African Manufacturing Pioneers Proving it is Possible to Thrive

 

Africa’s paradox is that it is home to the greatest share of the world’s unexploited resources, yet has some of the world’s lowest per capita incomes. History has shown that exploiting the continent’s resources alone for export markets does little to improve incomes and living conditions in Africa, which in turn does nothing to improve human development. The key to resolving this paradox is made-in-Africa jobs, in particular high-value jobs that make products.

Africa still mostly makes its income from exporting raw commodities, from minerals to fuel to food. In the 1990s, Asian countries exported five times more manufactured goods, as share of GDP, than sub-Saharan Africa. Things changed in the 2000s. African manufactured output has roughly doubled over the last 10 years. And those goods are going more to the emerging economies than to the traditional powers (African Economic Outlook).

African Economic Outlook points out that by 2009 “trade between African countries and emerging powers equalled that between Africa and its traditional partners.”

“South-based manufacturing enhances the welfare of African consumers via prices and functionality,” the report says.

“For instance, generic Indian pharmaceuticals are cheaper than brands from traditional partners.”

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been identified as a key 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).

The sector is large but its economic power is inefficiently used. Telling the Wall Street Journal, Mthuli Ncube, chief economist at the African Development Bank Group, estimated one-quarter of Africa’s gross domestic product — about US $450 billion — comes from 65 million small and medium-sized enterprises.

Manufacturing has been difficult to measure because so many businesses are just tiny cottage industries.

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

Access to funding is often weak and fragmented and many programmes run by international donors and banks targeting SMEs are uncoordinated and duplicate resources. The global economic crisis has not made these factors any easier.

But things are changing in many areas. The booming technology, consumer goods and resource sectors offer hope for a manufacturing renaissance.

There are examples from Africa defying the sceptics and showing it is possible to expand and export manufactured, finished goods that meet international standards.

What they have in common is a sophisticated product offering and an ability to meet international export standards. They also have overcome obstacles that scare away more timid international rivals.

Nigerian shoe and garment maker Fut Conceptus (www.futconceptus.com) has been taking raw Nigerian leather that was once just sent overseas for export, and instead is turning out high-quality shoes and bags made in Nigerian factories. These shoes – made in African, Spanish and Italian styles – meet international standards and are exported aroundAfrica. It has also established operations in Spain and the United Kingdom.

Started in 2008, the company got off to a good start by seeking out the best expertise to train its staff. Shoe-making experts fromSpainwere brought in to do the training. The company also imported top-quality machinery fromItalyandSpainto make sure its operations were modern and efficient.

These first, smart moves have meant the company is able to run an efficient and high-skilled operation inNigeriawhile also making its products to international standards. This is critical for a start-up business: the better the quality of the product in the beginning, the better the chance for accessing lucrative export markets. And the better and more efficient the manufacturing processes, the better chance a company will have meeting increasing demand and tight deadlines. It is one thing to make the best shoe in the world, but if you cannot deliver the quantity required for orders, then your reputation will be damaged.

Fut Conceptus is able to produce 22,000 pairs of sandals and 10,000 pairs of safety boots a day, according to its website.

Fut Conceptus Manufacturing Nigeria Ltd. also found a way to thrive in the country’s difficult and erratic conditions. To deal with the unreliable power supply, they run four electric generators. This costs them US $500 a day in fuel. This power problem scares off multinational companies, leaving the market open for Fut Conceptus. The company has been able to use this first-mover advantage to build its brand acrossWest Africa. It currently makes men’s moccasins, slippers, law enforcement footwear, safety footwear, and ladies’ sandals.

Founder Olumide Wole-Madariola is proud of the achievement. “Nobody was ready for what we were doing… Nobody was ready for ‘Made inNigeria,’” he said.

South African sauce maker Primolitos (www.primolitos.com) has become one of the few African companies able to meet international standards for food exports. It makes a vast range of products (http://www.primolitos.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=12), from juices to sauces, spices, pickles, soups and baked goods.

The company has been around for over a decade and sells 2,000 products. It has also set-up a sister division to specialise in liquid and powdered food sachets. The company also has a clear “Quality Policy”, championing collective decision-making between management and staff, delivering “quality and safe consumer products”, and a system to quickly respond to consumer complaints and recall substandard products. All ingredients for building trust in a business.

