Kenya

Acumen Fund is excited to announce two new investments, both in the field of eye care. PVRI (Pushpagiri Vitreo Retina Institute) based outside Hyderabad, India, and UHEAL (Upper Hill Eye and Laster Centre), in Kenya, both focus on specific forms of preventable ocular damage.  With similar business models and parallel aims, through our investment in these complementary enterprises, Acumen Fund seeks to identify and and share best practices across continents, while building an effective model for delivering eye care to the poor.

Loss of eye sight has a tremendous economic and social impact on low-income families, eliminating the ability of at least one member to earn an income, and often requiring substantial assistance from at least one other family member. Its prevalence is in large measure a symptom of underlying challenges related to poor nutrition, lack of access to timely diagnostic screening, and the unavailability of appropriate treatment.

Using its flagship hospital in Secunderabad (near Hyderabad) as a hub, PVRI has provided outreach clinics, mobile screening units, and treatment camps in rural areas throughout the region, as well as in-house care to thousands. With the investment by the Acumen Fund, PVRI will be building two additional hospitals and corresponding expansion of outreach units. Gori Hari, CEO of PVRI, notes that the the expansion will allow PVRI to treat “450,000 patients through surgeries or procedures and screen a million patients over 10 years, as well as conduct 1800 camps to screen an additional 450,000 patients.”

Founded by Dr. Kibata Githeko, an opthalmologist specializing in pediatrics and retina care, UHEAL has operated mobile eye units throughout the region to counter long waits endemic in eye care. With Acumen Fund’s investment it will now be able to expand, operating fifteen camps a year, specifically to screen for diabetic retinopathy and to provide non-invasive and laser-based treatments, general eye examinations, as well as some follow-up care.

UHEAL and Acumen will experiment with different pricing models to find the right balance between financial sustainability and social impact, while PVRI will subsidize eye care to low-income communities by charging higher margins to high-income consumers.

The parallel investments will provide added value in the form of shared learnings. As Varun Sahni, the India Director for Acumen Fund has recently noted, “Having two investments with similar models for delivering advanced eye care to the poor creates a unique opportunity for collaboration, and we look forward to sharing best practices across geographies as we work to bring these solutions to scale.”

Arvind Gopal is a Columbia Business School student working with the East Africa Agriculture Portfolio Team this summer. At Columbia, he has focused on international development. He is currently VP of Investments for Microlumbia, a student-run fund focused on making debt investments in microfinance organizations. Additionally, he provided consulting advice to Broad Cove Partners, a Boston-based social venture fund, on a potential investment opportunity in a Liberian mortgage finance business. Prior to business school, Arvind held various positions in the U.S. and Singapore. He worked in New York in investment banking at Bear Stearns, before moving to Lightyear Capital, a private equity firm focused on the financial services sector. In Singapore he worked at Argus Software, a real estate software provider, guiding their business development in Asia.

I have spent the past few weeks researching the agriculture market in Kenya with the objective of identifying sustainable business models that could help the country’s ~6 million smallholder farmers and their families (~30m people), most of whom live in extreme or near extreme poverty. One of the largest bottlenecks in the agriculture supply chain is access to credit. A survey conducted in 2007 by the Tegemeo Research Institute of Agriculture Policy and Development revealed that only 30% of the country’s smallholder farmers have access to any kind of credit. After several visits to farmers across the country, I began to understand this reality. Formal financial institutions are between 30 km and 50 km away from the farms and in many cases, will not lend to the farmers I interviewed. As a result, the majority of these farmers receive credit through either input providers (fertilizer and seed companies) or informal groups. The credit available through these channels is usually small and short term and limits farmers’ investments in the essential ingredients needed to increase their productivity. Based on this information, I decided to take a deeper look on why microfinance institutions have had such a limited impact in the agriculture sector. I found some interesting data points, both from a global and East Africa perspective.

