In preparation for the event, local chapter leaders are gathering on Sunday, 14th March, at 50 Fremont Street for an Event Planning Session from 2pm - 3.30pm. This is an excellent opportunity to get more involved with the Chapter and Acumen Fund’s work, so if you’re interested, don’t hesitate to sign up!

For more event information, please refer to links on the Wine Tasting Event & the Planning Session on our Community website.

Yasmina Zaidman is Director of Communications at Acumen Fund. She recently returned from vacation in the Dominican Republic, where she personally experienced the importance of access to emergency medical care.

The hospital in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, where Yasmina and her son were fortunate enough to receive treatment.

I try not to think too much about work when I’m on vacation, but when I found myself in the back of an ambulance in the Dominican Republic this past week, I couldn’t help but think about Acumen Fund’s work on improving access to emergency care. I was holding my 17-month old baby in my arms as he vomited into a bed pan, while two young medics stood ready to check his vitals. He had acquired an acute bacterial infection, we later learned, that was leading to mild dehydration. This is a problem with a very simple solution – rehydration, with the optional treatment of antibiotics. Yet this simple solution is often not available, and dehydration is the single greatest cause of infant mortality, leading to the preventable deaths of millions of children under 5 each year.

I know how very preventable these deaths are, in part because I just saw it averted for my son. At every step in the process of getting my son the help he needed I found myself asking: “what would we do if we had no money?” First, there would be no emergency transport to a hospital or clinic (though this was only needed in this case because his illness started while we were at an international airport in a foreign country). There would have been no emergency room to check into with the swipe of a credit card. There would have been no instant diagnostics to check his blood pressure, his heart rate, his white blood cell count, which told us that his infection was bacterial and not viral. And most of all, there would have been no treatment, no IV providing the perfect combination of salt and sugar to help his body absorb the fluids that would keep his 22 lb. body functioning properly.

You don’t need a vivid imagination to see how this situation could have played out differently, and my mind kept switching from my own circumstance, in a relatively clean room, with a nurse and blood test results in hand, to a very different one. I pictured a dirt-floored room in a crowded slum or temporary shelter, my sick child in my arms, a dirty rag to wipe his mouth, and futile attempts to provide water, perhaps itself contaminated, to a child who was not tolerating liquids. I would essentially have to watch and wait to see whether his own immune system’s ability to neutralize the infection and its symptoms would outpace the deadly effects of dehydration. And too often, children lose this battle, with the result, over and over again, of death. On the very island where we just spent our holiday, in a small country just across the border, there are 400,000 children displaced by Haiti’s earthquake. How many of them will face the same illness that my son had? How many of them will survive it?

I take the helplessness I felt as I watched my son getting stuck with needles and consider the situation of a parent who isn’t lucky enough to have access to this basic medical intervention and who can’t perform the basic duty of a parent to protect their child from a preventable catastrophe.

Today, my son is his normal bright and bounding self, picking up words here and there, and anything else he can get his hands on. I’ve never been happier to be home from a vacation in my life. Not only because of the comfort of familiarity after this experience, but also because what I come back to is this work we do at Acumen Fund. The work to bring basic, yet life-sustaining goods and services to people who can’t typically afford them. Whether it is access to emergency care from 1298 in Mumbai, or affordable maternal care in Hyderabad, or rural pharmacies in Kenya, or health insurance in Pakistan, basic healthcare for families should never be out of reach. No parent should have to watch helplessly while their child battles infection when a simple diagnosis and rehydration therapy is so simple and so effective. Getting to that point is not simple, but it is the work I come back to with great gratitude, both for my own circumstances, and for the privilege of doing my own small part to bring access to healthcare to other families.

“Once you don’t have it – that’s when you realize the value”

David Kuria, founder and CEO of Ecotact

When I first journeyed to Kenya in 2004, celebrating the launch of a public toilet facility was one of the last ways I imagined spending a Monday morning – or any morning (or afternoon, or evening), for that matter. In fact, unless I had enjoyed an elephant’s dose of mango juice and was on a 5 hour safari across the Great Rift Valley, I might not have had reason to celebrate a toilet at all.