It also has an ISO 20 0002 (www.iso.org/iso/home.html) accredited factory, complete with three testing labs, a training room, test kitchen, care centre for employees’ children, a wellness centre, laundry, high-tech water filtration and purification systems and the latest in hygiene and manufacturing processes. All of this a clear example of the commitment required to build a quality company that can export.

Over at Good African Coffee, Ugandan entrepreneur Andrew Rugasira is pioneering new ways to process coffee inAfrica. He set upUganda’s first enterprise to make instant coffee two years ago. This is a radical departure from the old practice of exporting the coffee beans to Europe for processing into instant coffee, which would then be exported back toAfrica.

“For decades, Africans have produced what they do not consume and consumed what they do not produce,” Rugasira told the Wall Street Journal.

The company has developed unique distribution arrangements for its instant coffee. A recent deal included providing coffee for an American network of 12,000 churches.

The company’s products are cleverly designed and packaged and are sold in distinct colour-coordinated packets. The company also passionately champions “trade not aid” as the long-term solution toAfrica’s economic growth (http://www.goodafrican.com/index.php/our-story/trade-not-aid.html).

On the African islandof Madagascar, a company is trying to reverse the practice of exporting Africa’s cocoa beans for manufacturing into chocolate products. The Madecasse Chocolate LLC. (http://madecasse.com) is a collaboration between American entrepreneur Tim McCollum and Madagascan chocolatier Shahin Cassam Chenai. The company is making a range of chocolate and vanilla products for US supermarkets.

“IfAfricacould sell the world chocolate…it wouldn’t solve all the continent’s problems, but it could make a big dent,” McCollum told the Wall Street Journal.

Africais believed to produce 60 to 70 percent of the world’s cacao supply. Less than one percent is made inAfricaand most is made into chocolate outside the continent.

Madecasse’s high-quality chocolate bars sell in the USfor US $6 each. Their market niche is to make “a single-origin chocolate, made entirely in Madagascar, which rivals the flavour of the best European chocolates”, according to its website. Flavours (http://store.madecasse.com) include pink pepper and citrus, cinnamon and sakay (a type of Madagascan hot pepper sauce), exotic pepper, sea salt and nibs, Arabica coffee, and baking chocolate. They also sell the world-famous Madagascan vanilla beans and extract. All are sold in colourful and well-designed packaging and sold on their website.

Chenai is a self-taught chocolate maker and works with a local team to refine the Madécasse chocolate.

“Connoisseurs knowMadagascarproduces some of the best cocoa in the world,” maintains Chenai. “My passion is to prove we can produce some of the best chocolate in the world.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: December 2011

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=Ps0RezX0QbAC&dq=development+challenges+december+2011&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challengessouthsouthsolutionsdecember2011issue

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

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

Bringing the Invention and Innovation Mindset to Young Kenyans

A highly innovative new way to teach the basics of electronics, computing and technological innovation is being pioneered in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Driven by the desire to counter perceptions of apathy among young people, NGO Kuweni Serious is running a training course for girls aged over 8 years in some of the poorest parts of the city to turn on a new generation to the power of technology to make change.

“Technology is pivotal in our work, as Kuweni Serious is a primarily online platform that seeks to create offline action,” according to Kuweni Serious’ Rachel Gichengo. “It’s positive in that you can reach a lot of people with solid messages that are in bite-size pieces that are easy to disseminate and consume. Everyone can pass on the information with a simple click – it’s an easier way to begin socio-political discussion among people who would otherwise not be drawn into these kinds of discussions because they’re not presented in a way that appeals to them. The typical profile of a KS volunteer is someone in their 20s, middle-class, has some experience volunteering, has never been to a slum despite living in Nairobi, but wants more for their country.”

The course uses a clever, hands-on approach to teaching. Instructors use a new generation of learning toys that help young people understand how technology works and gives them the first taste of what it is like to build something from scratch. These toys comprise various components that perform tasks – a light, a motor, a computer, a music player. Active invention is required to work out how to assemble these parts to make something bigger and better. This stands in stark contrast to toys – or computer games – where all the hard work is done for the child and they just have to play.

