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Tuesday
Jun302015

African Digital Laser Breakthrough Promises Future Innovation

 

For decades many African countries have experienced low investment in research and development (R&D) and scientific innovation. One of the few nations to benefit from a sophisticated university network and research and development sector was South Africa. It still ranks top on the continent for funding R&D and its high number of scientific journals.

And it seems this support has paid off in a recent innovation. The world’s first digital laser designed and built in Africa has been developed by a team of physicists at the University of KwaZulu–Natal in South Africa (http://www.ukzn.ac.za/), as reported in the MIT Technology Review (http://www.technologyreview.com/).

This innovation joins a positive trend in Africa, where support to science, technology and R&D is rising – albeit from a very low base. In 2010 UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – found Africa was reversing decades of neglect in research and development. African countries were increasing investment in science and technology after realizing it will accelerate their connection with the global economy and help create better-quality jobs to tackle poverty. The UNESCO Science Report found Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa had adopted laws to support biotechnology research, for example.

Since 2005, six new science academies have been established in Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Sudan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. This compares to nine established between 1902 and 2004.

The proportion of GDP (gross domestic product) devoted to R&D averages 0.3 per cent in Africa, according to UNESCO.

South Africa continues to lead in R&D spending, raising its investment from 0.73 per cent of GDP in 2001 to 0.94 per cent in 2006. The country is home to 46 per cent of Africa’s scientific publications compared to 11.4 per cent in Nigeria and 6.6 per cent in Kenya (UNESCO).

Experts say the digital laser developed in South Africa is a breakthrough that will open up ever-further innovations and business opportunities.

So, what is a digital laser and what is the innovation? A laser is short form for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is a device that produces a concentrated light source. Unlike conventional light sources that emit a diffused, multispectral light, lasers allow for a monochromatic light beam to be concentrated on a small area. This can be used to cut an object precisely, or beamed over long distances without losing its strength.

Lasers can create immense light, heat and power at close range and are regularly used in surgery and medical diagnosis.

Conventional lasers require external devices to alter and bend the laser light beam. The digital laser allows the shape of the beam to be digitally altered internally at the touch of a computer keyboard and gives greater immediate control. This means a plethora of new shapes can be formed with the laser beam, and this can have many practical applications.

The digital laser augers in a new age of creativity with lasers and more spontaneity in how they are used. Rather than having to place a lens or mirror at the front of the casing to shape the laser beam, this innovation makes it possible to create any shape desired digitally by a computer. The research team has been able to create various complex shapes for the laser beams in experiments. One mooted use is to apply laser beams to manipulate microscopic objects – similar to the tractor beams seen in science fiction films such as “Star Trek”.

Few of us spend much time thinking about lasers, yet they are ubiquitous in the modern world and are found in many electronic products (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laser_applications). They play a critical part in the modern world’s economy. Some common applications for lasers include laser light shows at music concerts, bar code readers at the grocery store, or laser pointers used during public presentations. Dentists also use them to speed the hardening of fillings.

Not to exploit lasers as a technology in the modern world is equivalent to bypassing the silicon micro-chip that sits inside personal computers, electronic devices and mobile phones.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8vNcAwAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+april+2013&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-april-2013-issue

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

 

Tuesday
Jun302015

Preserving Beekeeping Livelihoods in Morocco

 

The clever combining of tourism and long-standing beekeeping skills has revived a local craft and is also helping to preserve the ecology of Morocco.

Beekeeping, or apiculture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping), has two clear benefits. Bee products, including honey, beeswax, propolis, pollen and royal jelly can be a valuable source of income. The other benefit is the critical role bees play in the ecology by pollinating flowers and plants as they go about their daily business.

Bees are at risk around the world, as reports of the dying-off of bees from colony collapse disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder) raise concerns about the impact on the earth’s ecology and plant life should bees disappear.

North Africa and the Middle East are considered the cradle of beekeeping, with records showing beekeeping going back to 2400 BC in Egypt. According to “A review of beekeeping in Arab countries” by Moustafa H. Hussein, “The total number of honey bee colonies in Arab countries is approximately 42 million, the total number of beekeepers is 321,700”.