Six years later, however, armed with the realization that an estimated 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation and 2.2 million die each year from water and sanitation related diseases, I now have billions of reasons to attend toilet parties, an emerging trend in the Nairobi slums thanks to David Kuria and Ecotact. So when the Acumen team received the invite to attend the launch of Ecotact’s 17th Ikotoilet facility last Monday, I practically ran for my dancing shoes.

Sitting under a small tent adjacent to the about-to-be-launched Kawangware Ikotoilet, Rob Katz and I listened eagerly with the 200-plus gatherers inside and spilling out the edges of the makeshift party hall. The crowd – a mix of residents, officials and journalists – engulfed the architecturally distinct Ikotoilet structure. It was clear that Acumen wouldn’t be dancing alone at this party.

The Minister of Public Health and Sanitation and the Chief Public Health Officer also showed up for the celebration. Given the honour of Chief Guests, they both made remarks before cutting the ribbon: this day marks the launch of a noble public-private partnership initiative, as we bring necessary services closer to the people and are no longer dependent on flying toilets.

Part of the media frenzy at the Ikotact launch event

The Kawangware facility is part of Ecotact’s newly implemented slum outreach model; it is now the second Ikotoilet in the informal communities of Kenya. And according to Kuria and the Minister, there will be more Ikotoilets in Kawangware in the near future – extremely exciting news for Acumen as a BoP investor!

Ecotact is experimenting with a school model in the slums as well. After cutting the ribbon at Kawangware – and being mobbed by reporters as she toured the facilities – Minister of Public Health and Sanitation and Kawangware MP Beth Mugo led a delegation to the Dagoretti Secondary School, about 10 minutes away from the new Ikotoilet.

Darogetti students meet Ecotact CEO David Kuria

The school’s 150 students currently use pit latrines. But with funding from the Solid House Foundation, Dagoretti will soon inaugurate a free-for-use Ikotoilet on site. What’s more, a biodigester will generate valuable methane gas, pumped from the toilet to the school’s kitchen.

With facilities in Nairobi’s central business district, city parks, slums and schools, Ecotact is tackling the sanitation problem here in Kenya on many fronts. As an investor and partner with Ecotact, Acumen Fund is eager to continue the celebration with Kuria and his team, as they grow from 17 facilities to a target of more than double that within the next year.

Bio:

Benje is currently a Portfolio Intern in the Agriculture and Energy portfolios in Acumen’s East Africa office. Prior to Acumen, Benje was a management consultant at TecnoServe in Kenya and at PwC in New York. He is currently starting several SMEs in the Nairobi slums, and holds a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.

One of HPS's biomass systems in action in Bihar.

Acumen Fund’s investment in HPS recognizes the considerable potential for financial and social return in the renewable energy space. 350 million rural Indian households remain unelectrified, with at least 25,000 villages being declared “economically impossible” to reach via conventional means by the Indian government. In turn, many villagers use kerosene lanterns for household light and diesel generators for irrigation and commercial power, while fuel purchases require them to make lengthy trips on foot. HPS’s biomass system offers several potential benefits for villagers, including: lower cost of energy, improved household income, time & energy savings, and health benefits from cleaner power generation.

Our investment in HPS’s biomass technology is an exciting addition to Acumen Fund’s existing Energy Portfolio, which includes solar-lantern manufacturer D.Light Design, and micro-hydro turbine manufacturer SHREY. Collectively, these enterprises are helping to make clean and affordable electricity a reality to rural families around the world.

For more information on Acumen Fund’s investment, please refer to the Husk investment page and the official press release.

