Deep in the remote highlands of Quiche, Guatemala lies the Ixil Maya community of Chel, where villagers are managing their own 165kW micro-hydro system, supplying power to over 400 households, through community enterprise. The Asociacion Hidroelectrica Chelense (AHC) is responsible for administration, operation and maintenance of the energy services scheme and is believed to be the first time that an indigenous people’s organization has benefited from the global carbon credit market.
We visited last week, with our local partners Fundacion Solar, a local NGO that has been active since 1995 promoting renewable energy and Saul Santos of Intervida Guatemala to learn more.
As we arrived there was a buzz in the air. Children were dressed in their finest traditional traje and the streets were lined with pine needles. The special occasion was the change over of the Junta Directiva (Board of Directors) of the AHC, which had been voted in democratically by the community. It was inspiring to see the level of community investment in the project, as we sat and watched the ceremony in the main square.
The changing of the Junta Directiva in the Parque Central
An essential theme of the project in Chel is the participation of local villagers. An initial community consultation process ensured that all members of the community had a good understanding of the potential project and the technology and agreed to the proposed plans for a tariff structure. Each family agreed to contribute with 80 days of labor to help in the civil works, in exchange for entry into the scheme, connection to the grid and home wiring. We were also amazed to learn that the community hand-build the mountain road in order to transport the equipment for their micro hydro system. When the rivers were too high to traverse, teams of men carried the huge electrical poles on their backs for miles to reach the remote community.
Women outside an electric-powered mill in Chel
The result is marvelous; the AHC is currently generating enough income from electricity sales to sustain their operation and maintenance costs. It also promotes the productive use of energy sources and has instigated economic development in the community, including the start up of a number of small enterprises. Here at AIDG Guatemala we are really interested in managing our Micro Hydro systems in a similar manner and it was a fantastic opportunity to see speak to the people in AHC and the consumers.
Duration: 16 min 41 sec (Spanish)
This episode looks at the example of the use of geothermal power in the production of dried fruit by Agroindustrias La Laguna. It also looks at the construction of a micro hydroelectric plant in Chel, Quiche, by the Asociación Hidroeléctrica Chelense (AHC), founded in 2001 with the support of the Fundación Solar. (around 6 min 42 sec)
Our next destination was to a potential microhydro site in Aquil Grande, Alta Verapaz, an epic journey through remote highland passes. On our way through the stunning valley heading from Chel back to Nebaj we passed through a huge construction site. Saul explained it was a 93MW Hydro-electric plant being built by a private company to sell the power to Union Fenosa, Guatemala’s private energy supplier to the rural poor (at inflated prices to the tariffs for urbanites..!).
Big = Better?
Cables will take power generated away from the area (where many communities still lack electricity) to a sub-station in Quetzaltenango. It reminded me of the lessons of Schumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ and the value in small, simple and locally beneficial, appropriate technology. I pondered this and felt inspired about the huge capacity for AIDGs work as we bumped along the winding road!
The community of Aquil Grande is home to around 500 people, who are currently paying high electricity tariffs, particularly for their public street lighting. After clambering about in the stream with community members to conduct tests, it proved to be more than sufficient for a system to provide electricity for the coffee processing machinery, street lighting and the school, which is currently without power.
Intern Alex Surasky-Ysasi testing stream flow
The idea is to run the scheme in a similar model to Chel, with a community association running the scheme and selling the power to the coffee cooperative, powering the school and providing public street lighting at a third of the current cost. Therefore not only will it build technical and administrative capacity in the community, making the scheme more self-sustainable, but will also reduce the burden of expensive power bills, stimulate new businesses and help the coffee co-operative compete in the global marketplace.
All over India, projects to fight trash, pollution, global warming and poverty are attracting kids from the Indian diaspora who want to spend a few years, or maybe longer, pushing for social change in the mother country.
Several recent studies have highlighted the important role that cross-border ethnic networks might play in facilitating entrepreneurship in developing countries. Little is known, however, about the extent to which domestic entrepreneurs rely on the diaspora and whether this varies systematically by the characteristics of the entrepreneurs or their local business environment. The Indian diaspora is estimated at over 18 million people spanning 130 countries. Given that formal institutions in India remain weak and hence the informal barriers to trade are higher, do diaspora networks serve as substitutes to the functioning of the local business environment? Do they help entrepreneurs to circumvent the barriers to trade arising from imperfect institutions? This study examines the extent to which software entrepreneurs within India vary in their reliance on expatriate networks.