In the paper “The Future of Bees and Honey Production in Arab Countries” by Moustafa A. EL-Shehawy, Egypt has the largest number of bee colonies in Arab countries (48 per cent), with Algeria in second place and Morocco with 9 per cent of the bee colonies.

Support for beekeeping comes from the Arab Beekeepers Union (http://abu.saudibi.com/index.php?page_id=115), which was established in 1994 with the aim to improve “the beekeeping profession all over the Arab World”, according to its website, and the Arab Apicultural Congress, first launched in 1996.

Beekeeping has significant potential for further development, many argue, and can be a great source of income and sustainable livelihoods for communities with a long history of beekeeping.

In Morocco, one solution to preserve beekeeping as a skill and source of income is to turn beekeeping into a tourist destination and event, which has the dual aim of boosting a local food product and reviving a traditional craft and skill.

The Berber heartland of the Agadir region is an area with a reputation for beauty, filled with waterfalls and mountains – and plentiful flowers, which attract bees. As a result, the area is home to the proud local specialty of honey, as well as for its argan nuts and oil, almonds, palm, juniper and olive production.

Now a “Honey Road” route for tourists, combined with community honey festivals, is helping preserve local skills and give a boost to this long-standing economic activity.

Beekeeping is a centuries old skill for the Berber people of North Africa. Berbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_people) are spread out across North Africa and were traditionally nomadic herders. Most now live in Morocco and Algeria, but Berbers can also be found in Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

Starting at the beginning of May, a honey festival takes place in the Moroccan village of Imouzzer des Ida Outanane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imouzzer_Ida_Ou_Tanane), 60 kilometres from Agadir.

The honey festival brings together the region’s beekeepers. Tourists can sample honey and prizes are offered based on the quality of the product. It is part of the “Honey Road” route that tourists are encouraged to journey along.
The villagers share responsibility for the care of the bees. Demonstrations take place showing the basics of honey production and the keeping of queen bees.

A few kilometres away on the Honey Road is the village of Izourki Oufella, which produces honey perfumed with thyme and lavender.

The Honey Road runs a triangular pattern south and west of Marrakech between Argana, Oued Tinkert, Asif Tamraght, Agadir and Imouzzer. Argana is reputed to have the “largest and oldest collective beehive in the world” (http://www.morocco.com/blog/tantalizing-tastes-of-the-honey-festival).

Abdelhakim Sabri, owner of Auberge Zolado (aubergezolado.com) – a hilltop hotel with a restaurant and spa – is located in Agadir on the Honey Road.

Sabri works to preserve local culture. “Rural beekeepers struggle, so we’re introducing visitors to apiculturists like Ahmed – and Morocco’s finest honey,” he told High Life magazine.

Ahmed is a Berber beekeeper. He builds cylindrical hives for the bees by rolling sheets of woven reed and then caking them in earth. When the earth has dried, the bees quickly make it their home.

The region’s honey is prized for its distinctive flavour, infused with the aroma of herbs such as thyme, or flowers such as lavender, orange blossom or cactus. A mixture is made of honey, argan oil and almonds and is usually given to couples on their honeymoon.

“Different flowers bloom during different periods, so honey changes through the year,” said Sabri.

It sounds like the Honey Road is worth regular visits to sample the honey as it changes with the seasons!

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8vNcAwAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+april+2013&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-april-2013-issue

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

The first five issues of Southern Innovator. The highly influential magazine was distributed around the world and each issue was launched at the annual Global South-South Development (GSSD) Expo hosted by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

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This work is licensed under a
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Tuesday
Jun302015

A New African Beer Helps Smallholder Farmers

 

Africa’s growth in the past decade has held steady despite the trauma of the global economic crisis and the tumult of the “Arab Spring” in several countries of North Africa. African economies are growing because of a number of resilient trends. These include growing regional trade links, greater investment in infrastructure and the remarkable rise of China to become Africa’s number one trade partner, pushing the United States to second place (Technology + Policy). This has given birth to a growing consumer marketplace and consumer class – some 300 million people earning about US $200 a month (Africa Rising).