Having read Acumen CEO Jacqueline Novogratz’s The Blue Sweater  in advance of the visit, the students welcomed Wei-Wei by perfoming a sketch they had written based on the book. Condensing Novogratz’s story into a series of key moments, the skit dramatized many of the book’s most touching and important events. Ending on a direct note, the sketch ends with the on-stage narrator saying:

“The blue sweater is a powerful symbol for the interconnectedness of all of us on the planet.
We believe that Jacqueline is a passionate change agent. By allowing those in poverty to find their own human dignity through playing an active role in their own success, breaks the cycle of poverty.”

Following the students’ performance, Wei-Wei spoke to them about patient capital, the path that led her to Acumen, and about other ways that they can continue to stay involved with Acumen Fund and the social enterprise sector.

Wei-Wei Speaks to Preston High School

As a follow-up to Wei-Wei’s visit, Preston’s religion department, as well as Compassion Connection, it’s service club, plan to begin using The Blue Sweater as part of their curricula.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

However, my most recent trip from Nairobi to Kitale gave me a whole new perspective. Instead of making my regular trip home, I was bringing the eyes of Acumen Fund from the office in Nairobi to the ground in Kitale. In Kenya, it’s easy to find stories of famine, poverty and political unrest in the newspaper or on television, but these issues become very real along this eight hour road trip.

In Kitale, I met many smallholder farmers. I took the photograph above at one of these very farms. My perception of the smallholder farmer has always been that of a person who not only has a small piece of land, but who also cuts costs by using the cheapest seeds and the cheapest fertilizer (if any at all). Essentially, he or she is a person concerned with growing just enough to feed the family.

But listening to smallholder farmers, whom I met down dusty roads deep in some of the most remote parts of Western Kenya, brought to light how wrong my perception of this farmer was. The farmers I met know exactly the type of seeds they plant, the variety appropriate for different types of altitudes and soil, the right season to plant particular varieties, and the way to get optimal yields from inputs. This farmer typically plants maize intercropped with beans, and some napier grass for his cow and for soil erosion control. You can hear the excitement in the farmers’ voices as they talk about the different hybrid seeds they are using and how this has improved their lives as a result of increased yields.

Farmers in this part of Kenya are well informed, and are willing to adopt any changes that maximize their yields, even if it involves spending up to $60 US dollars on inputs.

My trip made me think of Acumen’s target market and how we need to know their needs. Poor, under educated and underestimated they may be, but we are dealing with savvy customers who are aware of the benefits of improved inputs. They are willing to invest in resources that increase their income. I feel that the more complex question is not whether a seed variety is new or traditional, but whether this new variety is accepted or rejected by a farmer. When new varieties offer an increased yield to farmers they will be accepted, just as new varieties that do not will be rejected.

The farmer calls the shots, based on what he sees on the ground. He is informed and has a variety of choices, and with this comes dignity. He is not in the position of begging for handouts, but has a place at the bargaining table to listen to cases presented, alongside proof and make decisions. There is a need for us to connect such farmers to the right entrepreneur who can provide an appropriate product or service to fill this need. But first, Acumen must work to engage with this customer – by spending time understanding his immediate needs and behavior. Only through our own investment of time and energy will Acumen be able to invest in the best approaches to help smallholder farmers lift themselves out of poverty, one seed at a time.

This cost analysis hangs on a wall at in the Osembe Primary School, a concrete block building surrounded by rice fields not far from Lake Victoria.

It was created by the members of the school Health Club, a group of precocious young kids I would love to see become interns in Acumen’s Nairobi office someday. It is not hard to imagine these kids making the leap from “Simple Mathematics” to Acumen’s BACO analysis.

Osembe is part of a multi-year study run by CARE and several other organizations to evaluate the impact of providing sanitation and clean water in schools. Schools like Osembe receive new pit latrines, storage containers and chlorine to purify their well water.

There is considerable evidence that clean water and good latrines in schools dramatically improve child health and school attendance (a factor of both reduced illness and better privacy: a large percentage of girls drop out when they hit puberty for the simple reason that they don’t have a private latrine to use for hygiene). And yet fewer than 30% of primary schools in Kenya have proper latrine facilities or access to clean water. If you had limited resources to spend on improving water access, schools would be a smart place to start.

