New Global Citizen - Fall 2015 by New Global Citizen

Fall 2015

THE GLOBAL GOALS IN ACTION

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USAID to Companies: Join Us in Meeting the Global Goals

A Cambodian Woman Attends University & Changes Her Life

Power Africa Goes Beyond the Grid to Provide Electricity to Millions

The Dow Chemical Company Discovers the Value of a Swamp

RICARDO MICHEL

MENGHUN KAING

KATRINA PIELLI & ANDREW M. HERSCOWITZ

LAURA ASIALA www.newglobalcitizen.com

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Fall 2015 Contributors

Editor In Chief Alicia Bonner Ness

Executive Publisher Amanda MacArthur

Managing Editor, Design & Publication Manager Melissa Mattoon

Cover Illustration Bratislav Milenković (http://bit.ly/1I5Q0e5)

Ricardo Michel

Director, Center for Transformational Partnerships, USAID

Ellen Martin

Associate Director, Partnerships, Shared Value Initiative, an initiative of FSG

Deirdre White

CEO, PYXERA Global

Menghun Kaing

Program Officer, The Asia Foundation

Andrew M. Herscowitz

Coordinator, Power Africa and Trade Africa, USAID

Katrina Pielli

Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy

Michael Serino

Executive Director, Cornell University

Laura Georgianna

Director, Roy H Park Leadership Fellows Program, Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University

Scott Boylston

Program Coordinator, Design for Sustainability, Savannah College of Art and Design

Laura Asiala

Vice President, Client Relations & Public Affairs, PYXERA Global

Daniel Breneman

Program Manager, PYXERA Global

Aubrey Hruby

Africa Investment Advisor, Wharton Social Impact Initiative

Jake Bright

Contributing Editor & Financial Consultant, Bloomberg LP - Whitehead Fellow of The Foreign Policy Association

PUBLISHED DAILY AT: www.newglobalcitizen.com CONTACT: editor@newglobalcitizen.com (202) 719-0656 @BeNewGlobal facebook.com/BeNewGlobal

Today’s world demands individuals and organizations prepared to thrive in a globally interconnected network of challenges and opportunities. Greater social awareness and innovative approaches have allowed us to cross borders and cultural boundaries to create shared value and understanding. The New Global Citizen chronicles the stories, strategies, and impact of innovative leadership and global engagement around the world. This publication seeks to capture the ground-level impact of these approaches, providing an avenue through which beneficiaries and implementers alike can showcase their impact. Today’s transformed and increasingly interconnected world has spurred a revolution, ushering in collaborative approaches that address complex challenges. The New Global Citizen elevates the ways in which individuals, corporations, and social enterprises champion a better future for our world.

THIS IS THE WORLD OF THE NEW GLOBAL CITIZEN. THIS IS YOUR WORLD.

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Can Tri-Sector Collaboration Achieve the SDGs?

his September marked a momentous occasion for the United Nations. In the 70th General Assembly, 193 countries endorsed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which will guide international development efforts for the next 15 years. Known interchangeably as the SDGs and the Global Goals, these shared objectives attempt to capture the greatest challenges facing people and the planet, including affordable nutrition, health, education, gender equity, water and sanitation, energy, employment and growth, infrastructure and innovation, cities and human settlements, and urgent action to counteract climate change. Yet the nature of lists contradicts the fact that each of these objectives is inherently interrelated. In this issue, we explore the human realities of all these goals, and reflect only a sampling of the cross-sector collaboration needed to achieve them. At the same time, we point to ways in which the goals are interlinked, a concept

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captured on our cover. Take Shalini, a young girl in India, the last of five children in a poor family. Shalini’s family often cannot afford enough food. Her family does not have access to clean drinking water, so she has had chronic diarrhea for most of her childhood, due to a water-born parasite. Because she is almost always hungry or sick, she often does not have the energy to attend school. Her family does not have electricity, and so even when she does attend school, she can’t complete her assignments after dark. Without attending school, Shalini has little hope of gainful employment, except as a low-skill worker. Without education and employment, how can she advance gender equality? Shalini’s story exemplifies how advancing Goals 2-8 forms a web of individual empowerment, a critical foundation to achieve Goal 1: ending poverty worldwide. Similarly, Goals 9-17 sketch a matrix of change required at the country and institutional level. Innovation, infrastructure (Goal 9), and efforts to counteract climate change, preserve ecosystems, and ensure sustainable consumption (Goals 12-15) have a direct effect on the safety, sustainability, and resilience of cities and settlements (Goal 11). Peace and justice (Goal 16) provide a critical foundation for human rights, which pave the way to ending inequality (Goal 10).

Goal 17 advocates for partnership, which provides a means to achieving this ambitious agenda. But partnership is just one dimension of efforts governments, companies, nonprofits, and universities can undertake to advance progress. In these pages, we explore how one university is developing leaders to embrace a more empathetic mindset, and how a growing number of companies are deploying their employees as skilled volunteers who deliver sustainable impact at the same time that they architect new and innovative markets and grow as leaders themselves. We showcase how the Power Africa initiative is harnessing an array of blended capital to expand offgrid access to electricity, how different social sector organizations are pioneering market-based sanitation solutions in Ethiopia while multiple partners work to eliminate cervical cancer worldwide. These inspiring stories stand as an example of ways that organizations bold enough to try can effectively address their own bottom line while also advancing a shared agenda.

Alicia Bonner Ness Editor in Chief

CONTENTS Comments 12

Private Sector: Can SociallyMinded Capitalism Tackle the World’s Biggest Challenges Over the Next 15 Years? Ellen Martin

Partnership: A Tri-sector Perspective

9 Public Sector: USAID to Companies: “Join Us in Meeting the U.N. Global Goals” Ricardo Michel

14 Social Sector: Sleeping With the Enemy Deirdre White

Feature Articles 20

Could Cervical Cancer Be the Next Polio? Alicia Bonner Ness

Mind the Gap: Companies Partner to Build Skilled Labor Amanda MacArthur

Peace Corps Paves a Pathway to Service-Driven Partnership Daniel Breneman

In Cambodia, Access to University Education Enables Women to Succeed Menghun Kaing

Global Pro Bono Converts Insight to Innovation Michael Serino Laura Georgianna

Diverse Partners Work to Build a Booming Toilet Business in Ethiopia Melissa Mattoon

Equitable Urbanization Powered by Education & Inclusive Design Scott Boylston

Going Beyond the Grid to Provide Electricity to Millions Andrew M. Herscowitz Katrina Pielli

Dow Discovers the Value of a Swamp Laura Asiala

Extras 6 SDG Overview Breaking Down The Sustainable Development Agenda

18 Infographic What’s the Recipe to End Hunger?

58 Book Excerpt The Next Africa: An Emerging Continent Becomes a Global Powerhouse

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The Sustainable Development Goals In 2000, the ratification of the Millennium Development Goals provided a common understanding of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most egregious social problems and set a timeline for improvement. The MDGs encompassed eight globally agreed targets for poverty alleviation, education, gender equality, maternal health, environmental sustainability, reducing HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases, and building a global partnership for development. Today, much progress has been made, but more work remains to be done. This fall, the United Nations formalized the Sustainable Development Goals to finish the job. 1. NO POVERTY End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. ZERO HUNGER End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

3. GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages

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4. QUALITY EDUCATION Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

p. 24 5. GENDER EQUALITY Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

p. 28

7. AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

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p. 34

8. DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all

p. 38 9. INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation

p. 42 10. REDUCED INEQUALITIES Reduce inequality within and among countries

11. SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

p. 46 12. RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13. CLIMATE ACTION Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

p. 50 14. LIFE BELOW WATER Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

15. LIFE ON LAND Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss

16. PEACE, JUSTICE, AND STRONG INSTITUTIONS Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17. PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS p. 54

Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development Fall 2015 |

PARTNERSHIP: A Tri-sector Perspective

ncreasingly, leaders in development speak of cross-sector—or preferably tri-sector— partnership as the foundation of international progress. Yet, for too long, “partnership” has persisted in meaning simply writing a check, dressed up to look like more. Here, three leaders give voice to each of the sectors, explaining the approach and attitude of their domain, to encourage interaction with the others. Weaving together the groundbreaking efforts of the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID, the perspective of the Shared Value Initiative, which works with dozens of global companies, and PYXERA Global’s 25 years of experience in the social sector, these views seek to catalyze others towards enthusiastic collaboration to transform the world.

COMMENTS Public Sector: Ricardo Michel U.S. Global Development Lab, USAID Private Sector: Ellen Martin Shared Value Initiative, FSG Social Sector: Deirdre White PYXERA GLOBAL

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Public Sector

USAID to Companies: “Join Us in Meeting the U.N. Global Goals” Ricardo Michel

orld leaders, together with the international development community, launched a new, ambitious post-2015 agenda at the 70th U.N. General Assembly, building on progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals. The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs (also known as the Global Goals), have launched at a pivotal moment when, for the first time in history, ending extreme poverty is within reach. They set forth a bold agenda to improve the lives and livelihoods of the 1.2 billion people still living on less than $1.25 per day by tackling the multidimensional nature of poverty, addressing diverse issues like hunger and agriculture, health, women’s empowerment, energy access, and economic growth. The number of people living in extreme poverty has been halved since 1990 and the SDGs aim to end extreme poverty once and for all—but, we acknowledge, no single donor, organization, or government can do this alone. Meeting these objectives will require broad-based, collaborative partnerships between host country governments and donor nations, civil society and academic institutions, faith-based organizations, and the private sector. Achieving the SDGs will require more than foreign assistance alone, a point resoundingly endorsed by development leaders at the Financing for Development Confer-

ence in Addis Ababa this past July. The global community must mobilize the resources, expertise, and commitment of host country governments, other domestic actors, and the private sector, in addition to channeling Official Development Assistance (ODA) to where it is needed most. At no other time in history has U.S. foreign aid made up such a small share of global capital flows. ODA currently totals $160 billion per year, while foreign investment in developing countries totals more than $900 billion, and investment by domestic companies in their own economies exceeds $3.7 trillion. This level of private investment is critical to driving economic growth, specifically advancing SDG 8. The private sector generates 80 percent of capital flows and 90 percent of jobs in developing countries, important drivers of inclusive economic growth—growth that reduces poverty and protects the environment and our most vulnerable populations. With skilled human capital, sophisticated technologies, sizable resources and global reach, companies are well-positioned to be key partners and powerful catalysts for change. And so, USAID calls on companies large and small, local and multinational to be active partners with the development community in this effort to address the full breadth of SDGs.