“We chose tech training because it’s a traditionally under-represented area when it comes to reaching this particular group (underprivileged girls), yet such an important set of skills to be taught in this day and age,” confirms Gichengo. “We want to expand these girls’ thinking – to get them interested in the possibilities of careers in science and tech, rather than perpetuate the idea that all they’ll ever do, based on their circumstances, is tailoring or dance. We hoped to open our girls’ worlds a bit, as well as link them to our Kuweni Serious community of volunteers.”

Called PicoCrickets (www.picocricket.com), and manufactured by the Canadian Playful Invention Company (PICO), the toys were developed from research and ideas at the Lifelong Kindergarten group (http://llk.media.mit.edu/) at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab (www.media.mit.edu).

“Pico Crickets are cool,” continues Gichengo. “They’re a fun way to learn to build things, to learn the connection between hardware and software, to begin to understand what computers can do. They make learning easy, and they make science seem accessible to a group that tends to see it as too hard for them. The kits were paid for by a grant from the Girl Effect (www.girleffect.org).”

The MIT lab conducted intensive research into creative learning environments for children. One of the first fruits of this research was Lego Mindstorms (http://mindstorms.lego.com), kits that allow children to make and program their own robots.

Inspired by this work, the PicoCricket places more emphasises on artistic expression. The company created the PicoCricket Kit (www.picocricket.com/whatisit.html) as a way to integrate art and technology to “spark creative thinking in girls and boys 8 years and older,” according to its website.

A typical kit includes a central PicoCricket that a child then plugs in to various motors, sensors, lights and other devices to make something that can spin, light up or play music. It is intended to give free rein to both technological innovation and artistic expression.

Kenya experienced violent rioting during the 2007 and 2008 elections. The shock of the events produced a number of initiatives to counter the violence and the social and economic disruption it has caused. One of the most well-known innovations, Ushahidi (www.ushahidi.com), a crisis-mapping platform, has been deployed around the world and led to many other new innovations.

Kuweni Serious (www.kuweniserious.org) is also a result of this crisis. The NGO sets out to counter the stereotype of Kenya’s youth as a “hedonistic generation of brand-obsessed youth, moving from party to party in the night and congregating on Facebook during the day.”

Kuweni Serious believes young people in Kenya were shocked into action when violence broke out during the elections. Prices jumped for everything – from fuel to food – and water and power started to be rationed. It was a wake-up call to youth: it was getting harder and harder to ignore what was happening in the country.

Kuweni Serious was founded by Kenyan youth and asked the question “how do Kenya’s youth feel about all the chaos around us?” It seeks to rally young people to their motto: “Fighting the evil forces of apathy.”

Their 125/100 program set out to train 125 girls on a 100-day course. It ended with a graduation ceremony on July 2, 2011.

The program, run by volunteers from the University of Nairobi, has taught basic computer skills, got the children working on Google Maps and making – and inventing – using the PicoCrickets.

The girls on the course came from Baba Dogo and Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum.

The technology training program lasted between three and six hours a week for 12 weeks. The inventions made by the children included merry go rounds, a lamp stand and fan and miniature automobiles. Participants even got to grips with Google Maps and learned how to use mobile phones in citizen journalism. At the end of the course, all the children received a certificate reinforcing their sense of accomplishment and achievement.

“We hope to continue doing similar projects, scaling up 125/100, and working on developing a corps of everyday change makers among young, educated, middle class Kenyans,” according to Gichengo. “We’re also preparing for the 2012 elections, so we need to have more conversations about what a new election means, given the outcome of our previous one.”

Another initiative seeking to improve life chances for Kenyan girls is ZanaAfrica (www.zanaa.org). It focuses on educational opportunities for girls, consulting them to find out what would increase their chances of graduation from school. Because of this back-and-forth dialogue with the girls, they have come up with various strategic programs, one example being providing girls with sanitary pads for menstruation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation) every month so that they do not skip classes and lose vital class time. ZanaAfrica was born around tackling the issue of lost school days for girls because of poor provision of sanitary pads in Kenya: an estimated 868,000 adolescent girls were missing 3.5 million school days a month, according to ZanaAfrica.  Sanitary pads in Kenya cost twice most people’s daily wage. Just to provide pads to all the school girls in Kenya, they estimated, would cost US $13 million a year, increasing by 5 percent every year.

