water

Sangeeta Chowdhry is Acumen Fund’s Ripple Effect manager. The India phase of  Ripple Effect included pilot programs by 5 organizations, the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation among them.

The Ripple Effect project presented the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation (JBF) in the Thar desert of Rajasthan with quite a challenge: Improve access to safe drinking water in the area in just 8 weeks. Not only did they meet this challenge but they went a step further - and added an additional goal – to create livelihood opportunities for women in the process!

The story of JBF is an inspiring one — as can be seen in this recent coverage on Indian television. For a start, the challenges addressed are not small. The project began in a region with highly saline ground water, rainfall of no more than 10-50 cm per year and temperatures of over 50C (over 110 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer. A few years ago, in an attempt to bring high quality, affordable water to the community, they had launched one reverse osmosis plant in Pachpadra village. While the plant was successful in providing safe drinking water at reasonable prices to customers who came to the plant, those customers had to walk around 2km to do so. JBF struggled to make it a sustainable business that reached larger numbers of people who could not travel the distance.

With the help of a small grant of $15,000 and business coaching provided by the Ripple Effect team, JBF created a viable water distribution business model that addressed these challenges. They established water outlets in villages that are managed and owned by women from local self-help groups (SHG), and also increased water sales from the plant itself.

Critical to the long-term impact of the Ripple Effect project, work was also done to make these advances sustainable. Work was done with JBF to understand the unit economics of the operation.  Once it was understood how much water needed to be sold per day, it became a matter of developing a strategy that would lead to multiple sales channels – wholesale to tankers and retail to individuals from the plant in addition to sales to and from the local outlets. Pricing models were then created to support this business plan.

This planning was essential but JBF’s commitment and enthusiasm was what really took this Pilot on to achieve results. In a span of the 8 short weeks of the Ripple Effect Pilot Project, JBF trained SHG members in business management; established four water outlets managed by the women entrepreneurs; improved the infrastructure of the treatment plant to fill a water tanker in 15 minutes instead of the typical 2 hours; created business plans for the main plant and the outlets and executed aggressive awareness campaigns in the village of benefits of safe water.

This careful planning, passion and commitment has reaped results that can serve as a viable delivery model in rural parts of India.  The water sale from the plant increased from an average of 2000 liters per day to 16,000 liters per day and the distance walked to fetch the water was reduced from 2 km to under 500m. Most significant, however, is that women operating the outlets are earning a living from their micro-enterprises and that, compared to a few short months before, thousands more people now have safe drinking water available.

Jal Bhagirathi Foundation has now turned over the running of the plant and it’s operations to the local village body, and is now planning to replicate the success of Pachpadra in 13 more villages in Rajasthan.

See more on this remarkable project here on local TV news:

Toilet talk may be taboo in most professional situations, but at World Water Week, toilets were a hot topic.

For those unfamiliar with World Water Week, it is an annual meeting of water experts, practitioners and leaders from around the globe to discuss the world’s most urgent water issues. This year’s meeting was held August 16-21 in Stockholm, and ideas were exchanged on many water-related topics, ranging from water management practices to sustainable business models to research on health impacts to policy.  (For those interested, presentations from the event can be downloaded for free here).

This year saw a number of sessions focused on sanitation (a.k.a. toilets). The raw statistics around sanitation are shocking: 2.4 billion people (more than 1/3 of the world’s population) lack access to adequate toilet facilities. One in five children dies of diarrheal diseases, and 88% of diarrhea cases are caused by either unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation or poor hygiene.

Sanitation challenges are intimately linked with the lack of infrastructure investments in rural areas and informal settlements and slums, but solutions are emerging that can be applied by individuals and communities without a need to rely on large-scale centralized investments. It was encouraging to see entrepreneurs developing models for improving access to safe, hygienic toilets that can be distributed widely at affordable prices.

Dr. Brindeshwar Pathak, a sanitation innovator who founded the Sulabh Sanitation Movement, was the most prominent example: he was awarded the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize for his pioneering work in developing cost-effective toilet solutions and his work to change social attitudes toward unsanitary latrine practices. The scale of Sulabh is truly impressive, and the preservation of human dignity lies at the core of their work.