The continent as a whole now stands as the 10th largest economy in the world.

How will Africans spend this new money in their pockets (or more than likely, on their mobile phones)? They could go for the big, famous global brands that they see advertised in magazines or on television. Or they could also spend it on local products and services that seem just as enticing and life-improving. Creating local African products and services with strong brands will have an important knock-on effect of creating new wealth and jobs within Africa.

One new product being introduced to the West African country of Ghana’s thirsty beer drinkers is the Eagle beer brand. But this is not just any beer made from the traditional ingredients of water, hops, malted barley and yeast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer) – it is brewed from the root vegetable cassava.

A staple of many African diets, cassava (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava) is a starchy, tuberous root vegetable and a common crop across the continent.

It is believed that 70 per cent of Ghana’s farms are just 3 hectares in size or smaller. They grow many things, but cassava is the most common crop.

Cassava soon spoils once it has been harvested and needs to be consumed quickly. Currently, too much of it goes to waste. In Ghana, according to The Guardian, there is an annual surplus of some 40 per cent of cassava produced.

The Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) (http://www.sabmiller.com/index.asp?pageid=1156) decided to find a way to put the cassava from smallholder farms to good use and stop the waste. The brewery had observed the success of parent company SABMiller (http://www.sabmiller.com/index.asp?pageid=27) elsewhere in Africa, in turning cassava and the grain sorghum from smallholder farmers into beer. Farmers had directly benefited from the purchase of their surplus product.

Eagle brand cassava beer is creating opportunities for business, consumers and smallholder farmers in Ghana. According to The Guardian, the company hopes to source cassava from 1,500 smallholders.

By having a guaranteed purchase from the brewery on a regular basis, farmers are able to move beyond subsistence agriculture and turn themselves into functioning businesses.

The spare income from selling the cassava also can be used to improve a farmer’s household access to healthcare and education.

The Accra Brewery provides advice on agricultural techniques and growing a diverse range of crops, to ensure farmers are not dependent on a monocrop harvest. It also offers advice on business and developing commercial relationships.

The Eagle brand cassava beer will be sold at a 30 per cent discount to low-income drinkers in order to lure them away from illicit and informal alcohol drinks of dubious quality.

Professor Ethan Kapstein of business school INSEAD found that ABL and its water business Voltic (GH) Ltd. was a creator and supporter of high-quality jobs in Ghana and supported 17,600 jobs throughout the Ghanaian economy.

Adjoba Kyiamah (http://www.sabmiller.com/index.asp?pageid=1766&blogid=172), corporate and legal affairs director at Accra Brewery, told The Guardian she believes Eagle brand beer will help create even more jobs, boost government revenues and expand consumer choice.

This is an innovative first, as cassava beer had never been made before in Ghana on a commercial scale. This had not been possible in the past because of the challenge of collecting fresh cassava from farms widely spread out over a large territory. As well as spoiling quickly, Cassava is heavy, being mostly made up of water, and is difficult to transport over large distances.

“Part of our strategy across Africa is to make high quality beer which is affordable for low-income consumers while simultaneously creating opportunities for smallholder farmers in our markets. The launch of Eagle in Ghana ticks both these boxes,” said Mark Bowman, Managing Director of SABMiller Africa.

“Eagle is aimed at attracting low-income consumers away from illicit alcohol. This is a virtuous circle: smallholder cassava farmers have a guaranteed market for their crop, which is then used to make consistently high quality, affordable beer for consumers; and the government realises increased revenues as people trade up into formal, taxable alcohol consumption.”

ABL is using a mobile processing unit developed by DADTCO (Dutch Agricultural Development and Trading Company) Cassava Processing Ghana Ltd. It is designed to process the cassava on site, preserving the integrity of the starch.

Eagle is sold in 375 millilitre bottles at a price 70 per cent lower than that charged for other lager beers. The use of local ingredients, and a reduced excise tax awarded to the brand because is it is boosting local agriculture, allows for the lower price.