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Expanding access to affordable, reliable, and sustain- sectors to deliver cost-effective, sustainable, and resultsable modern energy—SDG 7—for example, is critical to oriented solutions. development, and Power Africa brings together African USAID recognizes that the strongest partnerships are governments, private-sector investors, and 12 U.S. gov- rooted in shared interests and shared value, and seeks ernment agencies to increase clean and efficient energy to engage the private sector in a number of ways. generation capacity and expand electricity access for 60 1. STRENGTHEN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS million new home and business connections throughout USAID works alongside host country governments and sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S. government’s initial $7 bilinternational organizations to strengthen policies that lion commitment is complemented by nearly $32 billion make it easier to start a business, invest, and ensure in financial commitments from private-sector partners. a level playing field for competition so that businesses Power Africa also enables critical policy reforms, local can help drive economic growth. For example, USAID is capacity-building, and legal assistance that support these supporting the Trade Facilitation Alliance to support the investments and are necessary to promote innovative implementation of the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement solutions that develop, scale, and extend technologies and create a framework for businesses to partner with for both increased power generation capacity and access governments to deliver trade facilitation reforms that to both on- and off-grid energy for millions. are commercially meaningful and driven by real-world Ending hunger and achieving food security through business metrics. sustainable agriculture—SDG 2—will require large capital investments but also sustainable supply chains that 2. CO-INVEST IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS ensure the long-term availability of key commodities, a Donors and businesses can together generate “shared critical component of private-sector business models and value” for companies and USAID. USAID’s flagship partprofit margins. This means nership model, the Global companies like Starbucks Development Alliance, ofand Keurig Green Mounfers an open door to the tain must recognize their private sector to partner From using cell phones to track Ebola important stake in Latin where business interests American coffee growth. in West Africa to Feed the Future’s align with the developThrough programs like the transformation of Bangladesh’s agriculture ment targets. The Water Coffee Farmer Resilience sector, USAID is building partnerships that & Development Alliance Initiative, this work has (WADA), brings together leverage the combined expertise, assets been identified as a part The Coca-Cola Company, of core business interests. and resources of the public, private, and the Global Environment The program has extended & Technology Foundation social sectors to deliver cost-effective, critical support to more (GETF), and USAID. Now in than 40,000 farmers in the sustainable, and results-oriented solutions. its 10th year, the program region to fight plant disis working to improve ease, ensure sustainable water supply for more supply, and protect local than 600,000 people and incomes. place more than 440,000 hectares of watersheds under Partnership is a core tenet of USAID’s mission and sustainable management. work, underpinning the Agency’s mission to move ‘beyond aid’ to harness the business of development for 3. CATALYZE PRIVATE INVESTMENT USAID’s Development Credit Authority builds upon deeper, more sustainable impact. From using cell phones private-sector transactions, local market knowledge, and to track Ebola in West Africa to Feed the Future’s transformation of Bangladesh’s agriculture sector, USAID is build- available U.S. Government tools to engage investors and ing partnerships that leverage the combined expertise, prove commercial viability in underserved markets to assets, and resources of the public, private, and social encourage investment in critical development sectors

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such as energy generation, food security, health, and access to credit.

4. SPUR ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND IMPACT INVESTING IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD The last decade has seen an explosion of new entrepreneurs seeking to scale market-based solutions for people living at the base of the pyramid. At the same time, the impact investing sector, in which investors seek to deploy capital that generates both financial and social returns, has seen rapid growth. Through our Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) initiative, USAID works with more than 20 incubators, accelerators, and seed-stage impact investors to bridge the gap between early-stage enterprise development and investable opportunities for impact investors.

5. ENGAGE IN POLICY DIALOGUE Around important development issues that also impact business, USAID seeks to develop multi-stakeholder alliances that bring together governments, civil society, and the private sector to address policy barriers to change and to take collective action to addressing them. The Business Call to Action is a unique multilateral alliance between key donor governments, in collaboration with global institutions such as the International Finance Corporation and U.N. Global Compact, which challenges companies to develop inclusive business models that offer potential for both commercial success and development impact. More than 100 companies have responded to the call, making commitments to engage low-income and underserved consumers, producers, suppliers, and distributors. The private sector must join longstanding partners— host country governments, donors, NGOs, civil society organizations—in these types of multi-sector partnerships that recognize the strengths of diverse stakeholders in addressing policy, financing, and structural barriers to development. The New Alliance for Food Security exemplifies this multi-stakeholder approach, building a shared commitment amongst African leadership, private-sector partners, and donors to achieve sustained and inclusive agricultural growth and raise 50 million people out of poverty. To date, the Alliance has catalyzed more than $10 billion in commitments from more than 200 international and African companies to drive implementation of effective food security policies, increase responsible private

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The resources, flexibility, and innovation of business can help the development community take a more holistic approach by addressing issues of trade, investment, and commercial relationships, as well as achieve sustainable development results.

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investment in agriculture, and expand potential for rapid and sustainable agricultural growth. We recognize that USAID’s strengths often lie not only in its role as a funder, but also its ability to facilitate dialogue, build coalitions, be a thought leader, and leverage the strengths of nontraditional partners. In the last decade alone, USAID has established more than 1,500 partnerships with more than 3,500 different organizations. These alliances work in diverse ways to transform lives and economies through inclusive and sustainable growth. That is only possible with the help of private-sector partners that recognize it is in their own interest to be willing partners in taking on today’s global challenges while meeting consumer needs and building profits. To achieve these ends, private investment can—and must—be complementary to ODA and the work of longstanding NGO and civil society partners. The resources, flexibility, and innovation of business can help the development community take a more holistic approach by addressing issues of trade, investment, and commercial relationships, while achieving sustainable development results. Together, we must explore opportunities for collaboration, share new ideas and work side by side to develop and adopt new solutions and innovative approaches to reducing poverty while also creating business value. The private sector must join this global effort—alongside host country governments, donors, nonprofits, and academics, among others—in multi-sector partnerships that recognize the strengths of diverse stakeholders in addressing policy, financing, and structural barriers to development. Together, we can form a robust comprehensive and affective approach that will reduce poverty, foster inclusive economic growth, and ensure we achieve the ambitious agenda set forth by the Global Goals.

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Private Sector

Can Socially-Minded Capitalism Tackle the World’s Biggest Challenges Over the Next 15 Years? Shared Value Offers an Effective Strategy for Private Sector Engagement in Social Impact

ince the launch of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals 15 years ago, the relationship between companies and the communities where they operate has evolved considerably. Many corporations who once viewed contributions to society as good citizenship now view such activities as central to business success. Today, companies increasingly find inspiration for new products, supply-chain partners, operational models, and workforce talent by aligning their business with social good. The emergence of rankings like Fortune Magazine’s Change the World List is evidence of just how quickly companies creating shared value—generating profit by creating positive social impact—are bounding into the mainstream. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Global Goals that will guide sustainability and development for the next 15 years, present business with an opportunity to play a role in development like never before, in essence, competing to change the world for the better. But will they? Most corporate executives still believe development is the responsibility of the public sector and aid organizations, with the private sector playing a supporting philanthropic role. Likewise, many in the U.N. and the development community still view corporations primarily as donors or sponsors. Yet, an emerging cohort of companies sees the challenges captured by the SDGs—climate change, world hunger, gender inequality, and more—as business opportunities, and aid agencies, governments, and international nonprofits as business partners. Private-sector leaders in this cohort see many of the SDGs as relevant, profitable, and a source of competitive advantage. Indeed, many exemplary partnerships are emerging. The examples below illustrate how companies are working with

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Ellen Martin

partners to address these big global issues while creating business opportunities.

GOAL 2: End hunger and achieve food security and improved nutrition with sustainable agriculture. In the food and beverage industry, business success usually depends on the harvest of local farmers. In rural areas, a lack of resources, technology, and training can make it difficult for impoverished farmers to grow a quality product. For example, TechnoServe, an international NGO, has been instrumental in many multi-sector partnerships that not only address this societal need, but also result in more productive crop yields and better raw material for global supply chains. Project Nurture, a partnership among TechnoServe, Coca-Cola, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, helps fruit farmers access new markets in East Africa. With Gates’ funding and TechnoServe’s critical assistance on the ground, Coca-Cola can ensure a more stable and high-quality value chain by improving smallholder farmer production and technical knowledge in the region. In this pilot project, two local processors have met Coca-Cola's quality standards as suppliers so the company can locally source fruit puree for its Minute Maid Mango product specifically designed for the East African market. One of the largest coffee purchasers in the world, Nespresso has worked in long-term partnership with TechnoServe to revive high-quality coffee production in Colombia and South Sudan. Jean-Marc Duvoisin, Nespresso’s CEO, believes partnership has been critical to the company’s success in these areas. “Our AAA Program itself is an example of an innovative approach to creating shared value for farmers and consumers,” said Duvoisin. “This unique direct-from-farmer sourcing model, combining qual-

ity, sustainability and productivity principles,” he explained, “has resulted in better coffee quality, better environmental conditions, better social conditions, and even higher income for farmers.”

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GOAL 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. For companies in the health industry, shared value is already integral to the business of making people healthy. But some companies have been intentional in promoting well-being in rural markets previously untouched by their business. Their ability to implement shared value strategies would not be possible without the involvement of nonprofits, philanthropy, and other private-sector partners. In East Africa, GSK has embarked on an ambitious long-term global partnership with Save the Children to “help save the lives of one million children” by 2017. GSK’s work with various partners has so far helped train 25,000 frontline health workers, who collectively reach 6.5 million people. The hope is that this partnership model sets the standard for the industry. Simon Wright, Head of Child Survival at Save the Children, is hopeful about how GSK’s commitment could motivate others to do the same. “If GSK can persuade the rest of the pharmaceutical industry to follow its lead,” said Wright, “We hope to help save even more children’s lives.” Discovery Ltd., the South Africa-based global insurance company, has recognized that incentivizing healthy behavior among members and communities is good for the bottom line. Through its foundation, the Vitality Institute, they are now taking this message to employers and cities with data on community health risks in a report funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the U.S.-based philanthropic foundation. Discovery is partnering with pharmaceutical companies, clients, employers, and even other insurers, to better manage risks and costs of healthcare, adding value throughout the system. Discovery has now scaled its successful programs around the world. A host of other examples demonstrate the point further. Unilever partners with CARE, the State Bank of India, and other companies, to empower women micro-entrepreneurs in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (GOAL 5: Empower all

An emerging cohort of companies sees the challenges captured by the SDGs— climate change, world hunger, gender inequality, and more—as business opportunities, and aid agencies, governments and international nonprofits as business partners.