The trick from Acumen’s perspective is that most of our investments rely on provision of goods and services to customers who can pay for them. But what about school children? The Osembe poster demonstrates a solid grasp of economics and an obvious appreciation for the service, but how can we expect kids to pay for clean water?

Let’s set aside the most obvious solution – government funding – which is how schools are funded in most of the world. In Kenya, the government provides each primary school $13 per student per year to cover all facilities, staff, books, and everything else. (Meanwhile a single member of parliament is paid about the same amount that the budget allocates to 40 primary schools.) Since the government is not stepping up, organizations like Acumen need to find other approaches to deliver these services to the 18,000 public primary schools in Kenya.

As our Nairobi office explores the water sector here for investments, we have seen several business models that can help expand water and sanitation access to schools. Here are two examples:

- Outside of Nairobi, several organizations have installed community water kiosks at schools, which provide the water free to students but charge a fee to the surrounding community. The fee is approximately 3.75 cents per 20 liter jerrycan, similar to the 3 to 6 cents that Acumen investees WaterHealth International and EPGL charge per 20 liter jerrycan in India, and affordable to low-income communities. Schools already have a built-in management structure to help run the kiosks, and the model and pricing can be tweaked so that the revenues cover operating costs of the system (and potentially capital expenditures too).

- A company called Manna Energy is building small community water treatment plants and toilet facilities in Rwanda and placing them at schools. The resources are provided free to the school and surrounding villagers, but the company is setting up a creative carbon finance scheme where they receive and sell carbon credits for offsetting firewood that would otherwise be burned to boil water.

Before we left the Osembe primary school, each of the visitors was called to introduce himself to the assembled kids, who were lined up in a big semi-circle marked by small bushes – the equivalent of the gym bleachers where we gather for morning assembly in the States.

“Good morning!” I said when it was my turn.

“Good morning teacher!” they chorused in the call-and-response fashion common here.

“I am visiting from America. Do you know who the president of America is?”

(Laughter) “Barack Obama!” These kids are from the Luo tribe, like Obama’s father, and he is a local hero. They know more about our President than most American kids do.

“I’m sorry President Obama couldn’t join us today, but I do know for a fact that he treats his drinking water just like you do.”

The kids laughed again, recognizing that this was a stretch. Our drinking water in the States is indeed chlorinated like the water in Osembe’s storage containers. But they know very well that our President doesn’t have to draw it from a well, carry the jerrycan to school, fill a big storage drum, and dose it with liquid chlorine himself.

It was encouraging to see the value these children place on clean water. But they, and millions of students like them, will only have access to it if we can find sustainable models to pay for that service in schools. Clean water and good health will help get these kids through school, into college, and hopefully someday applying their “Simple Mathematics” skills to Acumen investments.

Although that development is still in a relatively early stage, there are 100 families living there today, a thriving primary school, a small general store and a secondary school in the works. KKB-4 is on the move. On my last trip in May I was happy to see the immense progress made in the few months since I had first visited. I could better imagine what it would be like when the housing plots were fully sold, the houses built, the shops and mosque opened—in short a real self-contained community.

On this trip, I was able to visit Khuda-ki-Basti 3 (KKB-3), a mature housing development outskirts of Karachi in which Acumen made a small investment several years back. KKB-3 (near Karachi) was the inspiration for KKB-4 (near Lahore) and are both brainchildren of Tasneem Siddiqui, the lead developer. I went with Shuaib Siddiqui (no relation), a Pakistani-American who has been working in our Karachi office for the last 18 months as a portfolio associate. Shuaib, along with Aun Rahman our Pakistan country leader, has become expert in the area of housing for the poor and is the relationship manager for our KKB-4 investment.