Another disadvantage for these girls is finding the right support environment and strong, positive role models. ZanaAfrica’s solution is Empowerment Clubs (www.zanaa.org/empowernet-clubs), places where small groups of 15 to 20 students meet with field officers and tackle difficult topics not discussed at home or in school: drugs, relationships, self-confidence, health and disease. There are already 1,000 students in the Kibera area in these Empowerment Clubs. This approach has also been combined with something called EmpowerNet Clubs: these clubs take place in the schools and combine blogging and tweeting (www.twitter.com) with the discussions on life issues. Already in five schools, the clubs include a field officer and 20 girls meeting once a week.

ZanaAfrica was started in 2007 by social entrepreneur and Harvard University graduate Megan White, who has been living and working in Kenya since 2001. ZanaAfrica identifies poverty-eradicating, African-led innovations and then tries to build them up and find ways to replicate them and make them sustainable. They look for innovations in the areas of health, education and the environment.

“Kenyans are definitely early adopters, and are rushing to take advantage of new technologies,” confirms Gichengo. “The Kenyan success stories have been a huge inspiration, largely because they developed localized solutions that could then be exported to the world, rather than the other way around, which tends to be the case. There’s always value in looking further afield to see what else is being done around the world, but the iHub and Ushahidi (and the Kenya ICT Board, Safaricom, etc.) have gone a long, long way in inspiring local innovation.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: July 2011

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=3YKYBgAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+july+2011&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challengessouthsouthsolutionsjuly2011issue

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

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

South Africa Innovates Healthcare with Prepay Phone Vouchers

Pioneers in Africa are experimenting with new ways to fund the delivery of healthcare that is affordable and sustainable and not dependent on foreign aid and donations. A South African company is prototyping the selling of pre-payment healthcare services through mobile phones with a range of vouchers that can be bought and downloaded at the tap of a keypad. They are priced at between US $12 and US $49 and cover medical and dental check-ups, tests, treatments, chronic care and medicines. They are flexible and can also be sent to friends and family who need help.

In South Africa, poverty is still widespread. The majority black population has a median income of US $2,000 a year (New Internationalist) and many still live in crowded townships and poor rural communities. Poverty has also increased for many white Afrikaner South Africans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner). A study by the Standard Bank of South Africa found the number of whites earning less than US $80 a month grew from 2000 to 2004 by more than 50 per cent. In the government capital of Pretoria, 50 Afrikaner squatter camps have emerged in recent years. For many, affordable healthcare is a critical issue.

The story of healthcare in Africa is not a linear one of constant progress. The continent as whole achieved its lowest child mortality rates in the 1970s. But after that, the quality of healthcare declined as a result of various factors including economic crises and the HIV/AIDS crisis – both of which overwhelmed public systems. In sub-Saharan Africa, health systems reached rock bottom in the late 1990s.

“Few people could afford annual check-ups, medicines or user fees at hospitals,” wrote Dr. Ebrahim Malick Samba in the paper “African health care systems: what went wrong?” for News Medical (www.news-medical.net). “One result was the resurgence of infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and cholera.

“Prior to the 1980s, the district hospitals, community health centres and other outreach health posts provided medical services and essential drugs free of charge. With reforms, user fees and cost recovery were introduced, and the sale of drugs was liberalized.

“Many governments discontinued budget support to the health sector which paralysed the public health system. There was no money for medical equipment and maintenance; salaries and working conditions declined.”

Things have been steadily improving from this low base through the 2000s, the result of increased aid funding for public health systems and greater national investments in staff, facilities and equipment. There is still a long way to go, but Africa is becoming a world leader in developing and deploying mobile phone applications for health and healthcare.

Despite dramatic improvements to the quality of hospitals and the number of qualified doctors, the continent’s healthcare services are still a patchwork, with rural and slum dwellers poorly served and the stresses of treating patients with contagious diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria pushing resources to the limit.