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women and girls). Barclays, Plan, CARE, and Grameen Bank are working to extend access to basic financial services for the unbanked (GOAL 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all). Arup, Rockefeller Foundation, and countless other private, philanthropic, and public-sector partners are working together to build resilience of cities to better prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change (Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable). Companies are not supplanting the role of traditional donors and aid organization, but rather demonstrating that collaboration and cross-sector integration can yield more sustainable (and often better) results. Working together across organizational and sector lines, each partner—corporate, nonprofit, and government alike—plays an essential role in achieving a shared goal. Nonprofits and governments are also recognizing the need to engage in partnerships that create shared value and are increasingly positioning themselves as business partners. Fifteen of the largest international NGOs, including Save the Children, PATH, and MercyCorps, have recently formed a community of practice to learn from one another and evolve their business model. Government is catching on too: this month, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has publicly and financially committed to engaging in shared value partnerships with the private sector. Companies now have a unique opportunity to create transformational impact for both the world and their business. Will they? And will their partners get on board? It is encouraging that the U.N. Global Compact and KPMG have recently published recommendations intended to help companies view the shared value opportunities in each of the goals. This inspiration is certainly a start, but, as with most things, it still requires the perspiration of actually getting the job done. Implementing these forward-thinking, innovative ideas to tackle the SDGs will take hard work to forge intentional tri-sector partnerships. But the successes of large companies like Nespresso, GSK, and others suggest those hard-won results just might be enough to change the world.

I N S P I R AT I O N

P E R S P I R AT I O N

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Social Sector

Sleeping With the Enemy Cross-Sector Collaboration Starts with a Meaningful Foundation of Partnership

artnerships with private corporations—especially the large, multinational variety—often cause social sector organizations, and even public sector agencies, to experience extraordinary discomfort and uncertainty. After what can feel like endless flirtation and secret liaisons, hidden from view for fear of the implications of a relationship with a partner of questionable character, nonprofits and government agencies alike tentatively announce their intention to defy the status quo and get in bed with a large multinational company. And yet, calling such collaboration a “partnership” can cause all parties involved to break out in hives, as they try to answer the question: what really is a partner, and when can you call a relationship a partnership? Is it a partnership when it is still a hush-hush flirtation behind closed doors? Does it only become a partnership once it’s announced? When someone cuts a check? Or only when the ink is dried? A social sector leader recently quipped, “The best day of a partnership is the day the MOU is signed.” At PYXERA Global, we have struggled with these questions as our operational model shifted from one that just a decade ago was wholly funded by the government (USAID) to one that depends on give-and-take partnerships across the public, private, and social sectors. Certainly, this was in part a business decision—the organization needed a more diverse funding base and saw the increasing opportunity to engage with corporations. Our organization has been highly successful at this, achieving four-fold

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D eirdre White

growth over just a handful of years, and today we receive 90 percent of our funding from the private sector. While client diversification is critical to our longevity and stability, the more important story is that we have learned how to negotiate, create, and maintain complex cross-sector partnerships. These partnerships are returning far greater impact than the organization’s more one-dimensional legacy programming. Changing not just a business model, but an entire philosophy about a discipline, is not easy. It takes years and a lot of learning on the job. It takes a true ability to see one’s work from another perspective, and it takes a hefty investment of dollars that many nonprofits don’t have. When other social sector leaders reach out to us for advice on how we made the change, I am always honest, cautioning that we very nearly put ourselves out of business in the process. As an organization, PYXERA Global now seeks to smooth the pathway to partnership for others. We share what we have learned in hopes that others may avoid the endless workdays, sleepless nights, and nail-biting board meetings that we endured over a number of years.

Two steps forward, and one step back I often marvel how far the international development community has come in its ability—and incentive—to collaborate across sectors. Just a dozen years ago, our team was invited to present our work regarding supplier development to the procurement leaders of one of the

Still, it is enormously frustrating to see the way outlargest oil companies in the world. We saw a clear case to create economic opportunity for local businesses in dated mindsets can hinder progress. The continued negaoil-producing nations. We understood the company’s sup- tive response, by many in the public and social sectors, ply chain needs and how to build the capacity of local to partnerships with global corporations may be hard to businesses to meet those requirements. We had trained imagine in a day when the word “partnership” is used so ourselves to speak the language of the oil industry. But freely, where government agencies in the United States when we were introduced as representatives of a non- and elsewhere have “partnerships” offices, and many profit, the visceral disengagement of our audience was nonprofits now have Directors of Corporate Engagement palpable—to them “nonprofit” equaled “Greenpeace.” or Vice Presidents for Private-Public Partnerships. Those They saw us immediately as an adversary—a non-starter in international development understand the importance of the partnership agenda, at least on paper. for any kind of partnership or collaboration. But time and time again, I hear—or experience diIn the same general timeframe, social and public rectly—antiquated attitudes and expectations that hinder sector agencies reacted with equivalent aversion to our collaborating with mining companies for community de- progress. A corporate colleague recently shared how the velopment. We received malicious emails on a weekly extractive company she represents was refused a paid basis from other nonprofit leaders accusing us of every- membership in a thought leadership group dedicated to thing from displacement of indigenous peoples to environ- corporate engagement. The highly influential organization required her commental degradation, pany to deliver a ignoring the excellent presentation, likely results and the comentitled “Why We Are munity’s strong supChange is still far too slow. The triNot Evil,” before it port for the program. sector partnership landscape is deigned to include The gentler comthem. In another menters accused us largely comprised of the same global episode, a major of “whitewashing.” corporations, the same social sector corporation insisted Today, the oil industry sees nonproforganizations, and the same narrow donor on investing in very visible infrastructure its like PYXERA Global agency departments that really get it. activities even though as critical partners it was clear that local in supplier developcustom would prement, community vent the usage of engagement, and risk the assets, clearly a management. Donor agencies tout “co-creation” of solutions with the private sector as a critical path to impact. waste of resources. And what fireworks I’ve seen ensue Today, some of the very same organizations that maligned when a bilateral donor’s burdensome policies clash with our work a decade ago now jointly design programs with a corporation’s regulations, and neither is willing to give an inch. Clearly, none of these examples is what I would big business because they see the chance—the need—to consider a true partnership, yet in each case the colleverage corporate strengths to deliver social value. laboration in question was broadly advertised as such. And yet, change is still far too slow. The tri-sector On the other hand, I’ve also observed relationships partnership landscape is largely comprised of the same that are, in my estimation, true partnerships that deglobal corporations, the same social sector organizamanded learning, compromise, constructive disagreement, tions, and the same narrow donor agency departments and long-term commitment. Yet, one entity—in many cases that really get it. I acknowledge that behavior change is the corporation—shies away from calling it a partnership measured in years and decades. I am also all too aware because “that has legal ramifications.” Certainly it is true that partnerships are not easy and, as a colleague recently that there is a legal definition for a business partnership, pointed out: tri-sector partnerships are not just triple the and I am not advocating for the creations of an LLC for each challenge; they are difficult to the power of three.

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True partnerships demand learning, compromise, constructive disagreement, and long-term commitment.

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joint effort. At the same time, the key tenets of a legal partnership—joint investment, cooperation, and mutual benefit—are at the heart of what is necessary to make a tri-sector engagement function. Sometimes the arrangement gets described just as a client service, sometimes as a collaboration, both terms that belie the seriousness of the relationship. Why not call it what it is and have the language match the weight of the commitment?

It ain’t easy, but it’s worth it when you get it right True partnership obliges those involved to give and take. Like any good relationship, a partnership takes persistent hard work. The more entities involved, the more effort the relationship requires. With a mission to “reinvent the way the public, private, and social sectors converge to address global challenges,” at PYXERA Global we have observed what can make or break a partnership, and advise those seeking to forge effective cross-sector partnerships to do the following: 1. To understand and respect the goals of each partner. One of the biggest errors committed in forming a tri-sector partnership is attempting to define a common goal. This often leaves every player somewhat unsatisfied. In fact, there is nothing wrong with differentiated—and even disparate— goals, as long as those goals are not mutually exclusive. 2. To recognize the different negotiation styles and requirements of each of the partners. For the social sector, this may mean having a really good

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pro bono legal team to navigate the complexities of corporate contracts and negotiate with their legal powerhouses. 3. To realize that partnerships are for the long term and to exhibit that commitment in the lengths of agreements, and the dedication of financial, human and other resources, 4. To share, with equal billing in media, marketing collateral, and on onstage, the successes of the partnership. 5. To get out of your comfort zone. This means being willing to leave behind phrases and thoughts around “how we’ve always done it” or stringent corporate/organizational standards. 6. To endeavor to see any challenges or problems that inevitably arise from all partners’ perspectives and look for creative ways to help all partners get what they need. 7. To agree to disagree, recognizing that a difference in opinion is not only acceptable, but expected as part of the relationship. 8. To compromise; to decide what’s really essential to you, be it goals or operational procedures, and not dig in your heels on the stuff that is ultimately unimportant. 9. To be ready to say no, and to walk away when it’s clear the relationship isn’t meant to be. Always give it a chance, and attempt to get things on track after a stumble, but recognize when the partnership is not delivering on its goals. 10. To assume positive intent and embrace honest dialogue as the most important requirement to deliver mutual, meaningful benefit. The recent ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, also known as the Global Goals, represents an enormously ambitious agenda to radically change the world in just 15 years. It is impossible for one sector alone to move the needle on a single goal, much less 17. SDG success requires that we broker more effective tri-sector partnerships with each passing day. Nothing worthwhile is ever fast or easy, but if we can master tri-sector partnerships and deliver on the promise of mutual, meaningful benefit, the possibilities for a better world are endless.

ÂŠ2015 JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Global Engagement

When people and organizations come together, they truly do make a difference. Congratulations on 25 years of providing pathways towards positively addressing global challenges.

What’s the Recipe to End Hunger? Today, 795 million people—one in nine people on earth—do not have enough food to lead a healthy and active life. But such widespread hunger is not simply the result of a shortage of food; the world already produces more than enough food to feed every person on earth. Changing the global state of nutrition and agriculture to end hunger by 2030 will require new approaches to food production and distribution. The resources humans depend on for food—arable land, fresh water, oceans, forests, and biodiversity—are degrading rapidly. Changing temperatures and rainfall patterns caused by climate change have dramatically affected agricultural productivity and

End Hunger and Malnutrition The Goal: •

Ensure access by all people, in particular those who are poor or vulnerable, to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food all year round.

•

End all forms of malnutrition and prevent stunting and wasting in children under five years of age by specifically targeting the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating women. The Challenge:

50%

•

Globally, one in nine people are undernourished.

•

Poor nutrition causes the death of 3.1 million children each year—nearly half of all deaths in children under five.

Increase Agricultural Productivity of Nutritious Crops The Goal: •

Double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, through secure and equal access to land, resources, inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets, and opportunities.

The Challenge: •

2050

2015

Global food production must increase 70 percent by 2050 to meet projected demands of a growing population.

Ensure Sustainable Food Systems The Goal: •

Ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, maintain ecosystems, strengthen the capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change, and that progressively improve land and soil quality. The Challenge:

75%

•

Since the 1900s, close to 75 percent of crop diversity worldwide has been lost.

•

More than 50 percent of all fruits and vegetables, 40 percent of roots and tubers, and 20 percent of all cereals are lost in substandard storage or transit, or left on the farm as post-harvest loss.