Production of cassava beer got its start first in Mozambique, with the launch of the Impala brand (http://www.sabmiller.com/index.asp?pageid=149&newsid=1748), the first commercial-scale cassava-based clear beer, in October 2011.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8vNcAwAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+april+2013&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-april-2013-issue

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

 

Tuesday
Jun302015

Boosting Tourism in India with Surfing Culture

 

Tourism has experienced decades of growth and diversification and is now considered one of the fastest-growing economic sectors in the world. According to the UNWTO – the United Nations World Tourism Organization – modern tourism is “a key driver for socio-economic progress.”

The scale of global tourism means it rivals other sectors, such as oil exports, food products and automobiles in terms of economic clout. With such an important role to play in global commerce, it has become a top income source for developing countries in the global South.

International tourist arrivals grew by 4 per cent in 2012, reaching a record 1.035 billion worldwide (UNWTO). Emerging economies led the growth in tourism, with Asia and the Pacific showing the strongest gains. Tourism outpaced growth in the wider world economy in 2012, contributing US $2.1 trillion to global GDP and supporting 101 million jobs (WTTC).

“2012 saw continued economic volatility around the globe, particularly in the Eurozone. Yet international tourism managed to stay on course” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai. “The sector has shown its capacity to adjust to the changing market conditions and, although at a slightly more modest rate, is expected to continue expanding in 2013. Tourism is thus one of the pillars that should be supported by governments around the world as part of the solution to stimulating economic growth.”

One country that has found tourism becoming a key contributor to its national income is India. The country’s travel and tourism industry is now three times larger than its automotive manufacturing industry, and generates more jobs than chemical manufacturing, communications and the mining sector combined (World Travel and Tourism Council).

Indian Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai called for the sector to create 25 million new jobs over the next five years and it is hoping to grow the market by 12 per cent by 2016 (The Economic Times).

Travel and tourism now contributes 6.7 billion rupees (US $124 million) – or 6.4 per cent – of the country’s total GDP (gross domestic product). The sector supports 39 million jobs directly and indirectly.

But competition for global tourist dollars is fierce. As more flight routes open up – Africa for example, is seeing new airlines and routes emerge every year – a person looking for somewhere to holiday has an ever-growing range of options to choose from. Will it be Africa this year, or shall we go to Asia?
One way to attract tourists and gain an extra edge in the global travel marketplace is to show imagination and innovation. Being different and novel can be the clincher for a tourist, especially one who is widely travelled and is searching for new experiences.

In Southern India, the state of Kerala is well known for its ayurvedic medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda) and food tradition going back centuries, combined with its laid-back beach culture. It is a heady combination that successfully attracts many people, who come to relax and boost their health.

Now, Kerala is offering a new dimension to this experience: surfing. Surfing is a water sport involving a person riding ocean waves (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfing), usually on a long board. India has enormous and mostly untapped potential as a surfing destination, with its hot weather and 7,000 kilometres of coastline.

Soul and Surf (http://soulandsurf.com) in Golden Beach, Varkala is within walking distance of the Varkala Cliff tourist area and an hour away from the closest major airport, Trivandrum International Airport.

The founders of Soul and Surf, Ed and Sofie Templeton, were captivated by “surfing warm, empty waves, eating wonderful fresh, cheap seafood, practicing yoga and receiving ayurvedic treatments”, according to their website.

“Enchanted by India’s magical, spiritual atmosphere, the warmth of the local people and the raw natural beauty of the area,” they set up a combined surfing and yoga retreat in 2010.

They have become part of a growing surfing scene in Kerala, and an increasing awareness in the country that its long ocean coastline is perfect for water sports.

As surfing grows in India, the owners wanted to create a business that supported the local area, particularly coastal fishing communities surrounding Varkala.

They have also expanded to run a luxury surf and yoga retreat in Sri Lanka and guided trips to the Andaman Islands.

Soul and Surf was inspired by the Surfing India Surf Ashram (surfingindia.net), a 12-hour trip up the coast from Surf and Soul in Karnataka.

Their so-called “Surfing Swamis” have discovered the best places to surf in India and are spirited champions of the whole surfing lifestyle. A swami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami) is a Hindu male religious teacher.
Surfing India promotes adventure sport in India and was started in 2004. At the time, surfing in India had a very low profile. Surfing India offers a sophisticated experience to travellers, including Wi-Fi Internet access, vegetarian food and all the equipment required.