The drive to KKB-3 took about 45 minutes from Karachi center and when we arrived at the entrance, public buses plied the road. Other developments and commercial establishments crowded the area. Shuaib explained that, 8 years back when the development was just getting started, the area was a wasteland with virtually no roads or buildings.

We walked into the building which had originally been the sales office and now serves as a community center and management office. It was lined with photographs documenting the inception and progress of the development starting 8 years back. The original would-be buyers of land plots were required to live in temporary homes for two weeks before being accepted as buyers and members of the community. This procedure was designed to test their mettle as serious buyers and builders.

We then walked down the central artery of the development—I should say town because it is a teeming, vital town of 25,000. All of the plots have been sold and most have been built up with small single family homes. There is now a thriving secondary market in houses, as the improved land has shot up in value. Some of the poor laborers who were early buyers have sold at a substantial profit and have moved into a higher socio-economic class. Teachers and other professionals are starting to buy these houses and move in (real-estate prices in Karachi are sky-high and there is severely limited availability). And while most of the houses are very simple, a few have second and third floors and spectacular gardens.

We visited a primary school, one of 12 in the town; this one was built by The Citizens Foundation. The school was clean, open and attractive and requires a payment of a modest tuition fee. We visited briefly with the principal of the school who explained that because demand is so high, the school is run on a split session with half the students coming in the morning and half in the afternoon. Other primary schools in the town are even less expensive or free. When we visited later with the manager of the entire development, Akthar Sb, he explained that there is nearly 90% school attendance at the primary level—I had wondered aloud about this as there were many children walking about and playing during what seemed to me to be normal school hours. This was due to the split sessions, Akthar Sb explained.

However, the statistics for attendance at the secondary level drop off significantly, as many children in their early teens are expected to contribute to the family coffers. Given that school attendance is mandatory only until age 10, overcoming this attitude and getting parents to understand the value of secondary education is a long slow battle.

We visited a vocational school for older children and young adults, a clinic for women and children (which sold condoms on a prominently posted price list), a vet shop (mostly focused on goat care), a Catholic church, a vegetable farm, several small textile manufactures. We saw stores selling a vast variety of goods. We saw but did not visit several mosques. There are no banks are within KKB-3, but some can be found just outside in other developments which have sprung up close by.

In short an entire ecosystem has been formed out of empty land near a densely packed city with desperate housing shortage and an enormous population of poor residents. Those who have been able to make the leap now live in a community which provides access to their basic needs: clean water, power, sewage treatment, local government, education, health services and employment opportunities (1/3 of the residents of KKB-3 work within the town). Seeing possibility realized gave me hope and vision for our work at KKB-4, and a real sense of excitement for its future.

I recently visited Khuda Ki Basti 3, a low-income housing development 2 hours away from the city centre of Karachi. I first learned of Khuda Ki Basti (”God’s Settlement”) and the incremental development model when I met Tasneem Siddiqui of Saiban during a research project in 2005. I was ushered in an office by Mr. Siddiqui’s assistant (his only staff at the time) where he sat at his desk, shrouded by mountains of papers and books. Though he was extremely busy and seemingly understaffed, he made himself available to speak to me. Mr. Siddiqui is the sort of person who inspires people. Not because he is a great story teller with heart warming anecdotes that leave you with a good feeling. No, he is inspiring because he takes a no-nonsense approach to a problem that is colossal and overwhelming both in its scale and by its nature.

Without a piece of land on which you can raise your family, sleep at night and call your home, it is difficult to find the stability you need in your life to propel yourself forward. No one should be denied the opportunity to attain this stability and prosperity. Almost all people understand this. However there are very few people who will roll up their sleeves and try to get something done about it. This is especially true in an environment like Pakistan where public officials are a part of the problem, not solution. (Pakistan was ranked 134th out of 180 countries by Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index - which is not a good ranking.)