Microfinance has received a lot of attention over the past few years and rightfully so. Since Muhammad Yunus started the Grameen Bank in 1976, microfinance has helped millions of people access credit across the developing world. In 2006 alone, over 100 million micro-borrowers accessed about US$25 billion in loans (Deutsche Bank Microfinance Report, December 2007). The industry has even shown surprising resilience to the global financial crisis, which has brought down some the world’s largest financial institutions.

While the success of microfinance is undisputable, a huge funding gap remains and the market is still substantially underserved (market demand is estimated at over 1 billion borrowers world wide). A part of this gap will be filled with the growth of the current microfinance model, but we will also need new innovative approaches in order to provide access to rest of the BoP. The dominant microfinance models of today depend on small, short-term and high interest rate loans to assure strong repayments and cover operating costs. Some key success factors for this model include higher population densities and portfolio diversification. In contrast, much of today’s poor lives in rural areas and relies mostly on agriculture to generate income. These borrowers typically need larger loans with longer durations that coincide with crop cycles. Additionally, the returns generated by farmers are lower than that of micro-enterprises, and high interest rates of 2% to 4% per month erode farmers’ incomes, causing them to become trapped in poverty. These loans are inherently riskier to microfinance institutions because they are longer in duration, sensitive to weather conditions and international food prices, and limit loan diversification. Considerable agriculture expertise is needed to due-diligence loan applicants, monitor existing loans and train farmers on best practices including negotiating input prices and finding markets for their products.

In Kenya, the microfinance model has been very successful in urban areas – enough so that commercial banks are now reentering the high-end of the microfinance market as they recognize the income-generating potential and stability of this group. However, only 0.8% of smallholder farmers have access to credit through microfinance institutions — surprisingly, more farmers access credit through commercial banks (about 1%) than microfinance institutions. Equity Bank, a Kenyan commercial bank focused on the lower-income population, has made some inroads in rural areas through innovative approaches like mobile banking that have reduced the costs of conducting business in sparsely populated areas and allowed it to disburse longer-term loans at 1% monthly interest rates. However, most of their loans target rural enterprises and not farmers. Almost all the farmers, research analysts and MFI consultants I spoke with agreed that a better system has to be developed in order to reach the majority of small farmers.

Microfinance organizations, commercial banks, government organizations and NGOs in Kenya have all spent considerable time trying to develop a model that effectively targets the agriculture sector. As a result, a few innovative approaches that have focused on asset leasing and microfinance linkages with other parts of the agriculture value chain such as input providers and distributors of agriculture products have emerged in recent years. While these strategies are still in their early stages, the models are likely to address the limitations of today’s microfinance institutions and could provide future investment opportunities for Acumen Fund and others in this space.

Bekezela Ncube is a Summer Portfolio Associate in the East Africa office of  Acumen Fund. She is pursuing a joint MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to graduate school, Beke was a Senior Regional Analyst at the Clinton Foundation on the Laboratory Services Team where she provided technical assistance on developing HIV lab systems to governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Before that, Beke worked in Finance Consulting at CRA International and in Equity Research at Sanford Bernstein, where she covered large-cap banks and consumer finance companies.  She holds a BA with honors in Economics from Harvard University.

The abject and glacial dismay brought on by a 6am alarm clock going off is possibly the Worst Feeling in the World. Waking to that feeling, I reach for that mysterious store of resilience known as “the will to get out of bed,” I shower through a fog of denial, anger and sleepy disbelief. It’s only when I brush my teeth and the shock of raw Listerine hits my mouth cavity that I am sledge-hammered awake by the force of Tartar Control.

Today is the day of my first outreach observation, and I curse my self-crafted Workplan, where I eagerly detailed to my supervisor how I would try to understand the market for mobile eye care services partly by observing eye camps. This morning, I am joining the PCEA Kikuyu Hospital outreach team as they travel about 30 kilometers off-site to examine patients without the money or ability to travel to the hospital. They will deliver eye care, orthopedic, and diabetic diagnoses to a community that has been prepared in advance for their visit. While the Kikuyu mobile eye care team’s mission is mainly to find and remove cataracts, I am there to research the potential for camps targeting Diabetic Retinopathy, a disease that can result in severe vision loss or even blindness.