All the staff are volunteers and work for room and board. Profits are plowed back into keeping the surf ashram going and helping its activities, which include adventure tours, a surf camp, surf school, yoga retreat, bodyboarding, snorkelling and wakeboarding.

The Surfing Swamis Foundation is a non-profit organization whose goal is to “teach surfing and environmental awareness to children, orphans, and handicapped persons of any age or gender.”

It also sponsors the All India Surf Team for boys and girls across India.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8vNcAwAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+april+2013&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-april-2013-issue

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

 

Tuesday
Jun302015

Made-in-Africa Fashion Brand Pioneers Aim for Global Success

 

African fashion brands have not always been the first place fashionistas turned to when shopping for new clothes or shoes in developed economies. While Africa has long been a source of inspiration in contemporary and traditional fashion, the continent has had a weak reputation for manufacturing and selling mass market global fashion brands.

There are initiatives, such as Origin Africa (http://originafrica.org/), an ongoing campaign working to improve African trade by increasing the trade of textiles and apparels, cut flowers, specialty foods, home décor, and fashion accessories. Origin Africa matches African designers and entrepreneurs with experienced industry leaders to “facilitate, coordinate and advance ‘trade, not aid’ efforts”.

While there are many places in Africa engaged in the global clothing manufacturing outsource industry – often paying very low wages – strong African fashion brands are often absent in most developed countries. Well, at least until now.

Two recent examples have joined the well-publicized success of Ethiopia’s soleRebels, maker of rubber-soled shoes (solerebelsfootwear.co). SoleRebels became an Internet success story, harnessing the power of web-based sales to reach customers around the world.

Now another Ethiopian shoe maker is also pushing its way into the global fashion scene. Ethiopian-made sneaker brand Sawa has just been picked up by the American retailer of preppy clothing J. Crew (jcrew.com). The successful catalogue and online clothing retailer has great clout when it comes to promoting a brand, and this should be a big boost to the reputation of African fashion labels.

Sawa’s headquarters is in Paris, France (the physical home of much of the world’s fashion scene) but all its shoes are sourced and made in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and the company’s website is run from there.

Sawa says the key to its success is to be a business first and foremost – not a charity.

“Sawa project does not have the so-called generosity of brands which use Africa just to glorify themselves,” said Wendesen Birhanu, on the company website.

“Sawa is a fashion brand which has taken the challenge to fabricate shoes in Africa. All the added value benefits the continent.”

The company’s shoe factory is modern and has the workers positioned at their desks making the shoes. The brand logo proudly states “Made in Africa” on all the brown cardboard shoe boxes in a bold, red roundel stamp.

Sawa also uses the slogan “vote with your feet” to show the connection between purchasing the shoes and supporting African business and manufacturing.

The footwear, currently available in the United Kingdom, France and through J. Crew in the United States, has a distinctive rubber sole with the African continent embossed on the bottom – a clever design tweak ensuring the wearers will leave an interesting footprint wherever they walk.

The styles available include Dr Bess, a vintage canvas and leather shoe in a low-cut silhouette. The Tsague is a vintage shoe with a mid cut like that used for basketball shoes.

The shoes have been put through their paces in an independent quality assurance lab and each shoe’s details are explained on the Sawa website (http://www.sawashoes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=8&lang=en).

They retail in Europe for between 75 euros and 115 euros a pair – a middle-market price – and come in eye-pleasing colours, from basic black to white to sand, dark blue, grey, brown, red and light blue.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_and_medium_enterprises) have been identified as an essential part of Africa’s future prosperity and key to its ability to reduce poverty and achieve development objectives like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (www.un.org/millenniumgoals).

Obstacles to growth for SMEs include poor infrastructure, unreliable power supplies, unscaleable business models, low quality standards and poor quality branding and design.