Research has shown it is better and fairer to develop pre-payment mechanisms for healthcare than to just hit patients with fees when they are ill. With pre-payment, a person can buy care services when they are financially able to and bank up care for when they become ill and not able to work and save.

This is a crucial issue for people with low incomes who can quickly be devastated by their illness or that of loved one or family member.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has taken a firm stand against so-called out-of-pocket payments and encourages the growth in pre-payment methods. The World Health Report 2000 found that “Fairness of financial risk protection requires the highest possible degree of separation between contributions and utilization.”

South Africa’s Yarona Care (www.yaronacare.co.za/prepaid.html) – a health insurance provider network – is rolling out prepaid mobile phone vouchers, allowing patients to see doctors or dentists and even traditional healers for treatment. When a patient visits, the healthcare worker redeems the mobile phone voucher to get paid. One product, Impilo Go, allows people to pay for one visit to a doctor and seven days of medicine for R230 (US $34). For people on a tighter budget, there is Impilo Care for R80 (US$12). A patient can visit a nurse practitioner for a medical check-up and receive tests.

Impilo One offers medicines alone for R100, while Impilo Plus for R195 (US $29) is aimed at people with chronic conditions. They can get a prescription from the doctor and then go to a pharmacy participating in the scheme to receive medicines.

Dental work is also covered by the vouchers.

An online demonstration shows how the mobile phone process works (www.yaronacare.co.za/cellphonedemo.html).

The service is marketed at a mix of customers, from individuals to corporate clients looking to cover large numbers of people to government and NGOs. They can purchase services by voucher, payroll schemes or mobile phones.

Prepaid by mobile phone as a concept is already well established across Africa. It is a simple way to make payments and sell services. In the case of Yarona’s offering, the customer or patient uses their mobile phone to dial a code to pay for a service. When at the doctor or dentist’s office, he or she spends the voucher for the service by giving a unique code to the healthcare professional. Once this is done, Yarona Care pays the healthcare provider for the service.

The voucher approach allows customers to buy health services for family members for a defined period of time. Vouchers can also be sent to family members for emergencies.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2011

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=2U-YBgAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+april+2011&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challengessouthsouthsolutionsapril2011issue

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

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

Indian ID Project is Foundation for Future Economic Progress

India is in the midst of the biggest national identification project in the country’s history. The aim is for every Indian to receive a voluntary electronic identification card containing his or her details and a unique number. Called an Aadhaar, it is a 12-digit unique number registered with the Unique Identification Authority of India (http://uidai.gov.in) (UIDAI). The project joins a growing trend across the global South to map populations in order to better achieve development goals.

About one-third of the world’s urban dwellers live in slums, and the United Nations estimates that number will double by 2030 as a result of rapid urbanization in developing countries. How to improve slum-dwellers’ living conditions and raise their standard of living is the big challenge of the 21st century.

With just four years to go until the 2015 deadline to meet the Millennium Development Goals (http://www.undp.org/mdg), and the current economic downturn reversing some gains, any tool that can make development decisions more precise has to be a benefit.

Innovators are turning to the opportunities afforded by digital technologies to reach slums and poor areas. The approaches vary, from India’s national identification system to new ways of using mobile phones and Internet mapping technologies. With mobile phones now available across much of the global South, and plans underway to expand access to broadband internet even in poorly served Africa, it is becoming possible to develop a digital picture of a slum and poor areas and map population needs.

Put to the right use, this powerful development tool can fast-track the delivery of aid and better connect people to markets and government services. In a country of severe regional disparities and caste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste) divisions, the national identification number has the advantage of not documenting people in a way that would bring prejudice.

India’s Aadhaar is intended to serve a number of goals, from increasing national security to managing citizen identities, facilitating e-governance initiatives and tackling illegal immigration. While critics of ID schemes complain about the civil liberties implications of national identity card projects (www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk), it is a fact that countries that want to increase the social benefits available to their citizens need to understand who those citizens are, where they live and what their social needs are. India’s problem to date has been a lack of knowledge of its citizens: many millions exist in a limbo world of not being known to local authorities.