Another, earlier stage, example that stood out to me was Bapak Sumadi, an entrepreneur in Indonesia, a country where 66 million people practice open defecation. Mr. Sumadi has developed an innovative business strategy around direct sales of latrines: he’s segmented his market and has priced four different levels of products (ranging from $18 - $85); he’s branded each model with a catchy name and designed them to be upgradeable; he offers flexible payment terms and after-sales services (e.g., pit-emptying).  While it remains to be seen whether the model will be able to scale, it is encouraging to see promise in these enterprising, consumer-focused approaches to challenging one of the world’s biggest problems.

The conference was a valuable opportunity to identify business models and make contacts that can help us as we continue to invest in this sector.

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

Ripple Effect team presenting at the conference

The Ripple Effect team marked the end of the successful India phase of the project by attending and presenting at the recently concluded Water Summit 2009 conference held in New Delhi.

The summit had an excellent turnout with over 150 attendees and speakers representing multiple stakeholders from the water sector in India. These included senior representatives from the Government of India, NGOs, World Economic Forum, UNDP, USAID, SDC, private sector, as well as various State Water Boards and financial institutions.

An introduction to the Ripple Effect project was made by Acumen Fund and IDEO, followed by presentations from four of the organizations running the pilot projects – Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, Naandi Foundation, Piramal Foundation and Water Health India.

All the presentations were very well received by the attendees, who also provided valuable feedback to us. In particular, the technology based work of Piramal and Naandi was complimented by several members of the audience. It was mentioned that while similar ideas had been implemented elsewhere, (eg. by Mother Dairy in India), this approach had not been tested in the water sector until now. One audience member commented that successful projects like they had seen within the Ripple Effect, should be linked to the public sector through policy interventions, in order to reach even greater scale. Yet another, from an international NGO, suggested starting a Ripple Effect like project in sanitation.

Jal Bhagirathi water outlet

During the pilot presentations, Jal Bhagirathi spoke of the successes it had achieved through their public-private-community partnerships model. Their reverse osmosis plant was now selling water to newly established remote water outlets, owned and managed by the community members. The project resulted in improved availability of safe drinking water while providing opportunities for livelihood generation for the women in the village. As a result of this project, the volume of water sold from their reverse osmosis plant, had increased from an average 2000 liters a day to 12,000 liters per day. The location of the outlets had resulted in reducing the distance of access to water from 2 km to under 0.5 km for the community.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

At a conference last week, I had the pleasure of meeting with Jeff Seabright, Coca-Cola’s Vice President for Environment and Water. He spoke about the company’s policy to reach a water neutral footprint. In other words, for every liter of water Coke extracts from aquifers, it will take action to replenish the earth’s water supply. In some areas, the company is planting trees; in other communities, it is providing drip irrigation to farmers who otherwise would use flood irrigation to water their crops.

This is a thrilling initiative. First, it underscores to me that many of the world’s new standards are likely going to come from corporations who increasingly see themselves as global citizens. Of course, regulation is critical – and I am not naïve about the damage multi-national corporations can cause to the environment. But this is an important step forward, and I do believe that young people especially will hold companies to a higher standard of behavior and the smartest companies will stay ahead of this curve.

This initiative also excites me because it may provide an algorithm not only for corporations but for all of us. What would it take to influence our individual behavior so that we took the attitude that we give back to the world what we take out of it? We now have sophisticated tools to measure our carbon footprint – therefore, we know what steps could be taken to offset it. The same calculations can be done for water.

We could take this further as well, for example, around luxury consumption. What if we each created some sort of match for ourselves, whereby we would contribute to organizations fighting poverty in proportion for what we spend on luxury consumption? In other words, we would not “charge ourselves” for what we think we need in terms of the essentials (and this figure may vary widely according to overall income, of course). But we might contribute to charity at a rate connected to the very non-essential – not only to make us think about what we’re consuming but also create a different kind of redistribution that would be encouraged not by government taxation but by an individual’s own – but perhaps shared – moral code.

In the early years of Acumen Fund, one of our Partners told me that he was considering buying a Lexus when it hit him that he could, instead, buy a good (but less expensive) car, and give the difference to Acumen Fund. Years later, that gift is one of the most meaningful to me. I saw the partner recently and he told me that after seven years, he’s still driving the car and that every now and then, he smiles to himself thinking about the meaning the particular car enabled him to create. There’s something to this idea…

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.