Developing manufacturing in Africa is key to improving incomes and wealth. Creating unique, branded products for overseas markets makes it possible to earn foreign currency and be able to benefit from consumers in other countries. The math is simple: once you have saturated the local market for your product, the only way to boost sales and profits is to seek new customers elsewhere. By selling to people in a country with a higher national income, it is possible to charge more and in turn earn more money for each product. In time, this can lead to significant income rises and in turn, human development gains as the spare cash can be put to improving local living conditions, acquiring education or better health services and consuming better quality food.

Another important feature of selling to overseas customers is competition. Having to compete with the pick of the world’s top brands means a company must raise its game to stand a chance. The pressure forces the company to sharpen its product line, become more efficient, stick to strict quality control and embrace the latest thinking in design, marketing and information technologies.

In short, an African company that can weather a few years successfully selling to overseas customers is going to be a fierce competitor back home.

And, as has been forecast many times, the rise of Africa’s middle class consumers will be a big driver of economic growth in the next decade. If this middle-income consumer class buys lots of African-made consumer products, then the impact on job and wealth creation on the continent will be significant.

Another fashion initiative boosting brand Africa is a partnership between Italian fashion lifestyle clothing retailer Diesel (diesel.com) and the Edun ethical fashion label (edun.com), founded by Ali Hewson and her husband Bono, singer with rock band U2.

The collaboration offers a contemporary take on retro street wear from Africa’s past, while having all the garments made and sourced from Africa.

In March 2013, Diesel+EDUN launched a 25-piece denim collection drawing its inspiration from African creativity. The collection uses raw, untreated denim sourced and manufactured in Uganda. It mixes up Malian textile prints for linings, with outside embroidery drawing on traditional Zulu weaving patterns. It also includes a denim jacket inspired by street wear from 1970s South Africa.

Edun was originally set up to encourage greater trade with Africa as a way to address poverty and boost incomes. Begun in 2005, the brand has tried to overturn the perception that ethical and ecologically sound fashion can’t be fashionable and desirable too.

Edun has sought to be “a creative force in contemporary fashion”, according to its website. In 2007, it launched a line dedicated to making t-shirts entirely made in Africa called Edun Live. Edun Live t-shirts “are entirely ‘Grow to Sew’ African. From cotton to finished tee, all production takes place in Africa.”

Edun has the goal of producing 40 per cent of its fashion collection in Africa by 2013. It does this by “supporting manufacturers, infrastructure and community building initiatives”.

All of Edun’s cotton is harvested to CCIU cotton standards. The Conservation Cotton Initiative Uganda (CCIU) is a cotton-farming program that helps to build sustainable farming communities in Northern Uganda.

Edun is currently working in Kenya, Morocco, Madagascar, Uganda and Tunisia.

The Diesel+EDUN (http://www.diesel.com/diesel+edun/) collaboration had its start at the beginning of 2012. After trips to East and West Africa by Diesel founder Renzo Rosso and Edun founders Ali Hewson and Bono, the idea was hatched to work together to “further apparel trade and development in Africa”. The goal is “bringing business to the continent and highlighting to the fashion world the possibility for sustainable trade and creative opportunity in Africa.”

More than 5,000 farmers participated in the 2011/2012 CCIU program, and more than 8,000 have already enrolled in the 2012/2013 season, the website states.

Edun is also working with Mikono Knits (Mikonoknits.com) to promote traditional African knitting techniques.  Founded in 2005 by Froydis Dybahl Archer, Mikono makes and sells hand-crocheted sweaters and tank tops from its Nairobi, Kenya workshop. The plan is to use the success of Mikono Knits to expand the number of underprivileged women the firm can hire to work for the business. The business currently employs 10 women and uses locally sourced organic cotton and wool, supporting the local economy.

Beyond the actual clothing partnership and African-inspired fashion, there is a clever promotion campaign to raise awareness for the Diesel+EDUN line. Called Studio Africa (http://studioafrica.tumblr.com/), it is a marketing and perception-shaping initiative, “celebrating and promoting creativity in Africa”. It is doing this by promoting nine African artists to better communicate the African vibe of the collection and give the artists’ careers a boost. It is curated and edited by Okay Africa (http://www.okayafrica.com/), a cultural guide to “all the latest music/culture/politics coming from Africa and the Diaspora”.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: March 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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