Source: United Nations, USAID

Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

community resiliency. The number of small-holding farms, which provide up to 80 percent of the world’s food, have declined dramatically as rural farmers migrate to cities in search of more profitable opportunities. As much as 50 percent of all fruits and vegetables is lost in substandard storage or transit, or left on the farm, in what is called post-harvest loss. Investments in sustainable agriculture, women’s empowerment, and in reducing post-harvest loss can help provide nutritious food, prosperous livelihoods, rural development, and environmental protection. Still, effectively eliminating hunger is a complex endeavor requiring cross-sector collaborations in agriculture, nutrition, health, education, water, and sanitation.

Promote Gender Equality The Goal: •

Ensure women have equal access to land, water, seeds, training, and funding.

The Challenge: •

Women make up 43 percent of the agricultural workforce, but face a serious gender gap in accessing productive resources such as land, credit, water, and technology.

•

Women are granted fewer and smaller loans than men, receiving only 7 percent of all agriculture investment.

Invest in Rural Infrastructure The Goal: •

Increase investment in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries.

The Challenge: •

500 million small farms worldwide, that depend on rainfall for irrigation, provide up to 80 percent of food consumed in developing countries.

•

2.5 billion farmers, fishers, and foresters are among the most vulnerable to crises and disasters.

80%

Prevent Trade Distortions and Promote Market Access The Goal: •

Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets.

•

Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and facilitate timely access to market information to help limit extreme food price volatility.

The Challenge: •

In 2008, and again in 2011, global food prices reached unprecedented levels, posing serious threats to the food security of vulnerable people around the world. Volatile food prices can be a matter of life and death for the poorest populations around the world.

Could Cervical Cancer Be the Next Polio?

Innovations in Diagnostics, Treatment, and Monitoring Could Eradicate Cervical Cancer Worldwide Alicia Bonner Ness

ugustina Mejiasamata, a 34-year-old Quechua woman who lives in an Andes mountain village two hours outside of Cusco, Peru, had already waited in line for almost an hour to receive her free Pap smear and breast exam. “Por qué vino Ud. a la clinica hoy?” Why did you come to the clinic today? I asked. The president of her village, she explained, had distributed pamphlets a few days earlier announcing to the women of the village a free clinic was taking place. She explained her reasons for coming. “Para saber si estoy mal o no,”—to know if I am sick or not. She clarified further: “Y si tengo este papanicolaou…”—and if I have Papanicolaou, mistaking the name of the test for the name of the disease. Augustina was one of close to 300 women who attended a fourhour outreach clinic in Ancahuasi, Peru, offered by CerviCusco, a clinic in Cusco, founded in 2007 by Dr. Daron Ferris, a gynecological oncologist at Georgia Regents University. Dr. Ferris and his staff seek to provide cervical cancer screening and treatment to the women of the rural Andes Mountains. They frequently conduct extensive outreach campaigns to rural towns and villages outside the city of Cusco, where women from the surrounding area can receive a free test at their local community clinic.

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Most women who await the cervical cancer test—Papanicolaou, in English abbreviated to ‘Pap’—diligently wait in line for hours at the clinic to make sure they don’t have “algo malo”—something bad—but don’t understand exactly what they’re being tested for. After a rapid Pap test and breast exam, patients receive a bright yellow slip of paper, instructing them to return to the clinic in one month’s time to retrieve their results. Though attrition rates are high, those with abnormalities who do return for their results are referred back to the clinic in Cusco for treatment.

An Objective Marker for Health Disparity According to the World Health Organization, cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer among women worldwide. Nearly 500,000 women are diagnosed and more than 250,000 die from the disease every year because they lack access to timely screening and prevention services. In Peru, cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women. The cervix is a one-inch-wide cylindrical muscle that joins a woman’s uterus to her vagina. It plays a critical role in all aspects of a woman’s reproductive cycle, including enabling sperm to fertilize the ovum, keeping in vitro babies within the uterus, and allowing the flow of menstruation. During my visit to CerviCusco, I learned cervical cancer is an entirely preventable and curable disease that, with the right re-

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

“

Cervical cancer is an entirely preventable and curable disease that, with the right resources, could be eliminated worldwide.

”

sources, could be eliminated worldwide. Early-stage cervical cancer can be diagnosed and treated in a number of ways; only in its final stages does it become deadly. Cervical cancer is caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), a very common and asymptomatic sexually transmitted disease. Most people will contract HPV at some point in their lives, but with a healthy immune system, many will successfully fight and clear the infection without ever knowing they were ill to begin with. Dr. Erin Kobetz, Senior Associate Dean of Health Disparities at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, believes that cervical cancer is an objective marker for health disparity. “If all women had access to screening,” she says, “there would be no cervical cancer.” In other words, women who die because of the disease are almost always those who lack access to timely and affordable healthcare. Extensive research has been done to develop cervical cancer prevention methods. Thanks to both Merck and GSK, women and

Augustina Mejiasam ata, a 34-yearold Quechua woman, receives a free cervical cancer screening and breast ex am outside Cusco, Peru.

girls between ages 11 and 26 with access to affordable healthcare can be immunized against the most virulent (cancer causing) strains of HPV. But at about $130 a dose, these vaccines are not accessible to millions of women around the world. Even if cancer does develop, if diagnosed early enough, it is still easily treatable with cryotherapy or surgery. Yet, scaling a developed-market approach to screening and treating cervical cancer is unlikely to provide an effective pathway to eliminating the disease worldwide. Doing so will require faster and more affordable screening and treatment, as well as effective data management to ensure that screening and treatment targets are being met.

Innovating on Point of Care Diagnosis While the traditional approach to screening and treatment has reduced cervical cancer’s morbidity in the United States by more than 50 percent over the last 30 years, Dr. Kobetz believes a point-of-care HPV test could present a more effective means of diagnosis. Requiring multiple trips to the clinic simply to receive a definitive diagnosis raises the risk of patient attrition, which can delay treatment and lead to death. Over the past 11 years, Dr. Kobetz has been testing a different approach through her work with Patnè en Aksyon (Partners in Action), a campus-community partnership designed to reduce the excess disability and death from breast and cervical cancer among Haitian women in South Florida, who like the women of Peru, have an unusually high prevalence of cervical cancer, developing the

E l i m i nat i ng c ervica l ca nce r wo rldwide w il l req ui re fas t er and mo re a ffo rda ble scre en in g a n d t rea tm ent , as we ll a s e ffe ctiv e da ta man a g emen t t o e ns u re t hat t arg e ts a re be ing me t.

disease at four times the rate of the average woman in the United States. Early on, Dr. Kobetz learned that many Haitian women practice vaginal hygiene in a manner that weakens the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s natural immune response to the virus. She also encountered significant cultural barriers that lead women who fear the death sentence of a cancer diagnosis to avoid screening altogether. Based on their successful community outreach program in Little Haiti, Dr. Kobetz and her team have developed a point-of-care HPV test that allows a woman to self-sample her cervix, followed by a community health worker using a solution-based test to determine whether she has HPV. The test is still in clinical trials but, once approved, should be as easy to buy and use as a pregnancy test.

Scaling the See-and-Treat Approach Jhpiego, a global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, is also seeking to eliminate cervical cancer through a single-visit approach to cervical cancer prevention, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;see-and-treatâ&#x20AC;? approach, which is becoming mainstream. In traditional treatment protocol, a woman with an abnormal Pap smear result will receive a colposcopy exam, visualizing abnormal lesions with the application of acid, which are then biopsied and later surgically removed. Instead of first performing a Pap smear, requiring a woman to wait up to a month for the results, the singlevisit approach cuts straight to the colposcopy. On the first visit, a clinician uses acid to diagnose the cervix, and immediately treats abnormal lesions with cryotherapy, painlessly applying CO2 to freeze (and remove) abnormal cervical lesions that could develop into cancer. The approach is now standard cancer prevention protocol in more than six countries, and can be performed by certified nurses or mid-level clinicians, freeing up surgeons to perform more complex procedures. To improve on the delivery of this approach, Jhpiego and the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design have developed an even more efficient cryotherapy device. CryoPop is a low-cost, sustainable, portable cryotherapy device that uses dry ice to treat pre-cancerous cervical lesions. The award-winning innovation relies only on compressed CO2, which is 10 times cheaper and 30 times more efficient than other cryotherapy devices.

Tracking Effective Diagnosis and Care In some areas of the world, women are being screened for cervical cancer, but health ministries often lack the

D r. D a ron Fe rris , a g yne colog i c a l oncolog i s t, is th e fou nd e r o f Cer v i Cu s co, a c l in ic i n Cu s co, th at pro v i d e s ce r v ic al cance r s cre e n in g an d tre a tm e n t to the w ome n o f th e r u ra l A n d e s Mou nta i ns .

data management infrastructure needed to effectively report on their progress combating the disease. In Kenya, for example, though the see-and-treat approach advocated by Jhpiego is a standard treatment protocol, data is manually captured at facilities, it is often not reported in the country’s health database and is therefore unavailable at district and national levels. As a result, it is almost impossible to measure and monitor screenings and treatment activities across the country. Additionally, data collection procedures are not standardized across facilities and, until recently, the District Health Information System did not include any cervical cancer related indicators. In 2012, a team from IBM’s Corporate Service Corps worked with PEPFAR and Kenya’s Ministry of Health (MOH) to identify issue areas and make recommendations for improved data tracking across the country. The IBM team’s roadmap took a systematic approach, outlining how the MOH could leverage the existing HIV care and treatment network to refer patients for cervical cancer testing. Additionally, the recommendations included an approach for standardizing data recording and training on cervical cancer screening, treatment, and data-capture methodologies. Three years later, Kenya’s MOH is still hoping to utilize IBM’s recommendations but has struggled to implement much of the program because of a realignment of priorities within PEPFAR that shifted funding away from cervical cancer.

Aligning Resources to Meet the Need With alternative testing and treatment options available, traditional protocol—a Pap smear and mandatory follow-up visit—is no longer the only way to effectively fight the disease. Yet, resources

are needed to further these different points of impact. Funding from the GE Foundation has provided critical support for Dr. Kobetz’s research in HPV testing, and to the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design in its efforts to develop innovative medical devices, including CryoPop. Likewise, many institutions lack access to the kind of talent they need to operate effectively. Corporate pro bono consultants have played a key role in advancing a number of cervical cancer interventions. Though progress has been slower than hoped, the IBM Corporate Service Corps’ support for Kenya’s Ministry of Health played a pivotal role in helping the country advance its position on cervical cancer monitoring. A team of employees from IBM and BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), worked with CerviCusco in May 2014 to improve their electronic medical records system and to support the organization’s business development and fundraising efforts. According to James Walker, one of the BD employees who worked on CerviCusco’s business development plan, this much-needed increase in funding will enable CerviCusco to reach an additional 35,000 women over the next three years. But the commitments of GE, BD, and IBM are not enough to eradicate this unnecessarily deadly disease. The Sustainable Development Goals call on the development community to reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and to provide access to vaccines. Improving diagnostics, expanding access to innovative treatment tools, and better monitoring the fight against cervical cancer are all extremely effective ways to advance this goal. With the right funding and implementing partners, cervical cancer could be eliminated worldwide.