The unique number is stored in a database and contains details on the person’s demographics (name, age, etc.) and biometrics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics) – a photograph, 10 fingerprints and an iris scan. Residents in an area find out about the Aadhaar through various sources, from local media to local government agencies. An ‘Enrolment Camp’ is established in the area where people go to register, bringing anything they have that can prove their identity. The biometric scanning takes place here. ID cards are issued between 20 and 30 days later.

On January 13, 2011 the project declared it had registered its millionth person, a 15-year-old named Sukrity from North Tripura. The goal is to register 600 million people in the next four years.

One of the immediate advantages to many poor people is gaining access to banking services for the first time, because an Aadhaar number is accepted as sufficient ID to open a bank account. The identification authority says the scheme will be “pivotal in bringing financial services to the millions of unbanked people in the country, who have been excluded so far because of their lack of identification.”

The Times of India reported in 2010 that Khaiver Hussain, a homeless man in an addiction treatment programme, was able to get a bank account after receiving the identification number. He was able to open an account with the Corporation Bank along with 27 other homeless people. Having a bank account has removed the fear he had of being robbed of his meagre savings while he slept.

Another homeless day labourer, Tufail Ahmed from Uttar Pradesh, said “This passbook and the UID card have given people like me a new identity. It has empowered us.” He has been able to use the saved money to rent a room with four other day labourers.

In countries where no national ID card schemes exist, people are turning to other methods to register and map populations in order to improve their living conditions.

In Kenya and Brazil, digital mapping projects are underway using mobile phones to paint a picture of the population living in slum areas and shanty towns. An NGO called Map Kibera (www.mapkibera.org) began work on an ambitious project to digitally map Africa’s largest slum, Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. The Map Kibera project uses an open-source software programme, OpenStreetMap (www.openstreetmap.org), to allow users to edit and add information as it is gathered.

An NGO called Rede Jovem (www.redejovem.org.br) is deploying youths armed with GPS (global positioning system)-equipped (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System) mobile phones to map the favelas of Rio de Janerio.

Powerful tools now exist to aid digital mapping. Google Maps (www.maps.google.com) is one example.

While the project is impressively ambitious – and it remains to be seen if it is completed as planned – the economic and development implications of this vast data collection and national identification are enormous. It will enable very accurate identification of markets and needs and also of development challenges and needs. This should lead to many business innovations in the country in coming years and also draw in more business from outside the country.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: April 2011

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=2U-YBgAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+april+2011&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challengessouthsouthsolutionsapril2011issue

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

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

Bolivian Film School’s Film Scene Paying Off

 

A film school in Bolivia shows how a creative hub can become the start of something much bigger. The school is inspiring a new generation of young people to get into filmmaking. And one of its lecturers is already experiencing global success acting in an award-winning new Spanish film.

Bolivia’s economy has grown over the last decade, and the country is beginning to shed its long-standing reputation for grinding poverty and political instability. Public spending has risen, and more money has been put into programmes to reduce poverty. More students are entering higher education and the country recognizes an urgent need for greater awareness and understanding of modern technology.

Film and media production have been targeted as an important way to advance Bolivia’s social and economic development.

Veteran Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanjin%C3%A9s) has been one of the most passionate exponents of using film to spread the stories and wisdom of Bolivia’s indigenous people. He believes their stories understand the need to balance the demands of humanity with preservation of the environment. Film, to him, is a way to liberate Bolivian society and address its pervasive problems of poverty, hunger and marginalization.

This chimes with rising global awareness of the importance of the creative economy in future development. No longer seen as a frippery, the creative economy is the “interface between creativity, culture, economics and technology in a contemporary world dominated by images, sounds, texts and symbols” (UNCTAD). It is seen as a way for emerging economies to leapfrog into high-growth areas in the world economy.

It’s a formula that has worked well in many other places. A successful art gallery fosters a scene and draws in audiences, buyers and new businesses. Soon, a creative economy comes alive and that means serious money. Both New York and London have shown how this can work. By 2005, New York City’s creative economy employed over 230,899 people in 24,481 businesses (Americans for the Arts).

Creative economies tend to create excitement and pride in the country; creative businesses like advertising and design make it much easier to sell products and connect with customers. It is hard to imagine the Apple computer brand (http://www.apple.com/) being as successful as it is without intelligent and engaging design.