My report recognized that, without government cooperation, there is no method of scaling any successful models in housing. However, it also acknowledged the reality – that public sector solutions are usually public relations rhetoric within a larger political game. As a result, government-initiated projects do not often reflect the reality of the issues. For example, as has been documented by Saiban extensively, the age-old government approach of creating elaborate “sites and services” schemes in Pakistan ends up inflating the cost and price of housing far beyond the reach of base of the pyramid, and yet we continue to hear of initiatives based on this model.

In his inauguration speech at the National Assembly on 29th March 2008, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani announced his coalition government’s agenda, including a plan to build one million homes annually targeted towards the lower income sector. Such grandiose plans that are removed from the reality of the current and historical housing reality are not uncommon - especially when they come during times of crises (in this case both economic and political).

Tasneem Siddiqui is known internationally for his work in low-income housing - he has been the recipient of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, The Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service and nominated for several others. What is somewhat disheartening is that even today, despite his reputation and the successes (KKB has been replicated in three areas of Karachi and currently in the process of development in Lahore) of the incremental development model, government cooperation (in the form of subsidized land) remains the biggest bottleneck to solving the housing and squatter settlement crisis in Pakistan.

Though consultation with Mr. Siddiqui and Saiban is often part of protocol during various government-led initiatives, they have still not been able to get their model officially adopted. A Saiban employee told me that while officials praise Saiban’s efforts and achievements in the field during meetings and conferences, off-the-record discourses usually involve an official asking very plainly “Meray liye faida kahan hai?” (“Where is the benefit for me?”). It is easy to see how anyone with good intentions might be discouraged. But as the perseverance of Mr. Siddiqui, his colleagues at Saiban and of the residents of Khuda Ki Basti 3 demonstrated, determined ideals will get you long way.

In my next blog post, I’ll talk about how two of the earliest residents of KKB 3 and its very model taught me the meaning of patient capital. For now I’ll end on a note that nags at the back of my mind whenever I think of the achievements of Mr. Siddiqui in such an onerous environment. How much is the success of a movement dependent on its figure head? We at Acumen Fund like to talk about the sustainability of our advocacy for social change, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, how do you go about succession planning for revolutionaries – especially when it is their reputation and clout that opens doors in such a dramatically politicized environment like Pakistan?

As part of Acumen Fund’s monthly breakfast series, we were joined last Friday by Richard Allan, Director of the MENTOR (Malaria Emergency Technical and Operational Response) Initiative, who spoke about a thoughtful new technology for preventing malaria: insecticide-treated wall lining (shown at left, with a customer in the foreground). Imagine a flexible wall-lining that you can unroll in long sheets and attach to the inside walls of a home. Only it is impregnated with an insecticide that kills mosquitoes (and many other pests) on contact. A new company called DART (Durable Activated Residual Textiles), a joint venture between Richard, Acumen Fund, and Vestergaard Frandsen, will produce the product for distribution throughout malaria endemic regions Asia and Africa.

We’ve seen a lot of sexy, new product designs, and we’ve decided not to invest in most of them. So why are we so excited about this new wall lining (think wallpaper)?

For starters, it combines the best features of the two most popular malaria prevention products: the long-lasting insecticide-treated bednet and indoor residual spraying (IRS - this is where the interior walls of a home are sprayed periodically with insecticide). The best nets last about 5 years without needing re-treatment, but they require you to sleep underneath a net every night, which is a significant behavior change and a challenge for any distribution scheme. Indoor spraying requires no behavior change once the walls are sprayed. Unlike with nets, a family does not have to decide to sleep under protection; the spray ensures that they are naturally protected anytime they’re inside the home. Misuse is not really possible. However, the spray’s effectiveness only lasts about 6 months and there are complicated logistics and persuasion required to do the spraying in the first place.

Introducing wall lining. Wall lining will remain effective at least as long as bednets and likely longer, since it will likely see less wear and tear. And, like spraying, it does not require any behavior change once the walls are lined – if you’re in the home, you are protected. In this sense it is the best of both worlds – years of protection without the struggle to change people’s behavior.