F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 23

In Cambodia, Access to University Education Enables Women to Succeed H o w O ne Woma n’s Univer s it y Educat ion H e lp ed Ope n a W orld of Oppor t unit y Menghun Kaing

eoun Sri-leap is a quiet young woman with an easy smile, her long, dark, wavy hair swept over her shoulders. Occasionally, she curiously looked at the notes I was taking on our conversation. We sat in her small room that she shared with four other people in the outskirts of Phnom Penh. At 17, Sri-leap passed the ninth grade and completed middle school. After that, she left school to join more than half million workers, mostly women, who are employed in Cambodia’s $5 billion garment and footwear industry that accounts for about 80 percent of the country’s annual exports. “I came to work [in the factory] as soon as I passed my ninth grade exams, because my family was poor,” Sri-leap told me. Two years later, Srileap earns about $200 per month and sends home $100 to support her family, including her eight-year-old sister who is studying in the fifth grade. Sri-leap’s story is not uncommon in Cambodia. Many young girls do not

The author pictured with a group of students supported by the Harpswell Foundation in Cambodia.

Goal 6: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning

have an opportunity to receive a good education due to poverty, cultural and safety barriers, and the lack of a role model. They end up working in the garment industry or leaving Cambodia for low-skilled jobs in neighboring countries like Thailand and Malaysia. In some ways, her story is similar to that of my own. But because I was fortunate enough to have access to higher education, I was able to break the barriers that keep many Cambodian women in poverty.

Strong Role Models Make Strong Women Exposing women to strong role models is crucial for encouraging women to pursue their studies. I knew from a young age that I wanted to become an educated woman. The youngest of five siblings, I grew up in a farming family with no electricity or running water. My oldest siblings grew up during the Khmer Rouge genocide that took over the country in 1975 and went on to kill 1.7 million Cambodians. Despite virtually no schools or teachers remaining after the country’s liberation in 1979, my sister and brother eventually enrolled in school, but had to drop out by middle school so that they could work to support my family. Even at 12 years old, I knew I wanted to do something more than just be a farmer in my village, though I did not have a lot of people I could look to for examples. My mother, one of the most influential role models in my life, always encouraged my ambitions. Even though she never finished primary school, she valued education and gave me and my sisters every opportunity to pursue our dreams. She told me that she regretted having to drop out of school due to poverty at a young age herself. “I don’t want you to be like me,” she said, “I want you to go as far as you want.” I wanted to be a school teacher; because that was a career I thought required good education and provided my teachers with a lot of respect. For many young girls, without knowing a woman who has attended university or has a professional career, it is difficult to imagine what it is like to do so. In the case of Sri-Leap, she said she had nobody to look up to. When she finished middle school, she moved to work in a garment factory, following the example of many others in her village. “Most people in my village come to work in the factory, especially young people like myself,” she said. As I moved to the city for my university studies, I met many other inspiring women whose stories and experiences helped to shape who I am today, opening many opportunities for me.

Higher Education Lays a Foundation for Empowerment and Prosperity According to the United Nations, Cambodia is likely to achieve universal primary education in 2015, but enabling students to

reach high school is an ongoing challenge, especially for girls. In Cambodia, women are traditionally thought to play a less important role in family and society than men. According to a 2011 study by USAID, females had a higher dropout rate in every grade level except grades 9 and 12. If faced with the choice of keeping one child in school, many parents encourage their sons over their daughters, because it is believed that male children will become breadwinners. “She’s a daughter. Why needs a lot of studying?” one of my aunts asked my father about the decision to allow me to continue my studies at a university. Despite financial and cultural constraints, my parents managed to support me through high school. I graduated with good grades and that allowed me to secure a scholarship to enroll at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, in Cambodia’s capital city. I was still a teenager and had never lived away from my family. Like other female students, safe accommodation was my parents’ main concern. Many parents opt not to send their daughters to college far away from them due to safety concerns and poverty. Fortunately, I received a scholarship that provided me with housing at the Harpswell Dormitory and Leadership Center. The Center provides a dormitory and an in-house academic program enrichment focused on developing leadership and critical thinking skills of female students from rural Cambodia who attend universities in Phnom Penh. At the Harpswell Foundation, I had opportunities to learn skills and meet interesting people that I would not otherwise have had. I attended weekly leadership seminars where inspiring speakers were invited to talk to the students. There were also regular discussions of national and international news and events based on articles in The Cambodia Daily newspaper. Students took turns to present and analyze news articles. I found these experiences valuable as they helped me build analytical and leadership skills, reinforce my self-confidence, and widen my views and knowledge of the world. These skills were important as I entered the professional world. Harpswell also provided English classes. Before starting college, I didn’t speak much English. But I knew that English was one of the most important tools to help me reach my education and career goals, so I tried hard to study the subject. Many evenings after F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 25

school, I would sit with a leadership resi- opment of Cambodia, helping to support poverty prevails, many women don’t have dent, an in-house foreign volunteer who women in the field of journalism. During exposure to positive role models, subjecthelped students with English, to practice my time with The Daily, I covered poli- ing them to a vicious cycle that is hard my English. During those evenings, we tics and issues related to women’s rights to break, and inhibiting education, which would share experiences with each other. and education. I reported on rape cases results in continued poverty. Beyond the leadership and language and land evictions, such as the infamous This September, the United Nations curriculum, the experience at Harpswell Beong Kok Lake eviction. In the case of ratified the Sustainable Development was especially memorable because of the land evictions, women and children are Goals. Goal 5 addresses gender equallife-long friendships that I built during often most heavily impacted. I witnessed ity and empowering all women and girls. my stay. It was more than just a place women struggling to fight for their rights The goal seeks to eliminate violence, disto stay. It was a community where I met and standing up for themselves and their crimination, and other harmful practices, other inspiring young women from across families against the powerful people and like forced marriage, that disadvantage Cambodia. We shared common goals and interests who took their land. It was often women around the world. It also aims memories. We cooked, studied, at providing women with access and socialized together. I rememto social protection, reproductive ber nights where we stayed up health services, and economic retogether to do school work and sources like land and inheritance When poverty prevails, many women don’t rights that, when unavailable, those evenings after final exams have exposure to positive role models, where we would gather in one contribute to inequality. Most subjecting them to a vicious cycle that is tiny room watching movies into importantly, however, the goal the night. calls for governments around the hard to break, and inhibiting education, I graduated from university world to ensure women’s full and which results in continued poverty. with a bachelor’s degree in comeffective participation and equal puter science and became the opportunities for leadership at all first woman in my family to hold levels of decision-making in poa college degree. After completing my heartbreaking, but very inspiring. litical, economic, and public life. Doing so studies in Phnom Penh, the Harpswell I currently work for The Asia Founda- will contribute most directly to achieving Foundation provided me with a one-year tion in Cambodia as a program officer. My all other aspects of the goal. Goal 5 is the scholarship to complete post-baccalaure- work focuses on conducting research to U.N.’s second attempt to address gender ate studies at Bard College in New York. I inform the design of programs and en- issues, having first articulated that in the will always cherish the friendships, mem- courage positive policy reforms. Outside Millennium Development Goals (MDG 3). ories, and experiences I gained during my of work, I serve on the board of the Harp- Cambodia had some success in meeting time at the Center. swell Foundation’s Alumnae Association. I the Millennium Development Goals on work on strategic planning to engage the fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria. But the Promoting a Pathway for a Better alumnae with the Foundation’s current country lagged behind in terms of proFuture for Womankind students. This is an opportunity for me to moting women’s empowerment. After completing my year at Bard, I stay connected to the Harpswell commuTo achieve this objective, women must worked as a reporter for The Cambodia nity and to give back to the other young have access to higher education. In counDaily. Journalism remains an area where women at the Center. I am motivated to tries like Cambodia, where security conwomen are underrepresented because help alumnae connect with current stu- cerns and economic constraints prevent they face more security concerns when dents at the Center because this will help many women from attending university, travelling and working in the field. But I create a strong network of women who they are deprived of the chance to realize decided to become a journalist because will, hopefully, encourage other Cambo- their full potential. Perhaps with more I believed in the power of information dian women to pursue their education organizations like the Harpswell Foundaand wanted to pursue my passion despite and a professional career. tion, providing high-potential women with the challenges. For example, sometimes I I would not be where I am now with- safe housing, inspiring mentors, and acawas the only female journalist in a press out the support and encouragement of demic enrichment, women in Cambodia conference with many male reporters. my family, friends, and others that I have and anywhere else can have the chance But I felt rewarded because I believed met along the way. My fate might have to make a change and achieve lasting that my work contributed to the devel- been similar to that of Sri-Leap’s. When gender equality.

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Diverse Partners Work to Build a Booming Toilet Business in Ethiopia CAN BETTER TOILETS AND LATRINES SOLVE THE WORLD’S SANITATION PROBLEM?

Melissa Mattoon

“E

xcuse me. May I use your toilet?”

Despite my not being a paying customer, the restaurant owner directed me toward a doorway at the back of the building. Through the doorway, a woman shucking corn pointed me towards a tarp draped over a piece of wire, less than 20 feet away. I pulled back the ripped tarp to find the toilet—a hole in the ground swarming with flies. This is what the development community calls “unimproved sanitation,” but what for 71 million Ethiopians is simply “the toilet.” I had just spent the past three days visiting sanitation projects as part of

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an assessment of global pro bono support for health initiatives worldwide, and had seen both rundown and brand new sanitation solutions. This particular toilet was not one of the site visits on our schedule. I just really had to go. Far too often, development professionals sanitize the discussion of toilets and excrement, using industry jargon—like “sanitation”—to euphemize a messy topic. But as I braced myself and lowered myself over the hole, my feet sinking into what I feared was a mix of mud and feces, I realized just what a tricky (and icky) business sanitation can be. My heart raced as I peered through the holes in the tarp,

wondering who might be able to see me. I briefly considered standing up to search for a better option—the side of the road, which had previously seemed unreasonable, now seemed preferable. But I had already been holding it for far too long. It was now … or…now. As I exited the restaurant, I thanked the owner for his hospitality, ashamed of my discomfort just a few moments before. I could count on one hand the number of times I had to use a facility like this one. “Get over it,” I thought, critically. The truth, however, is it often feels necessary to sanitize our thoughts and feelings about toilets in practice as well. We expect our expansive

comfort zones—our “rugged global flair”—to let us work everywhere, eat anything, and go anywhere without reluctance or judgment. Squatting over that hole behind the tarp, however, my comfort zone was 3,000 miles away. Without speaking honestly about the realities of “waste management,” emphasizing instead the bright, shiny, (and clean) sanitation solutions on display, it can be hard to find the root of the issue. The negative impact of unmanaged excrement on communities is far-reaching. The absence of improved sanitation means that toilets like the one behind the restaurant can easily contaminate nearby water sources that are used for cooking and washing. Millions of children who suffer from water-born parasites experience persistent sickness that often keeps them out of school, limiting their learning and economic potential. Even worse, diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation is the second biggest killer of children under five worldwide. As I watched the woman preparing food just a few feet away, I realized such contamination happens all too easily.