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) occurs when abnormal new blood vessels grow on the surface of the retina and, because their walls are thin and fragile, burst and leak blood. It is the leaking of the blood vessels that causes blindness. Vision loss, however, is preventable by a simple procedure that uses a laser to burn off the proliferated blood vessels. Unfortunately, many patients seek care only when retinopathy is advanced and it is too late to operate.

The extent of DR in Kenya is not well-known, but the eye doctors at Kikuyu are alarmed at the number of patients with DR who come to their facilities. Dr Kibata, one of the specialists working with PCEA, is particularly keen to raise public awareness of the disease and find patients before the disease advances beyond his ability to help. On the day of my early start, I have to make a 35 kilometer trip to Kikuyu so that I can join their outreach team.

After a remarkably traffic-free drive of 45 minutes, I arrive at 7:55am at Kikuyu for my strict 8am appointment time. I make a phone call. The 6am despair again slides down my throat and settles in my small intestine when my contact, Macharia, drops it to me that he’ll be with me “in 20 minutes.”

20 minutes?!

As every living human knows, the insane alchemy of time-before-10am means that Mr. Macharia has deprived me of the equivalent of 2 hours prep / dream / shower time. I swallow. I forgive him. Magnanimously. When Macharia shows up 35 minutes later, he tells me he was up all night taking a sick colleague to the hospital. Ok.

Like scavenger hunters, we assemble the team piece-by-piece, picking up some from the Eye Care Unit (Margaret and Faith), others from Rehab (Jackie and Edward), and a lone ranger from Diabetes (Jane). Macharia is clearly their leader and cheer-leader, energizing us all like a vocal Red Bull. More motivational than Caesar, he rallies us to throw off grumpy sleepiness and get excited about finding cataracts.

Our destination is Renguti Women’s Guild Dispensary, a church organization affiliated with the Presbyterian hospital we are driving from. When we pull into the (wrong) gate, we are met with the sight of clusters of mostly women sitting on the grass, indifferent to the tender morning sun as only people who live near the Equator can be. Faces expressionless, they have mastered the infinite patience that the Hollywood Martial Arts Disciple climbs arduous mountains to achieve. Even after we keep them waiting while our hosts welcome us with compulsory morning tea, there are no clucks of indignation or a sense of “hurry-up.”

Eventually, after a prayer-service-cum-educational-talk during which I admire Jane’s exhortative charisma, camp stations are set up. I lurk as others work and try to be helpful (I am not). Ridiculous surfer sunglasses already give me up as an outsider, but nothing makes me more self-conscious than not being able to understand the rapid Kikuyu tumbling over rolling tongues around me. Stripped of the ability to understand human speech, I have become truly stupid. An ancient lady with a mature cataract sits down next to me as I perch on a bench next to Jane’s Diabetes station. Her only recompense for her relentless attempt to talk to me is an ever-more-desperate blank grin. I am a deaf-mute maniac. I start taking notes at a feverish pace, and find any excuse I can to snap photographs of the professionals at work.

At lunch time there is no break to eat, but I do need to use the toilet. It’s a long drop. I’m grateful that after the deed there is a tap of running water for washing hands. The little girl that shows me (village idiot) how to turn it on and off is rewarded with a toffee. The other kid that shows up as I fish around in my bag is rewarded for her opportunism and great sense of timing.

The orthopedic exam room is a genteel place, detached from the congregation of the diabetic and eye exam hall. Nestled here in case any patient needs privacy as their bones are poked and prodded, the sanctuary of Jackie and Edwards’s orthopedic exam room is appropriately housed in the church vestry. My fairy grandmother shows up again assertively stomping her foot at James to demonstrate her pains. He gently folds back her skirt hem to reveal her strong legs, unmarred by unsightly veins or spots. When she goes to Jackie for her prescribed creams, she looks at me repeatedly. Jackie is too kind to tell me what she is saying. I scribble at my note pad.

