more luxurious life.  The informational session that evening was a call to action, daring us all not to be lulled into a life of comfortable complacency.  It started out with Ankur Shah presenting the facts and figures along with real world examples of how Acumen Fund is achieving its goals, appealing to the most practical minds in the audience.  He was followed by the keynote speaker for the evening Sarah Dimson, a Ghanaian-American Acumen Fellow, who iscurrently working at Ansaar Management Company, a low income housing company based in Lahore, Pakistan. Sarah challenged all of us to find a way to make a difference. She spoke passionately about how amazed she was by her experiences as an Acumen Fellow, even though it was radically different from what she had anticipated when she applied.  She presented the Acumen Fellows program not only as a means through which to make positive mark on the planet, but also an avenue for personal growth.

I expected the evening to wrap up quickly after that and was pleasantly surprised to see how many people lingered on, stopping volunteers to ask questions, sharing ideas and seeking ways to get further involved.  If as Voltaire says, the present is pregnant with the future, then this event will bring inspiration, growth, and energy to the Dubai for Acumen chapter.

Have you ever thought about what makes a social enterprise viable in the long term and how to balance that elusive double bottom line?

Join Acumen Fund for a conversation on ‘social investing’ and why balancing financial returns with social returns result in more sustainable impact.  We’ll be joined by Acumen Fund’s Batool Hassan and hear from Acumen’s current class of Fellows, Sarah Dimson and Muhammad Zahoor, who are working with social enterprises in Pakistan.

Event Details

Date: May 10th, 2010

Time: 7:00pm – 8:30pm

Location: 2nd Floor (T2F), 10-C, Sunset Lane 5, Phase 2 Ext, DHA, Karachi