Economic Growth Doesn’t Always Come a la Commode

Artis ans insp ect a ne w latrine built in Wolay ta Sodo, Eth iopia. 79% of Eth iopians st ill lac k a cces s to im prov ed sa n itation.

Unlike many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia is projected to meet all eight of the Millennium Development Goals by the end of 2015, enormous progress for a country that previously had some of the worst human development indicators in the world. This can be attributed primarily to two factors: Ethiopia, the largest recipient of international donor aid in sub-Saharan Africa, has made good use of these funds. Simultaneously, the government has also made significant investments—largely funded by soft loans from China—in infrastructure, education, health, and agriculture that have spurred economic growth. Ethiopia is the world’s fastest growing economy, yet also one of the poorest countries. While Ethiopia’s GDP has reportedly risen at seven to eight percent per year, its per capita income remains among the lowest in the world. And despite increased economic focus on manufacturing, textiles, and energy generation, agriculture still accounts for 45 percent of gross domestic product and 90 percent of exports in a country where 82 percent of citizens live in rural areas. Despite the country’s rapid growth and its progress against the MDGs, water, sanitation, and hy-

Goal 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all

giene (WASH) have been the slowest to improve. Just under half of the population has access to an improved water supply, and only 21 percent of the population has access to improved sanitation. In most cases, sanitation is unimproved because there simply aren’t improvement mechanisms available. In a country that is heavily reliant on development assistance and where state-owned monopolies often crowd out industry, market-based sanitation solutions have failed to develop. It’s estimated that 38 million people in the country are forced to openly defecate, not because they don’t realize such practices are unhealthy—state-instituted public health initiatives have made best practices in safe-sanitation widespread—but because there is simply no better alternative. As a result of contamination, preventable diarrheal diseases kill 33,000 Ethiopian children each year. Boloso-Sore and Damot Pulsa woredas in the Wolayta Zone, the most densely populated and disadvantaged rural area of Ethiopia, are the focus areas of a five-year community resiliency project, led by International Medical Corps (IMC) with funding from the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO). The program takes a comprehensive approach to nutrition, WASH, livelihoods, and health among 100,000 of the region’s most vulnerable households. Since 2012, more than 85 percent of the households in the project area had been encouraged to construct some form of traditional pit latrine. This intensive hygiene and sanitation campaign was carried out by health extension workers through the CommunityLed Total Sanitation program—a national campaign to eliminate open defecation, led by the Federal Ministry of Health.

F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 29

Driving through these communities, roadside latrines flew white flags overhead to indicate their community’s successful eradication of open defecation. Those with green flags indicated that they hadn’t reached full elimination, but they were well on their way. While this approach was successful in triggering community awareness on the need and importance of having a latrine, limited material availability and knowledge of latrine construction acted as barriers to sustaining the sanitation improvement achieved. This was a particular challenge given that traditionally constructed pit latrines typically cannot last through an Ethiopian rainy season, forcing a family to rebuild It’s estimated that 38 their latrine every six months.

munity members can purchase at an affordable price. To promote sales within the community, model latrines are on display in the village center and community meeting areas, and advertisements and demonstrations are used to encourage sales. The artisans produce the most important part of an improved latrine, the latrine slab, a disk of concrete about three feet wide laced with rebar, with a reinforced hole and angled footholds. To accommodate differences in household income, customers can choose from a variety of material options, including bamboo, thatch, or corrugated tin, from which their latrine enclosure can be constructed. Partial loans are available million people in the from the local government-run microfinance institution to help community country are forced to openly defecate, not Building a Latrine Business in members shoulder the initial investbecause they don’t realize such practices Rural Ethiopia are unhealthy—state-instituted public health ment. Involving the local government With most of the community fully initiatives have made best practices in safe- has ensured community leaders had aligned to community-led total sanibuy-in along the way. tation, IMC set out to investigate the sanitation widespread—but because there is Ketema Silalo is one of the projsimply no better alternative. possibility of establishing an effecect’s early customers in Abota Ulto tive market-based sanitation supplykebele, one of the four pilot villages in chain within the community. IMC, the program. He led our group down with counsel from the Dow Chemical a path to the latrine behind his home, opening the door so that Company’s Leadership in Action program, conducted extensive each of the visitors could look inside. The construction is simple, market research to understand the supply and demand of the yet secure; a circular concrete slab enclosed by woven bamboo region’s sanitation sector. Armed with this research, IMC devel- walls and a corrugated tin roof. Pamphlet instructions on proper oped a program focused on creating a locally-driven, sustainable hygiene and sanitation practices are affixed to the wall. sanitation supply-chain. Ketema constructed the latrine enclosure himself, copying one The Sanitation Marketing Program trains local artisans to build of the latrine models on display in the village center. He bought latrines that will improve sanitation in the community through a the concrete slab from the artisans who installed it in his yard, locally-driven, market-based approach. IMC piloted the program purchased the bamboo from which his wife plaited the enclosure, in four communities in Wolayta Zone, recruiting local farmers to and paid a worker to dig the lined waste pit. join a committee of local artisans who are trained and certified to When I had first looked at the latrine prototype models on build and sell safe, reliable latrine slabs and enclosures that com- display in the village’s center, I hadn’t considered bamboo to be

Concrete latrine slabs constructed by a group of local artisans on display in the village center

a first choice. It is one of the cheaper construction options and didn’t seem as secure as the corrugated tin wall available for purchase. But seeing Ketema’s sturdy craftsmanship and the way the light streamed through the bamboo screen, I quickly changed my mind. “I love it. I feel like I am at home in here,” Ketema said, laughing. Less than three yards away stood the remains of the latrine that had preceded it, which had been quickly degraded with the summer rains. It wasn’t difficult to understand his cause for comfort and delight with his new sanitation facility. Though it may seem like a relatively simple value chain, in rural areas of the world, one or more of these inputs or services are often hard to come by. A year ago, they didn’t exist in Abota Ulto. Ketema is the perfect example of the potential success of this type of market-based approach. His new latrine will last between five and 10 years, ensuring his family has access to improved sanitation for years to come. But Ketema is relatively well-off for his village: he owns several acres of land and his coffee plants are thriving. Many families in the region are not so fortunate. Ethiopia has traditionally had two rainy seasons and two harvests, but over the past decade, the early rain and harvest has failed seven out of the past 10 years, driven by the effects of climate change. “For many subsistence farmers affected by a failed harvest, buying food to feed their family is more important than investing in a new latrine, often making even the cheapest option seem inaccessible,” said Paul Emes, Ethiopia Country Director for IMC, “By providing affordable loans and reducing the cost of building materials, the program hopes to make latrines affordable to even the poorest households in the community.”

K etem a S i l a l o sta n d s b y h i s family’s l a tr i n e i n Abota Ul to k eb el e.

Cleaning Up the Dirty Business of Urban Public Toilets Unlike many other countries, access to sanitation in urban Ethiopia is actually worse than in rural areas. This problem is particularly acute in the slums of Addis Ababa where 80 percent of the city’s residents live. The slums’ high population density, coupled with poor infrastructure and a lack of resources, exacerbates the issue. Without other options, residents are forced to openly defecate in alleyways, waterways, or “flying toilets”— plastic bags that are then thrown away or into the streets. The majority of sanitation facilities available throughout the city are shared by hundreds of people each day, are often unsafe to visit at night, and discharge to open drains, contributing to the spread of harmful bacteria. Population Services International Ethiopia (PSI/E) is working to address this crisis by developing commercially viable, payper-use community toilets in Addis Ketema, one of the city’s slums. The franchise business model aims to link entrepreneurs to financing options to open and manage quality pay-per-use

facilities, increasing access to quality sanitation, while generating income for the business owner and operators. The program, which is still in its pilot phase, was developed in part from research and technical recommendations from the Dow Leadership in Action team that worked with PSI/E in 2014. A group of five Dow employees researched toilet designs, costs, suppliers, end users, and market forces to determine the feasibility of collecting and converting human waste into organic fertilizer. Inspired by the success of Sanergy in Kenya, PSI/E initially hoped to use a dry toilet to create a profitable and sustainable sanitation system, based on an efficient value-chain for waste-to-fertilizer conversion. But while the model works well in a Kenyan context, where the majority of people use toilet paper, PSI/E’s robust market analysis uncovered that a dry toilet was ineffective for Ethiopians, the majority of whom use water to refresh themselves after use. To ensure their product design

F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 31

aligned to the customs and needs of their targeted consumer base, PSI/E opted for a flush-style, water-based toilet model which, while not as efficient for waste-to-fertilizer conversion, would be more desirable for public toilet customers. Now that the toilet model and architecture is complete, PSI/E is in the process of requesting permission to use government

land to open its first public toilet in one of Addis Ketema’s hightraffic areas. “Based on the potential success of the franchise business model, now being tested through a limited number of facilities in Addis, we hope to open many more franchises across the country and work on the re-use and sale of the waste produced,” said Donato Gulino, Country Representative for PSI/E. “With safer, cleaner, and more attractive public pay-for-use toilets available, we hope to gradually improve the country’s sanitation landscape and create value along the waste-to-fertilizer supply chain.”

Can the SDGs End the Sanitation Silence?

Po p ul a t i o n Servi c es I n t e r n a t i on a l Et h i opi a a i m s t o lau n ch a pa y-per-us e c o m mu n i t y t oi l e t f ra n ch i s e i n A d d i s Ke te ma (a bove) t o p ro vi d e a q u a l i t y a l t e r n a t i v e t o t h e u n saf e a nd unh yg i eni c p ubl i c t oi l e t s s h a re d b y h u n d re d s of p eo p l e a d a y (bel o w ).

Fifteen years ago, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) gave the world a common understanding of the development deficits affecting billions of people. Today, they provide an opportunity to reflect on what hasn’t worked and to commit to the issues that may have been overlooked by a simplified construct. While leaders can laud access to water as an MDG success, it’s critical to recognize that sanitation has been overwhelmingly sidelined. For two topics that so often get lumped together in the development world, the imbalance of this progress is troubling. Simply providing access to improved sanitation only addresses half the problem; ensuring it can be sustained in an affordable, safe, and environmentally-conscious way is equally important. To do so, governments, companies, and nonprofits alike can build on the approaches of PSI/E and IMC, two very different initiatives that leverage community-driven, marketbased solutions that work in different contexts and communities. Both recognize that market creation can overcome community deficits far more quickly than government-driven aid. Unlike the MDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals institutionalize a stand-alone goal for water and sanitation. Importantly, Goal 6—ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all—emphasizes not only access to improved water and sanitation, but also the behaviors and services required to ensure that access: to end open defecation, to attend to the unique sanitation needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations, to reduce water contamination from all sources, and to ensure effective management of WASH-related systems. Progress will require a great deal of coordination and investigation, disentangling failed systems and infrastructure from the attitudes and embarrassment that perpetuate difficulties in sanitation. Honestly exploring the human experience of unimproved sanitation, like my moment of bracing anxiety behind the restaurant, and the importance of human dignity in sanitation access, is perhaps the best path to understanding how people and institutions can collaborate to solve the problem at hand. By creating markets where there previously were none, government leaders and corporate innovators alike have the opportunity to yield profit through purpose that can confront the business of unmanaged excrement.