Entrepreneurial Approaches to Energy for Development Date: Thursday March 27, 2008 Time: 1130AM-1PM Location: Bowers Auditorium Sage Hall - 205, Prospect Street, 2nd Floor Speaker: Prof Bryan Willson – Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University
Description:
Dr. Willson is Director of the Clean Energy Supercluster at CSU and a co-founder of Envirofit International - a non-profit committed to improving global health through technology solutions to environmental problems in the developing world. Since 2003, Dr. Willson has worked with Envirofit to develop cleaner 2-stroke engines in the Philippines and cookstoves in India. He will also discuss his work on algae-based biofuels through Solix Biofuels, a CSU-affiliated startup founded to enhance energy security worldwide as well as his experience with graduate-level education in technology and sustainable social enterprise at CSU (www.GSSE.ColoState.edu).
Why is serious investment in bottom- of-the-pyramid (BOP) markets the exception rather than the rule? What keeps companies from building lines of business by meeting the needs of the poor in developing markets?
Their answers:
Business as usual does not apply. “First, and perhaps most fundamentally, these new markets look awfully different from the standardized markets of the West.” For example: “Weak infrastructure creates challenges to product distribution that range from uncertain to insurmountable.”
“Most companies don’t know how to package products for poor people, and they don’t know what products and services the poor prefer.” Some companies such as Unilever have been very successful in marketing consumer goods. “But consumer goods are, in many cases, peripheral to a more substantial opportunity with a wider potential customer base in developing markets – namely, meeting the basic demand for housing, clean water, medical insurance, and legal and financial services that fit local needs, customs, and income.”
“[B]usiness investments in social and infrastructure needs often face the highest regulatory hurdles.”
Their proferred solution: Don’t recreate, innovate via grassroots design
[T]here is another way to look at developing markets. Rather than starting with the status quo in rich countries and measuring business opportunities in poor ones by gauging what it would take to recreate that environment, businesses can take a step back and do what entrepreneurs have always done: ask questions like “What do people need?” “Why don’t they have it?” and “How do they get it?”
That approach is the essence of grassroots design. Though it requires more initial thought and creativity, it makes things far simpler in the long run. Businesses that start with a grassroots design process end up with products and services that meet real, as opposed to perceived, needs; integrate local materials and processes; and reflect the culture and aesthetic of their customers. Of course, a company that embraces grassroots design does not gain the benefits of simply importing its existing business model and product line. But mass markets are fragmenting everywhere, and firms that learn to design up from local circumstances will compete better wherever they operate.
The Birima videoclip is part of the global campaign for the micro-credit programme in Senegal, a co-operative credit society founded by the Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour.
Birima helps the people of Senegal start their own businesses and develop small enterprises. It supports emerging artists and musicians, too. It is open to all, particularly women and young people, and it lends both to individuals and groups. Birima works with its clients, giving them the support they need to achieve business success.
Birima is also receiving financial support from Benneton who recently launched their Africa Works campaign. See particularly the Africa works images. I’m especially fond of the miller/welder pic.
Stacy Smith who worked on the campaign says [ref.]:
Late in 2007, Benetton began documenting the progress of the loan recipients through the images of photographer James Mollison. Mollison’s photos spotlight a diverse group of entrepreneurs including a fisherman, a decorator, a musician, a farmer, and a boxer. In keeping with Benetton’s commitment to social advocacy, the images are featured on billboards and print ads in the company’s new “Africa Works” global communications campaign. Benetton’s hope is that these everyday people will become tangible symbols of an Africa that uses the dignity of work to fight poverty and take back responsibility for creating its own future
In the talk that opened TEDGlobal 2007 (”Africa: The Next Chapter”), South African investment banker Euvin Naidoo sets the scene, framing the conversation that would unfold over the four-day event. “What’s the worst thing you’ve heard about Africa?” he asks. After fielding call-outs of “famine,” “war,” “corruption,” he urges the audience to move past these preconceptions — and offers a compelling picture of a continent on the cusp of enormous change.
In his talk, Naidoo mentions the next 11 ‘BRIC’ countries. A bit more info:
In December 2005, after its 2003 paper on the emerging “BRIC” economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China), Goldman Sachs investment bank named its “Next Eleven” list of countries, using macroeconomic stability, political maturity, openness of trade and investment policies and quality of education as criteria.
1. Bangladesh
2. Egypt
3. Indonesia
4. Iran
5. South Korea
6. Mexico
7. Nigeria
8. Pakistan
9. Philippines
10. Turkey
11. Vietnam
The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing the World Date: Monday March 3, 2008 Time: 6:00 PM Location: Kennedy School of Government, Arco Forum, 79 JFK St, Cambridge, MA, 02138
Speakers:
STACEY CHILDRESS
Lecturer and senior researcher, Harvard Business School
LESLIE CRUTCHFIELD
Managing Director, Ashoka Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship
Author, Forces for Good
PAMELA HARTIGAN
Managing Director, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
Co-author, The Power of Unreasonable People
VANESSA KIRSCH
President and Founder,New Profit Inc.