Yet, beyond these technological advantages, the product seems to appeal to the customer better (at least as evidenced in early trials). Printed in many different colors and patterns, the wall lining is designed to appeal to the desire for beauty and home improvement that exists in all of us. Who wouldn’t want beautiful blue walls instead of the drab brown of sticks or mud? In fact, this is how Richard got the idea in the first place. In Cambodia, he noticed homes lined with wallpaper for purely aesthetic reasons. Why not combine the customer’s desire for beauty and home improvement with addressing a critical health issue?

Of course, there are many challenges ahead, but in a market dominated by multilateral & NGO distribution schemes, it is rare to see a product so thoughtfully designed with the customer in mind. With ~2 million deaths per year due to malaria and 1/4 of the world population living in malaria endemic regions, we owe it to the customers to design products that work for them but at the same time are as effective as possible.

We’re glad to see an Acumen Fund investee featured in the article, but what’s even better is to hear customers’ opinions of clean, professionally-managed sanitation facilities. And you can’t beat the photo, which is of an Ikotoilet facility on Aga Khan Walk.

Two weeks ago, I joined a group that included Aun Rahman, Acumen Fund Pakistan Country Director, Dr. Sono Khangarani and Saqib Khan, respectively the CEO and COO of Acumen Fund investee Micro Drip to visit Hyderabad in the Sindh region of Pakistan. Micro Drip sells drip irrigation systems to smallholder farmers in Pakistan (check out the company’s web site as well). My colleague Sasha Dichter took a similar trip earlier this year to a different part of Pakistan (Thar), and reflected on What It Means to be Patient: Drip Irrigation in Pakistan’s Thar Desert.

It was the Sunday before a 3-day Eid celebration, and the traffic leaving Karachi was noticeable, even to me (a Karachi novice). Then again, I couldn’t complain. Even the traffic in Pakistan is colorful, what with intricate designs adorning all manner of transport from the smallest rickshaws to buses and large-haul trucks.

But today, the color came not just from trucks, but from our non-human counterparts sitting in traffic. As part of the Eid celebration, families sacrifice an animal to share; as such, many vehicles were transporting goats and cows bound for slaughter; even camels played their part, pulling families along the highway. Later that evening, on our way home, I saw one guy in a rickshaw, his knees up to his chin as his feet rested on two goats, stacked atop one another on the floor of the rickshaw, much like one might stack up suitcases for a long family road trip.

I was eager for the road trip. It was a chance to get out of Karachi, where the inability to simply walk around freely must surely become stifling; it was also a chance to see more of Pakistan’s countryside. The day was facilitated very effectively by National Rural Support Program (NRSP). NRSP is (in Aun’s words) the ‘big brother’ of TharDeep Rural Development Program – the parent organization of Micro Drip – and has been providing agri-specific support to farmers for over 20 years.

In the past few years, NRSP has been offering micro-lending options in addition to agri-services, and the villages we met - like these farmers, pictured at left - with have organized around these micro-loans. The farmers that we met were not users of drip irrigation; in fact, the difficult task of selling drip systems to farmers was a key outcome of the meetings for me.

Many of these farmers have taken on loans between Rs10,000 and Rs30,000, and what we heard from them is that while these loans help them to operate without total dependence on a middle man – ‘Arti’ in Urdu – they barely cover the cost of inputs, let alone any of the other household costs the farmers incur on a daily basis.

Our objective for the day was simple: to listen to farmers. We wanted to hear directly their key concerns, constraints and cost burdens in order to gain a deeper understanding of where drip irrigation might play a role in increasing farm productivity. From a broader perspective, we were also interested in what we should be thinking about as Acumen Fund moves forward with our new agriculture portfolio. I can’t help thinking that my modest report is going to be complimented by a deeper and more colorful analysis in Jacqueline’s journal, so I’ll stick to facts and basics and attempt to relay the key insights we heard from these farmers.