Regeneration – of poor neighbourhoods, districts, even whole countries – is both a challenge and a key to transforming lives. There is a strong track record of turning to artists and creative people to re-imagine neighbourhoods or a country’s culture, restoring pride and vitality to places beaten down by life’s hardships.

In the Bolivian city of El Alto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Alto,_La_Paz), the Cine Alto film school at the Municipal Arts School of El Alto (http://cinealto.blogspot.com/2009/01/nueva-carrera-de-artes-cinematogrficas.html), offers students a free education in filmmaking. Lecturer and actor Juan Carlos Aduviri is one of the high-profile successes to come from the school since it opened in 2006.

A graduate of the school and a lecturer on screenwriting, he got a big career boost by acting in a major new, award-winning film and is nominated as Best Newcomer by Spain’s top film awards, the Goyas (http://www.academiadecine.com/home/index.php). The nomination is for his role in the Spanish film Even the Rain (http://www.tambienlalluvia.com/) – set in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, where protests a decade ago broke out over privatisation of water services. It stars well-known Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays a filmmaker set on making a movie about the Spanish conquest of the Americas. While making the film, the so-called “water wars” break out and the actor played by Aduviri must balance his film role with being a protest leader.

The protests against water privatisation in Cochabamba led to the election of Evo Morales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales) as Bolivia’s president in December 2005.

Cine Alto is one of four film schools in Bolivia but the only one that does not charge students tuition. Cash is tight for the school, which is a simple place and runs on thin resources. The classrooms have bare walls and broken windows, but the school is serious about transforming the lives of young people. The curriculum emphasises a strong theoretical foundation in combination with technical and practical training.

“Conditions in Bolivia to make a film are challenging and in El Alto, it’s even more difficult,” Aduviri told the BBC.

“Life is hard here in El Alto, and this film school is trying to rescue this talent, and support these young people.”

A member of Bolivia’s indigenous people, the Aymara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aymara_people), Aduviri grew up in El Alto, a city known for its strong pride and resilience. It is home to almost a million people, most of whom are Aymara.

He studied screenwriting and turned to teaching at the school after graduating. He is passionate about filmmaking as an alternative to negative influences in the community: he wanted the film school “to give a voice to all the talent that we’re losing to alcohol, drugs, prostitution, homelessness and gangs.”

One student, Edson Chambiborque, told the BBC: “”He has taught us to value the little that we have in this school, and never drop our heads despite all the difficulties we may have.”

Aduviri comes from a poor family but now makes a good salary by Bolivian standards: US $200 a month. (The average monthly wage in Bolivia is around US $90). He still lives with his mother in a poor neighbourhood. His father, a miner, died of lung disease.

He wants to become a director and screenwriter and dreams of his film career taking him to the Cannes Film Festival in France (http://www.festival-cannes.com/).

He will continue acting to raise the money to be able to finance his own films. With the money he has made from appearing in the Spanish film, he has bought a computer with film editing software and a television. He has a goal to watch two movies a day on his new television and keep learning.

Appearing in the film has catapulted his career to the next level: the phone is always ringing and the world’s media keep asking for interviews. It has come with trips to Europe to promote the film and receive awards. He also won the best actor award from the Festival de Cinema Europeen des Arcs (http://www.lesarcs-filmfest.com/2010/programme/). An impressive journey for somebody from a poor family.

When he saw his first movie he was inspired by the magic of filmmaking. He told the BBC: “It was showing Rambo. And that day I realised what I wanted to do. When I left the cinema, I said: I want to make films.”

Bolivian film has had to fight for attention with other Central and South American countries. Brazil, Argentina and Chile all have experienced global success. The country has a rich – but little-known – film history, with significant Bolivian filmmakers including Pedro Sambarino, Jorge Ruiz, Oscar Soria, Jorge Sanjines, Antonio Eguino, Paolo Agazzi, Rodrigo Bellott, Juan Carlos Valdivia, Adriana Montenegro, Marcos Loayza.

Bolivia is looking to the digital age to rectify its relative anonymity, and Cine Alto may be ground zero for a Bolivian film new wave.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: March 2011

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=-k6YBgAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+march+2011&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challengessouthsouthsolutionsmarch2011issue

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

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