Lighting Africa
September 12th, 2007
Just last week, the World Bank launched a new program called “Lighting Africa,” to provide safer, greener alternatives for the 250 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who have no access to power.
Because the World Bank estimates that $17 billion a year is spent on inefficient and polluting light sources, such as kerosene, they are turning loose the private sector with a competition and the promise of cold, hard cash (something that’s always alluring to aspiring entrepreneurs!).
Ten to 20 winners will receive grants of up to $200,000. More than 350 companies have already expressed interest.
According to the article,
Working with its private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, the bank intends to develop market conditions for the supply and distribution of non-fossil fuel lighting products.
These products can include fluorescent light bulbs and light-emitting diodes for use in rural and urban areas not connected to an electricity grid. Power would come from the sun, the wind and mechanical devices such as pedals.
Perhaps some of you out there have a good idea to throw into the mix? The prize might be small, but the reward is immeasurable!
Amy Smith and D-Lab
June 20th, 2007
I just flew out to Boston to spend the day at MIT meeting with Amy Smith. Aside from being a certified genius (the MIT engineer received a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2004) and just a lovely person, Amy heads MIT’s D-Lab program to point MIT undergraduates towards designing cheap, practical fixes for tough problems in developing countries.
Click on the link to check out Amy’s talk at the TED Conference in February 2006. Here’s a short summary:
Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for converting farm waste into cleaner-burning fuel. Plain-spoken and passionate, Smith talks about some other tools she and her students are creating, including an incubator that stays warm without electricity and a grain mill that frees women from hours of grinding every day. These are basic tools with world-changing results.
Someday I’ll figure out how to directly import the video clips into my blog. Until then, bear with me and click on the link. It’s an impressive 15 minutes, I promise!
Design for the Other 90%
June 6th, 2007
I spent last weekend in New York City, and the day after I arrived I rushed over to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum on the Upper East Side to check out their new exhibit called Design for the Other 90%.
According to the museum website:
Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, 5.8 billion people, or 90%, have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% explores a growing movement among designers to design low-cost solutions for this “other 90%.†Through partnerships both local and global, individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the world’s poor and marginalized.
The exhibit is located in the garden court of what is the old Carnegie mansion on Museum Mile and covers technology innovations in shelter, health, water, education, energy and transport.
This wheel, for example, is meant to improve upon water distribution methods in areas of the world where many women still carry water back to their villages on their heads.
My only complaint was that the relative cost of production for each of the inventions wasn’t mentioned — a fairly important question when one is evaluating technology for developing world economies. Otherwise, I thought it was an encouraging attempt to raise awareness about the problems — and the potential solutions — facing most of the rest of the world.
For a copy of the coffee table book showcasing all of the exhibits, check out the Cooper-Hewitt online shop.
The Next 4 Billion
March 27th, 2007
Three years ago, University of Michigan strategy guru C.K. Prahalad proposed that multinational corporations could alleviate global poverty while boosting their bottom lines in his best-selling book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
In an interview for Fast Company’s March issue, Prahalad gives an example:
FC: Can the poor–or even the “underserved”–really be a growth engine for companies?
Prahalad: Look at wireless. In India, wireless-communication companies are adding 5 million new subscribers per month. They expect, by 2010, to have 400 million subscribers connected wirelessly. If you’re Nokia, or Motorola, or Ericsson, and you don’t participate in that market, 50% of your future business is gone.
Though Prahalad’s critics have charged that the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) is smaller and less lucrative than Prahalad has claimed, a recent report by the IFC (the private sector arm of the World Bank Group) called “The Next 4 Billion” seems to back him up.
According to the World Resources Institute,
New empirical measures of their aggregate purchasing power and behavior as consumers suggest significant opportunities for market-based approaches to better meet their needs, increase their productivity and incomes, and empower their entry into the formal economy.
Drawing on income data from 110 countries and standardized expenditure data from 36 countries across the globe, The Next 4 Billion is an important first look at the market opportunity represented by four billion individuals who make up the BOP.
The sooner the developed world can bring the developing world into the club, the sooner they are regarded as an equally worthy recipient of all the necessities and all the luxuries the world has to offer, the sooner global poverty will become a hazy relic of the past.
Certainly charity has its place in the alleviation of global suffering. But long-term, finding ways to bring these people, these countries into the world marketplace will ensure that charity is no longer necessary.
New Global Fund Combats Malaria
January 22nd, 2007
First the bad news. As you may already know, malaria kills 1 million people a year in Africa, mostly children under the age of 5. Sadly, the cause of the disease has been known since the 19th century. Prevention of and treatment for the disease is widely available for those in the developed world.
Nevertheless, the Center for Disease and Control Prevention says 350-500 million cases of malaria occur each year worldwide, making it one of the deadliest diseases in underdeveloped parts of the world.
And now the good news! A World Bank-sponsored forum recently announced the creation of a new global fund to subsidize the purchase of a new generation of anti-malaria drugs for Africa.
According to the Associated Press,
The drugs, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies, or ACTs, are meant to replace chloroquine and other old generation drugs sold in Africa and Southeast Asia… which have become ineffective.
Olusoji Adeyi, the World Bank’s coordinator of public health programs, said it took 18 months of discussions to reach a broad agreement on the need for the subsidy. The plan will work in tandem with the bank’s malaria-prevention programs to provide mosquito nets and insecticide to affected areas.
Hopefully the coordination of additional money and resources will bring relief to the millions in Africa who suffer so needlessly from this disease.
To find out what you can do to help malaria victims around the world, visit World Vision’s Global Emporium where a small $20 investment can provide malaria care for a whole family in Africa.