At about 3pm, all patients have been seen and camp supplies are packed away. As we munch on a well-deserved bag of banana chips, a solitary late-comer sidles up to Macharia, complaining of pain in his leg. Edward gamely unpacks his box of creams and makes gentle ministrations of the offending limb while the rest of us pile into the van, jokingly threatening to leave him behind. When he’s done, we tally the day’s work. In 4 hours, the mobile camp has seen over 100 different patients, and dispensed dozens of medications. Itchy eyes have been soothed, painful muscles relieved, and even cataract surgeries booked. Although I had nothing to do with any of it, it was a privilege to watch Macharia and his team in action. At the end of it all, I’m glad I got out of bed today.

Julia is a summer associate in the East Africa office for Acumen Fund working in the energy portfolio. He is also a second year MBA student at Columbia Business School where she is an active member of the Social Enterprise Program and co-director of Pangea Advisors. Prior to Columbia, she worked for four years at KPMG Advisory where she advised private equity firms in their investments in Madrid, London and various international offices. Julia received a diploma in Business Studies from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid.

“Pata stima, lipa pole-pole” (swahili) means “Find electricity, pay slowly”. This advertising campaign can be found in newspapers and on bill boards all around Kenya.  The campaign promotes a joint initiative of KPLC (the state-owned energy distributor) and Equity Bank to provide loans to those low income consumers willing to get connected to the grid but unable to pay the full $660 fee up-front.

These types of measures are much needed in Kenya. It is widely understood that Kenya has an under-developed energy sector, with insufficient power supply and low demand. But it is not until one experiences the power outages that one realizes how much urgent action is needed. Kenya energy per capita consumption is around 130 Kwh which is 18 times below the world average and only 15.3% of the population has energy access, falling to 3.8% in rural areas.

Biomass energy accounts for about 70% of all energy consumed while petroleum and electricity account for only 21% and 9%, respectively. Hydro Power constitutes 71% of this capacity and is mainly provided by the state-owned generator company, Ken Gen. Independent Power Producers (IPPs) have not had historically a relevant role in the market, but this trend is changing with the current liberalization of the sector. Current power deficit is aggravated by the deforestation of the Mau Forest and the closure of the Masinga hydro power plant due to drought.  Drought is on-going in Kenya and other hydro power dams may soon face closure as well.

But not everything is bad news, as a summer associate at Acumen Fund, I feel lucky to be here to live a moment of transformation in the sector.  Transformation has taken place from both the public and the private sector side. The public sector has realized the importance of bringing the private sector on-board and has announced a feed-in-tariff in which KPLC will sign a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) and pay a tariff to those IPPs operating wind, hydro and biomass technologies selling power to the grid. This new incentive will help many projects become commercially viable. On the private sector side, there has been an increase in the interest of producing energy and of improving access for low income communities. It is encouraging to see that, despite not having any government incentive or subsidy, solar companies are exploring products, financial schemes and distribution networks to reach rural areas and/or low income consumers.

In the one month that I have spent at Acumen in Nairobi, I have dedicated half of my time to conduct research of the energy sector and talked to all types of players in the industry from the regulatory body, the UN, the International Finance Corporation, IPPs and potential entrepreneurs and I have learned a great deal about the sector along the way. The other half of my time has been spent analyzing potential investment opportunities for Acumen. These have been memorable experiences and I will always remember the emotion on the face of an entrepreneur as he signed the PPA for his small hydro power plant.

Acumen has tremendous opportunity in the energy sector in East Africa, although it doesn’t lack important challenges. Amongst them, ensuring that the private sector initiatives effectively reach low income communities and are not just driven by the new economic incentives, addressing the real energy needs of the low income consumers with appropriate strategies, and sorting out the necessary financing and distribution. A long way forward, but for sure Acumen has energy for that and for more!