DAVID GERGEN
Director, Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership
CHRISTOPHER GERGEN (MODERATOR)
Visiting Lecturer, Duke University; Founding Partner, New Mountain Ventures
Author, Life Entrepreneurs
Bentley Leadership Forum 2008- The Global Imperative to Serve the Public Good Date: March 27, 2008 Time:8:00 to 1:15pm Location: Bentley College, 175 Forest St., Waltham, MA 02452 Directions Register: http://www.bentley.edu/celebrate/register.cfm
Speakers Patty Stonesifer, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Romesh Ratnesar, deputy managing editor of TIME magazine Carol Cone, chairman, Cone Communications Ambassador Swanee Hunt, director of the Women and Public Policy Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Ambassador Charles R. Stith, director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center Anthony Buono, Bentley professor and coordinator of the Bentley Alliance for Social Responsibility
Description:
The 2008 Bentley Leadership Forum will continue last year’s highly successful focus on “The Business of Healing Our World,” this time with an examination of “The Global Imperative to Serve the Public Good.”
Join leaders from a wide range of organizations to examine how bold ideas can transform our society and our world.
8:00 to 8:30 a.m. Admission and light refreshments
8:30 a.m. WELCOME and INTRODUCTION
8:55 to 10:00 a.m.
A conversation with Patty Stonesifer, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Romesh Ratnesar, deputy managing editor of TIME magazine
10:00 to 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 to 11:45 a.m. PANEL DISCUSSION: Carol Cone, chairman, Cone Communications Ambassador Swanee Hunt, director of the Women and Public Policy Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Ambassador Charles R. Stith, director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center Moderator: Anthony Buono, Bentley professor and coordinator of the Bentley Alliance for Social Responsibility
11:45 a.m. to noon Break
Noon to 1:15 p.m. LUNCHEON in honor of Tomorrow25 Winners Keynote speaker: Michael Brown, Founder and CEO of City Year
Believe Begin Become - currently being run in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania - is designed to give enterprising men and women the training and resources they need to launch or expand businesses, while fostering a broader culture of entrepreneurship within a country.
Duration: 2min 46sec
Samina Sachak describes her plan to farm halal prawns for sale in Tanga, Tanzania.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw
A few good books by/for/about social entrepreneurs:
The gist of the book is that established businesses should carefully watch—and be ready to invest in—various forms of social entrepreneurship, which tend to be good at spotting profitable opportunities in unlikely places, not least amongst poorer consumers at the so-called “bottom of the pyramid”. Mr Yunus has showed that even the poorest borrowers can be good customers, and as a result huge amounts of profit-seeking capital have flowed into the microfinance industry all over the world. Ms Hartigan and Mr Elkington reckon that social entrepreneurs will uncover other profitable new industries.
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In the early days, social entrepreneurs saw themselves as an alternative to business or government. Today, they want to be partners, seeing business and government as assets to be leveraged. This is probably a good thing, provided it does not dull their creativity or cause them to be more reasonable.
Rob Katz provides notable excerpts in his post over at NextBillion.net and finishes with this recommendation:
Do yourself a favor, and read the whole book. Some of the anecdotes will be familiar – that’s to be expected – and there’s not enough discussion of failure. But what Elkington and Hartigan have done here is more than a successor to David Bornstein’s How to Change the World. Rather, The Power of Unreasonable People is a call to action with blueprints included. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, be sure not to skip the conclusion – it’s worth the wait.
In this hard-hitting new book, Paul Polak tells why traditional poverty eradication programs have fallen so short, and how he and his organization developed an alternative approach that has succeeded in lifting 17 million people out of poverty.
Based on his 25 years of experience, Polak explodes what he calls the “Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths”: that we can donate people out of poverty, that national economic growth will end poverty, and that Big Business, operating as it does now, will end poverty. Polak shows that programs based on these ideas have utterly failed—in fact, in sub-Saharan Africa poverty rates have actually gone up.
These failed top-down efforts contrast sharply with the grassroots approach Polak and IDE have championed: helping the dollar-a-day poor earn more money through their own efforts. Amazingly enough, unexploited market opportunities do exist for the desperately poor. Polak describes how he and others have identified these opportunities and have developed innovative, low-cost tools that have helped impoverished rural farmers use the market to improve their lives.
Blog 
The changing of the Junta Directiva in the Parque Central
Women outside an electric-powered mill in Chel
Intern Alex Surasky-Ysasi testing stream flow
Bentley Leadership Forum 2008- The Global Imperative to Serve the Public Good