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A n Off G r i d E l e c tri c e m plo y e e i n st a l l s a s ol a r p a n e l o n a ro o f in Ta n z a n i a .

GOING BEYOND THE GRID TO PROVIDE ELECTRICITY TO MILLIONS POWER AFRICA FOSTERS CROSS-SECTOR COLLABORATION TO DRIVE SYSTEMIC RESULTS

Andrew M. Herscowitz & K atrina Pielli

our years ago, startup Off-Grid Electric, a founding partner of Power Africa Beyond the Grid, set out to address the electricity access gap in Tanzania. After an early-stage grant from USAID Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) and project preparation support from the Africa Clean Energy Finance program, along with private equity and debt, the company announced in early 2015 a goal to bring affordable electricity to one million Tanzanian homes by 2017. Nearly 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa—two out of three—lack access to electricity. Rural electrification rates are well below five percent in many sub-Saharan Africa countries—the lowest in the world. Recognizing that Power Africa cannot achieve energy access goals exclusively through the use of large grid extension projects, Power Africa launched Beyond the Grid in June 2014, a sub-initiative to unlock investment and growth for off-grid and small-scale energy solutions on the African continent. Increasing access to reliable and affordable electricity is a key element in poverty eradication and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Power Africa is working to create linkages among African governments, private-sector investors, and other partners in subSaharan Africa to add more than 30,000 megawatts (MW) of cleaner, more efficient electricity generation capacity, as well as increase electricity access by adding 60 million new home and business connections. These goals are ambitious—for example, the International Energy Agency states that grid-based generation capacity in sub-Saharan Africa is 90,000 MW today—approximately half of which is in South Africa. Major metropolitan areas are first to benefit from grid expansion, whereas the deep rural areas may remain unserved for decades. Beyond the Grid drives private investment in off-grid and small-scale energy solutions, like solar lanterns, solar rooftop systems, mini-hydro and mini-grids, to ensure that people living in remote areas also have access to power. Beyond the Grid utilizes Power Africa’s innovative transaction-focused model to accelerate transactions and drive systemic reforms to facilitate future investment in off-grid and small-scale renewable energy solutions

Photos: Mathieu Young | Off.Grid:Electric

Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all

under 10 MW across subSaharan Africa. Examples of the tools and resources available for Power Africa Beyond the Grid are listed in the Toolbox (at right), which is described in more detail on the Power Africa website. Beyond the Grid focuses on two strategic priorities that will together help create 60 million new home and business connections: first, by addressing recurring market constraints in the off-grid energy market by increasing access to financing and providing technical assistance, and second, by striving to achieve scalable, cleaner solutions that offer electricity access greater than the first tier of task lighting. To achieve this, ensuring enabling environments are supportive through regulatory and policy regimes is critical to facilitate private-sector success.

POWER AFRICA BEYOND THE GRID TOOLBOX

Addressing Market Constraints Bolstered by the decreasing costs of technology and innovative financing options, private sector-led business models for off-grid and small-scale energy solutions are succeeding in the marketplace. For example, Power Africa partners such as d.light, and Off Grid Electric are quickly ramping up distribution of their solar home systems in East Africa. “Just as mobile phone adoption rates skyrocketed in the ‘90s, we see tremendous opportunity in the off-grid solar mar-

Financing Technical Assistance Capacity Building for Rural Energy Agencies Partnerships Policy Dialogue Market Information for Governments and Businesses Convening Loan Guarantees

ket to enable consumers to secure basic energy access and radically improve their lives and opportunities,” says Sam Goldman, d.light co-founder. Beyond the Grid’s current project portfolio of over 100 projects spans the full range of off-grid solutions and small-scale renewable technologies, and touches countries across sub-Saharan Africa. A host of partners, including USAID, OPIC, and The U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) have funded companies and projects that will expand generation and access. A diverse set of projects leverage a diverse range of resources to improve off-grid generation. For example, in Kenya, a bio-

mass project uses an invasive tree species to generate electricity for local industry. The program will be expanded to 15 systems that will make use of locally available invasive species or biomass waste, such as macadamia shells, coconut shells, and bagasse from other industries. In Tanzania, Beyond the Grid is developing a portfolio of several mini-hydropower schemes. USADF is supporting mini-hydro and solar minigrids, as well as a solar lantern franchise that is accessible to women entrepreneurs. In Ethiopia, USADF is working on an innovative financing scheme for solar home systems.

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In Ghana, USADF is supporting the development of a portable solar charging system for mobile phones, allowing the vendor to set up the system which forms part of his storefront. In Liberia, USAID is supporting a run-of-river mini-hydro project and a biomass to biodiesel project using palm oil that will run a small generator. In Rwanda, an 8.5 MW grid connected solar PV system has been installed at the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) by Gigawatt Global with support from the Africa Clean Energy Finance (ACEF) program. Apart from the supply of electricity, the ASYV is providing jobs, ongoing education in solar PV, and a steady rental income for the solar farm.

bringing energy access to the most rural parts of Africa. “Market-based approaches and policy decisions working together will accelerate efforts to electrify Africa.”

Fostering Partnerships

Supporting Enabling Environments

Power Africa seeks opportunities to bring together private-sector entrepreneurs, financial and donor institutions, and national governments to achieve the program’s objectives. In September 2015, MCC signed a $375 million Benin Power Compact, which includes a $28 million contribution from the Government of Benin, which aims to strengthen Benin’s national utility, attract private-sector investment, and fund infrastructure investments in electric generation

Beyond the Grid supports effective regulatory and policy regimes that create an enabling environment for the private sector. Existing policies and regulatory frameworks are not always conducive to new and emerging business models enabled by rapidly transforming technologies like mobile money. For example, Power Africa, the World Bank Group, and the Government of Ghana are collaborating on sector reform issues, including tariff reform, private-sector participation, and securitization for natural gas and electricity supply-chains. In August 2014, the Millennium Challenge Corporation signed the Ghana Power Compact, an investment of up to $498.2 million to support the transformation of Ghana’s electricity sector and stimulate private investment, which has bolstered the Electricity Company of Ghana and transparent quarterly updates for cost-reflective tariffs. Ensuring that tariffs fully reflect the cost of producing power is critical to the liquidity of the institutions in the sector and helps attract investors who can be confident that their investments will yield a return. Sam Goldman, d.light co-founder, says public-private partnerships are key to

and distribution as well as off-grid electrification for poor and unserved households. This Compact represents MCC’s largest investment to date in solar power and the largest U.S. investment to date in off-grid electrification. USADF, in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and General Electric Africa, supports the Off-Grid Energy Challenge, which provides $100,000 grants to entrepreneurs and private organizations developing innovative off-grid technologies. The Challenge is entering its third round, having already provided support to 28 small enterprises over the past two years. In addition to providing 11 grants, the third round is opening entries to three new countries in

East Africa—Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. The challenge impacts over 150,000 people underserved by the traditional electric grid. By the completion of the third round, the challenge will have awarded $5.0 million through 50 individual grants. OPIC, part of the ACEF program, has already committed more than $9 million so far to project preparation support to help get early-stage solar, wind, biomass and hydropower projects off the ground in Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Namibia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Senegal. OPIC has developed a new process called the Innovative Financial Intermediary Program (IFIP) to help support atypical deal structures and propose pooled capital such as an investment fund, as well as debt financing, such as OPIC’s traditional loans and guaranties. Finally, OPIC has also developed a new tool called Portfolio for Impact (PI), which essentially helps facilitate highly impactful early-stage projects. USAID develops the off-grid and small-scale renewable energy sectors through its instruments, including the Development Innovation Ventures and the Development Credit Authority. DIV is a competitive grants program that support innovative ideas that provide support to innovations that, through rigorous analysis, demonstrate real-world viability and convincing evidence that the private sector will invest in scaling up their scheme. “Because of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures’ catalytic support, we were able to get here. We have raised millions in venture capital, putting our mission to light millions of African homes in the next decade into our sights,” said Erica Mackey, Off Grid Electric co-founder. The USAID Development Credit Authority (DCA) provides risk guarantees to financial institutions to ensure that otherwise unsupported enterprises can receive financial assistance. Power Africa Transaction Advisors, who provide project development advisory sup-

Bolstered by the decreasing costs of technology and innovative financing options, private sector-led business models for off-grid and small-scale energy solutions are succeeding in the marketplace.

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port to project sponsors in the public and private sectors. This support can extend beyond project specific assistance to technical advice on national renewable energy programs and regulatory refinement to promote private investment in off-grid cleaner energy solutions, encourage and support rural electrification, and reduce restrictions on importation of renewable energy sector equipment.

A Bright Future Power Africa’s over 100 private-sector partners have committed more than $20 billion toward specific projects, including $1 billion in commitments under Beyond the Grid to ensure that people living in remote areas have access to power. Beyond the Grid will continue to galvanize collaboration, engage in critical actions to accelerate transactions, and drive systemic reforms to facilitate future investment in off-grid and small-scale energy solutions.