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.

Acumen Fund investee WaterHealth International (WHI) announced earlier this week that it had closed a $15M round of financing from the International Finance Corporation. The financing - combined with WaterHealth’s Series D round of funding - will enable the company to bring purified, disinfected water to 3 million more people in more than 600 Indian villages (in addition to the 200 in which they currently operate).

Naturally, we at Acumen Fund are excited to see WaterHealth continue to grow up and out, serving more and more base of the pyramid customers with a critical service. But what’s even more interesting - and encouraging - is the range of co-investors that have stepped forward to support WHI. There’s Dow Venture Capital and SAIL Venture Partners; Johnson & Johnson Development and Plebys International; Dr. Anji Reddy and Acumen Fund. And now, with another huge commitment, the IFC.

We believe in building systems rather than one-off solutions or projects. Who doesn’t? Unfortunately, the process of international development aid grantmaking and monitoring seems to lend itself better to “new” and “pilot” projects - a grant to support something “innovative” or “paradigm-shifting” has a better chance of winning than one to support a “small, struggling - but growing - business”. Donors tire of the same old, boring projects - they want new ideas! - and funds shift around to the cause du jour.

Not so with investing, at least not in this case. WaterHealth International has been at this for 12+ years (it was founded in 1996). If WHI were a traditional development project, it would have had to re-apply for funding at least 4 times (the average development aid grant runs for 3 years). But as a company, WHI has been able to raise angel, Series A, Series B, Series C and now Series D rounds of funding, all based on financial and operational results. And after 12 years of learning, re-learning, adapting, adjusting and innovating - a process that continues - WHI is beginning to reach real scale.

Is WaterHealth International perfect? Some argue that its UV Waterworks technology is too expensive, and that reverse-osmosis filtering is a better BoP-oriented solution. But you can’t argue with results - millions of customers today, millions more in the next few years. And with the IFC dedicating $100M to “infraventures” (infrastructure projects in low-income communities), we’re beginning to see real progress in a space formerly dominated by top-down government and aid projects. I’ll raise a glass to that.

“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 don’t like the idea of a franchise” he had told me over dinner in Cambridge. “It sounds too much like McDonalds.” I was having dinner with Ron Rivera and discussing his idea for a locally produced clay pot that could remove 98% of pathogenic bacteria from drinking water. His work had caught my attention while I was doing research on potential technologies for the emerging water portfolio at Acumen Fund.

While he was skeptical at the time of the role that a commercial approach could play in improving access to safe drinking water, over the past years, he helped launch 30 factories to produce affordable clay filters in Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Kenya, Cambodia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Darfur. Working with Potters for Peace, he was the drive and energy behind an effort that got 300,000 filters to the world’s poorest. According to the New York Times, “He often traveled in the wake of water-related disasters — following floods in Ghana or a tsunami in Sri Lanka — capitalizing on the rush of aid money to establish a locally owned enterprise that would sustain itself long after he left.”

His life was claimed in September by a bout of malaria he contracted in Nigeria while opening his 30th factory. He was 60 years old. His goal was to build 100 factories to produce these simple but effective clay pots and to reach 4 million people with safe water.

While I only met him a few times, Ron Rivera was someone who stood out in my mind as the “real deal,” someone who was driven to make a difference in people’s lives, and who himself was continually learning about how to have a greater impact. He may have been skeptical at first when I suggested he look at these factories like a McDonald’s chain, with standardized designs, manufacturing processes and marketing materials, but he ultimately found his own way to encourage local enterprises to take up this innovative business model. It was an approach that required him to personally connect with, train and inspire local entrepreneurs – work that was undoubtedly rewarding and effective, but that proved incredibly dangerous. His work will fortunately continue to impact people’s lives, as many of his protégés have committed themselves to carrying it forward. My hope is that we honor his life and what he worked for through our efforts to make affordable drinking water solutions available to the billions who need them, and our investments in health enterprises that can make diseases like malaria history.

Over the past three weeks, I have been traveling to each of Acumen Fund’s offices to recruit the 2010 class of Acumen Fund Fellows. It’s been an amazing opportunity to spend time with our teams and also meet with some of the companies Acumen Fund has invested in - and the people they serve (pictured, left).

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.