The farmers are incredibly wise. Any solution that Micro Drip – or any other enterprise looking to solve the problems of smallholder ‘productivity’ – puts forward must be designed via an ongoing process of endless discussion with farmers. They know that drip irrigation needs a constant water supply; today, they are lucky to have access to flood irrigation from the canals once a week. Naturally, farmers are skeptical of drip’s impact.

They know that they are lucky to get 3 hours of electricity a day with which to pump the water from their wells, and even that they pay the landlord for – and it’s still cheaper than diesel. ‘Loadshedding’ has become such a common phenomenon throughout the rural areas that, despite the fact that they were speaking to us in their local Sindhi, the English word was common to all.

These farmers are keenly aware that, in 2008 alone, the price of inputs such as fertilizer has risen from Rs500 to Rs1300 on the black market despite the standard rate being Rs600. Their market access is limited to the back market through their historical relationships with Artis (middle men) leading them to hoard fertilizer, which in turn drives the price up more.

They know that even if their yields do increase, it’s often difficult to find a market for their product. This was confirmed in one village where we saw vast piles of cotton (pictured at left), brown and wasting because there was no one to buy, no where to sell. And finally, they know that the loans allow them to cover the costs of these inputs, but do not allow them to break the cycle of debt that the landlords and the Artis further entrench. If only the loans were larger, and the definition on ‘productivity’ broadened even a little, then they might be able to diversify their income sources, break their dependence on a crop that might easily be devastated by a flood or other natural disaster. A larger loan would allow them to buy new clothes, educate their children, pay for healthcare and truly improve their standard of living.

Dr. Sono knows the right questions to ask. He is in his element and it’s an honor to see him in action; he’s the only one of us who can speak directly to the farmers in Sindhi. The questions he asks all three villages get the same unanimous replies: 1) Do you think the cost of inputs is going to come down any time soon, if at all? No is the clear answer. 2) Do you think water will get any easier to get a hold of? Again, no is the immediate consensus. 3) What do you think is the best way to deal with these issues and allow you to become more productive? That, the farmers say, is the billion rupee question!

Dr. Sono discusses drip as an option, although he admits that without solving the bigger infrastructure question that would provide a more reliable water supply, it may not be the best solution for these farmers just yet.

One can’t help but be struck by the deepening and systemic tragedies Pakistan has fought throughout 2008: the continued lack of true leadership and the IMF intervention whose impact raises many more questions on the horizon. There are undoubtedly equally tough times are ahead here. But taking the time to listen to these farmers, to see Dr. Sono’s quiet manner of marketing with truth, and the deep seated commitment of the Acumen Fund Pakistan team (who are all complete rock stars) as well as the commitment I’ve witnessed this week from Jacqueline, Aun, Hunter Boll and Stuart Davidson, I feel a warming sense of hope that by partnering with and learning from local entrepreneurs like Dr. Sono, we might just gain the insights and the humility to give more farmers what they really need: the ability to determine their own definition of productivity and the dignity of providing for themselves.

The conversation began with investees discussing shared challenges and the solutions/innovations they’re bringing to market. There was a powerful energy and momentum at the table, with each entrepreneur doing what they do best: seeking opportunity. Ideas and connections were fast and frequent: selling nutritional porridge at public toilets, liking micro-health insurance schemes to low-cost health care providers, using microfinance institutions to help organize farmers for pharmaceutical production…you get the idea.

It was exciting to watch these entrepreneurs use a simple platform to connect, share and explore collaborative opportunities. There was a clear hunger for such a forum on behalf of the investees, and when we had to call the event to a close, several members asked to make such meetings a regular occurrence.

There are lessons being learned every day in each of these ventures and there are real opportunities to for investees to work together in serving the base of the pyramid. Over the coming year, the Acumen Fund East Africa office looks forward to facilitating more of these conversations and learning from the commonalities, differences, and connections between this inspiring group of entrepreneurs.