Let me congratulate Acumen investee David Kuria, founder of Ecotact, for being named the African Social Entrepreneur of the Year for 2009 by the World Economic Forum! This is fantastic recognition for David and his team’s work on bringing affordable, high quality sanitation services to thousands of people every day. Currently, Ecotact serves more than 9,000 customers daily through 10 toilets operated throughout the city of Nairobi, Kenya and other nearby locations. The toilets cost 5 shillings per use, though individuals also can pay a bit more to take a shower in a clean environment – a real luxury for thousands who travel into the city from the slums and far-flung rural areas to work in offices after long, dusty bus ride. Ecotact is showing that public-private partnerships can work on behalf of all people and we are proud to be a part of this effort.

Generally, when I do the road trip from Nairobi into Western Kenya, I stay up late the night before so I can snooze during the journey. I sleep because I’ve taken the trip too many times to count – besides, it’s often a bumpy and dusty ride.

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.

Updated March 31, 2009: The application period for the East Africa Leader position has ended. Thank you for your interest in Acumen Fund!

Acumen Fund is currently in search of an experienced individual to join our East Africa team in Nairobi as the East Africa Leader. The PDF version of the job description can be found on the Work with Acumen page.

The East Africa Leader is a senior role within Acumen Fund, requiring collaboration with our Chief Investment Officer and Chief Administrative Officer. The Leader’s main responsibilities will include, but will not be limited, to developing and managing our presence in the East Africa region, developing and managing the staff in our East Africa office as well as working closely with our Business Development team to identify, cultivate and secure partner and corporate contributions in the region

If you or someone you know is interested in the position, please visit the site to learn more.

“The toilet is a godsend” says Maurice Kirimi, a 29-year old Kenyan interviewed in line outside an Ecotact Ikotoilet last week. Maurice’s comments - along with a handful of other customers’ - were featured in an article that appeared in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper about new, pay-per-use public toilets. Entitled “Public toilets no longer filthy dens but gleaming havens,” the article discusses pricing (5 KSh for the toilets - about $0.06 USD; 10 KSh for a shower - about $0.12 USD) and customer satisfaction.

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.

I write from Nairobi, where people have been dancing in the streets on this historic day of America’s inauguration of its first African-American president, Barack Obama. The Kenyans we’ve met have called him their brother, their son, and even the Second Coming. “He will bring the fighting countries close and end the wars,” a man told me while we were in Kibera, one of this city’s largest slums.

Though expectations of President Obama may be impossibly high, this inauguration has brought the entire world together for a brief moment of unity, hope and inspiration. I couldn’t have felt prouder to be an American, to feel so connected to Kenya, to believe more strongly today than ever that we can all become global citizens in the truest sense of the word. 

President Obama’s speech carried so many themes that lie at the core of Acumen Fund’s mission.  He promised more compassion for those who are suffering in the developing world, and recognized the power - and limitations - of markets, urging a new level of innovation and creativity as we solve the problems ahead. 

Barack Obama’s vision is soaring and powerful, and he will need each and everyone of us, regardless in which country we live, to succeed.  We at Acumen Fund will do all that we can to help and will do so with determined optimism and renewed effort. 

Yes. We. Can…..

What should be the primary motive of a Social Enterprise - Maximizing social impact or ensuring enterprise sustainability or both? The debate is still on but I do sense this growing tendency amongst many of us (including me) to be more concerned with enterprise sustainability. We believe that if the enterprise is made sustainable, then it’s ability to create social impact automatically goes up. Nothing wrong with that, but shouldn’t we also be thinking of the of the “social” side of the enterprise?

The other day David Kuria, the founder CEO of Ecotact, walked into office and said, “Suraj! We need to do a demographic based study to understand people’s behaviour around accessing a toilet. We need to ensure that everybody can access a Ikotoilet!” (the pay-per-use toilet facilities built by Ecotact are branded as “Ikotoilet”)

My immediate thoughts - “We are already building toilets and maintaining them. We are already providing access to all. Why do we need to do a study? What more could we do? We have so many more toilets to build, so many systems and processes to put in place as we scale up and grow the Ikotoilet presence in other parts of Kenya.  More importantly should we be spending our already stretched out resources on doing a study? That too now?”

David continued - “For hygienic reasons all our Ikotoilet facilities have asian-style toilets but are asian style toilets comfortable for old people, pregnant women or for people with joint pains who find it difficult to squat?”

Very valid question which had honestly never crossed my mind.  While, my thinking continued to be around - do old people, pregnant women and people with joint pain constitute a large enough population to justify re-design of our toilets, David’s thinking was totally committed to improving access to toilets for everbody. I could sense my initial thoughts and questions melting and a sense of awe taking over in my head as I saw David deeply thinking of the “social” side of the enterprise.

(Kindly note that every Ikotoilet facility already has provisions for the disabled)

Editor’s note: Guest blogger Linda Segre is Managing Director of Google.org. Full disclosure: Google.org is an Acumen Fund Leadership Partner.

By Linda Segre

In many ways, Wednesday, November 5 was like any other day at the office. I came into work, powered on my computer, grabbed a coffee, and sat down to start the day. As usual, a host of unread e-mails awaited me. But that’s where my day ceased to be usual and instead, became truly memorable.

Innocuously nestled in with all the other messages was a note from Samuel Onyango. I first met Samuel in 2006, while traveling in Kenya with Acumen Fund’s CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz. That day, Jacqueline and I left Nairobi for western Kenya, where one of Acumen’s investments, Advanced Bio-Extracts, operates. Advanced Bio-Extracts is a for-profit company that processes raw Artemisia annua into artemisinin, the active ingredient in Coartem - one of the world’s most effective anti-malarial drugs.

ABE doesn’t source the raw Artemisia annua from just anywhere, however - they’ve invested in farmers who grow the plant and sell their yields to ABE. One such farmer is Samuel Onyango; I had the honor of meeting him and hearing about how his lifestyle had improved once ABE began to buy his Artemisia.

In January this year, I received an e-mail from Samuel - the post-election violence in Kenya had made its way to his small farm; looters and rioters had burned his house and fields.

It’s amazing how much has changed in just a few short months. Two Wednesdays back, I heard from Samuel again. His e-mail radiated hope, and brought a tear of joy to my eyes. I won’t do Samuel the injustice of trying to summarize his e-mail; instead, I’ll copy it in its entirety below:

Dear Linda, I take this special opportunity to congratulate you and the entire population of America as you celebrate the victory of your new president. Whether you supported John McCain or Barack Obama, the victory that has been achieved is the victory for the whole of America, the victory of Kenya and a victory of the whole world. Barack Obama, being a son of a Kenyan father, has made as Kenyans proud for having produced the president of the most powerful nation in the world. To that effect, the president of Kenya, H.E. Honorable Mwai Kibaki has announced that tomorrow - Thursday - will be a public holiday so that we can celebrate the Obama victory, unlike in January when he himself was controversially declared the winner, and instead of celebrating we went to war. Your elections and Obama’s victory are big lessons for us. Linda, I am so excited by Obama’s victory. Not only because he comes from Kenya, and not only because he is black, but because Onyango Husain Obama - the grandfather to Obama - and Rebecca Abongo Obama - my own grandmother - ware a brother and a sister. I have never met Barack nor will I. But I am humbled and feel greatly honored that a man who shares some blood with me is indeed today the most powerful man in the world. May God bless you. May God bless America. May God bless Kenya and may God bless ABE. I hope and pray that he will make America and Americans greater. I am praying and hoping that he will make your life more comfortable and make you proud to be an American. Thank you so much as we celebrate, SAMUEL FROM KENYA.