Power Africa partner Off Grid Electric’s goals in Tanzania and beyond are an essential part of Power Africa’s larger effort to create 60 million new home and business connections throughout all of sub-Saharan Africa. “When people look back at this decade, they’ll remark that this is the period when Africa went solar,” said Erica Mackey, Off Grid Electric co-founder. “Power Africa will enable a continent to communicate on charged mobile phones and computers. It will enable a continent to perform better in their studies because they can do their homework after the sun goes down, enabling a more productive and healthier society.” For more information visit www.usaid.gov/powerafrica or contact powerafrica@usaid.gov

J o h n N j o ro g e s e l l s d . l ig h t s , w h i c h bri n g e n e r g y a cces s t o t h e m o s t ru ra l p a r t s of A f r ica , a t h i s s m a l l h a rd w a re s h op in M u ra n g ’ a , Ken y a

Photo: Morgana Wingard | Power Africa

Mind the Gap: Companies Partner to Build Skilled Labor IBM and JPMorgan Chase Employees Help Develop the Next Generation Workforce

ithin five years, The McKinsey Global Institute predicts a global deficit of over 85 million high- and mediumskilled workers and a global surplus of nearly 100 million unskilled workers. In the United States, about two-thirds of companies already find themselves unable to fill positions due to a lack of qualified applicants—the resulting reduction in economic output costs the U.S. economy an estimated $2 trillion per year. In India, where over 12 million young people join the labor force every year, an even more acute skills gap has far reaching socio-economic implications; just two percent of the nearly 500 million-person workforce can be classified as skilled. Although India has world-renowned educational institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Technology, the vast majority of students are ill-prepared for the demands of the modern labor market due to outdated curricula and a lack of qualified instructors. A 2012 study by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and EY noted that to meet vocational training needs, the country will require 70,000 additional instructors. Currently, qualified instructors are entering the market at a rate of only 1,600 per year. The Indian government has an ambitious plan to upskill 500 million people by 2020 through the National Skill Development Mission, but innovative approaches that incorporate the public, private, and social sectors will be required to fully address the challenge. Lend a Hand, a non-profit organization started in 2003, collaborates with organizations working at the grassroots level to replicate proven programs

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Amanda MacArthur

that can improve low-income people’s access to education, vocational skills, and career opportunities. The founders recognized that the current secondary school curriculum in India does not equip students with the relevant skills for daily work and life in modern India. That gap creates a significant challenge to their employability upon graduation. Lend a Hand integrates job and life skills training in existing school curricula to make secondary school education more practical and relevant to the students. The program takes a hands-on approach to vocational education. Local trade practitioners train both male and female students across a variety of potential professions. As the organization’s co-founder Raj Gilda notes, “Everybody wants to go to school and everybody wants to get a certificate. So, we set up training workshops as labs within the school itself, bringing in members of the community to train within the school.” Lend a Hand’s results are truly impressive. In participating schools, more than 95 percent of students attend the training programs. Graduates have three times the rate of self-employment, and over 30 percent more students are pursuing higher technical education than in non-participating schools. Due to its success, the Government of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located, has entered into an agreement with the organization to oversee the day-to-day management of a program that will roll-out vocational education to 1,500 schools for more than 200,000 students across the state. The private sector has recognized that the skills gap, both in India and globally, has implications for

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Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work for all

their abilities to meet long term business goals. IBM and JPMorgan Chase have both taken a leadership role—engaging their core capabilities to create innovative solutions to address the issue. In 2013, JPMorgan Chase launched New Skills at Work, the largest private-sector effort working to address this challenge. The goal of this initiative is to invest in people so that workers and industries have the skills to compete and prosper in the global economy. Since its launch, JPMorgan Chase has leveraged its resources, expertise, and global reach to accelerate demand-driven skills training in cities across the United States and Europe. IBM is the founder of one of the most innovative workforce development initiatives in recent years: P-TECH. This is a new education model for public schools spanning grades 9 to 14 that brings together the best elements of high school, college, and career. Within six years, students graduate with a no-cost associates degree in technology, along with skills that are in demand for multiple industries. Corporate partners, having helped shape the curriculum and interacted with these students for years, feel comfortable putting graduates "at the head of the line" when they apply for entry-level jobs after graduation. IBM led the creation of a blueprint for replication of this exciting model. This spring, the companies took their commitment to skills development to India. Sixteen employees from JPMorgan Chase and IBM spent a month working on capacity-building projects with three Indian organizations in Mumbai, including Lend a Hand. They tackled the local skills gap through their global pro bono programs: the IBM

“

IBM and JPMorgan Chase have a long-term, valued relationship which extends beyond business operations. We knew that IBM’s program was a best-inclass International Corporate Volunteerism model that we would be able to learn from and test out as a pilot offering for JPMorgan Chase employees.

40 | T h e N e w G l o b a l C i t i z e n

”

Corporate Service Corps and the JPMorgan Chase Executive Service Corps. Lend a Hand needed assistance to scale their successful program, integrating the organization into the existing government educational infrastructure across 36 districts. Two employees from JPMorgan Chase and two employees from IBM teamed up to develop a strategic framework, including approaches for communication and monitoring and evaluation. The project challenged the corporate employees to think not only about the big picture, but also the details to execute successfully across the state. “Having two different skill sets was beneficial,” said the organization’s co-founder, Raj Gilda, “They complemented each other very well.” While the long term impact of the program will help close the skills gap in India, the short term impact is the improvement of professional and leadership skills amongst the participants themselves. According to Jessica Jennings, skills-based volunteerism program manager at JPMorgan Chase, “A number of the JPMorgan Chase employees have noted that their experience was the best professional development opportunity of their career.” John DiMarco, a Corporate Citizenship program manager at IBM, said that IBMers felt similarly. He also remarked at how the integration of employees from two different companies provided even more value. “The participant feedback we received from each IBM employee,” DiMarco said, “revealed that by including employees from another company, the IBMers learned about new ways to work and how business is conducted in different fields. This also helped them deepen relationships with important clients.” Around the world, employers, educators, policymakers, training organizations, and others have recognized the critical importance of tackling the skills gap—and the cross-sector partnerships required to bridge it. Helping people develop the skills they need to compete for today’s jobs transforms lives and strengthens economies. By engaging the talent and expertise of their employees and partnering with social sector organizations like Lend a Hand, companies like IBM and JPMorgan Chase can address the skills gap while laying the foundation for their own future success.

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Me rck fe llow s J ill C roucher a nd L e igh A n n Good p a rtnered with J acar an da He alth in N airobi, Kenya , to de v e lop a patie n t centered ca re tr ain in g progra m f or sta ff .

Global Pro Bono Converts Insight to Innovation Merck Leverages Service Fellowships to Advance Learning, Employee Engagement & Impact

ver the last 10 years, leading companies have begun investing their greatest asset—their human capital— in “giving back” by improving lives around the world through global pro bono programs. Such programs place employees in short-term volunteer assignments within local socialsector organizations for a period of three weeks to three months in emerging or growth markets, from India to Brazil. While the pursuit of philanthropic community impact will likely continue to underpin such initiatives, some corporations are realizing that deploying employees as pro bono consultants can have two other significant and desirable effects as well. First, such programs can help leaders develop the ability to manage in highly complex, rapidly changing, resource constrained environments, in a manner that is significantly more experiential (and as a result, sustaining) than many standard corporate leadership development offerings. Second, if volunteer assignments and corporate priorities are strategically aligned, companies can benefit from valuable market insights that volunteers gather while on assignment. When nurtured correctly, these insights can fuel new thinking and in-

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Michael S erino & Laura G eorgianna

novation across the organization. To maximize all three of these opportunities for impact, companies have tried various program formats, with varied results. While serendipitous outcomes may occur, programs deliberately designed to address these outcomes can increase the potential for significant and sustainable results. One company seeking to more fully achieve these opportunities for impact is Merck, known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada. Two years ago, Merck embarked on a journey to evolve their program design with the goal of broadening and deepening its impact. As a result, Merck began actively building a systemic approach to achieving the triple impact opportunity of the program by focusing on alignment, capability, and community within its Merck Fellowship for Global Health.

Project Alignment Drives Strategic Impact The Merck Fellowship for Global Health starts with the strategic selection of NGO partners and projects, guided by Merck’s mission and philanthropic priorities. Merck seeks assignments with social

Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation

“

The Fellows not only impact the success of our key NGO partners in the fight against maternal mortality, but also bring back key insights from the field that help our team better achieve our goals.

”

- Priya Agrawal Executive Director, Merck for Mothers

sector partners that are aligned either to Merck’s commitment to global healthcare challenges in areas such as maternal mortality and infectious diseases, or provide a learning opportunity to better understand unmet medical needs in a defined patient population of interest. Each project has an executive sponsor who provides input into the selection of the partners and associated projects and is passionate about the results of the assignment. Once final selection of projects and Fellows are complete, Sponsors help to shape the experience for impact, provide support and resources as needed for success in the field, and enable a Fellow’s insight to be integrated into their work at Merck upon their return. Merck also takes great care to ensure a Fellow’s talents meet a project’s demands. Merck starts with project identification, developing a pool of options and then, currently with the help of PYXERA Global, conducts a robust application process to match top talent with appropriate assignments. Each year, approximately 30 Fellows are given the chance to utilize their skills to have a sustained impact on their host partner, to develop their leadership skills through experiential learning, and to take the initiative to seek out insights important to Merck to fuel internal leadership and innovation. A systemic view that deliberately aligns strategy, projects, and talent drives results that matter to both the global health community and to Merck.

Capability Development Before, During and After Deployment Delivers Successful Outcomes The Fellows selected are all highly skilled individuals with a record of strong performance in the company, yet the context for these assignments is significantly different from their daily work

within a large global corporation. Merck uses an action-learning approach to help Fellows develop the skills, methods, and tools they need to thrive in a highly-dynamic, resource-constrained, culturally different context. This approach focuses on speed, quality, relevance, and sustainability of impact by engaging fellows in capability-enhancing activities before, during, and after their field assignment. Merck’s action learning educational program, currently designed and delivered by our team at Cornell University, draws upon the skills and mindset of an entrepreneurial leader. Each Fellow seeks to make a sustainable impact with limited resources in a brief timeframe, and bring back insights to fuel internal leadership and innovation within Merck. In many ways, a Fellow’s 90-day assignment mirrors the rapid cycle innovation challenge that many entrepreneurs face, which makes the entrepreneurial construct a useful frame for Fellow development. The Cornell program is designed around four primary characteristics of an entrepreneurial leader: Curiosity, Commitment, Collaboration, and Connectivity.

“We learned to think more deeply and empathetically about the needs of the NGO and their constituents, and that helped us frame the opportunity more clearly and deliver greater value.” - Scott Wright, Current Merck Fellow Recognizing the dynamic nature of the experience, Merck worked with Cornell to design a phased approach to capability development. Before their assignment, the Fellows undertake pre-work that includes curated reading assignments, a leadership assessment, and field assignment preparation. Shortly before departure, Fellows attend a two-day interactive workshop where skill development focuses on enabling insight, team effectiveness, and successful goal attainment within the field assignment. At the start of the field assignment, Fellows join regional launch workshops in cities close to their project sites that bring together their host project leads and local MSD employees to ensure alignment and mutual understanding of project goals, while provided regional context of policy, access to healthcare, as well as the company’s market presence in the area.

F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 43

Halfway through the assignment, a mid-Fellowship check-in provides opportunity for reflection, revisiting key capability concepts, and course correction, if needed, relative to assignment goals, personal goals, and Merck-related insight creation. Lastly, upon return, Fellows once again convene for a two-day reintegration workshop to establish Impact Plans to transfer knowledge back to Merck and to initiate innovations based on the insight they gained in the field. In addition, Fellows attend two facilitated follow-up discussion sessions, one after 90 days and the other after six months, to mark progress against their Impact Plan and share learning across the Fellow community. Taking the time to fully prepare and support the fellows before, during, and after the assignment with the skills, methods, and tools that can enable success greatly increases the likelihood of impact in the field and impact for Merck, through applied insights, upon the Fellowsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; return.

A Community of Fellows Fosters a Culture of Innovation and Collaboration The third element of Merckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s systemic approach to enable impact is to leverage the power of community to increase all three of the impact goals. Merck has built an active community of alumni Fellows who continue to stay involved in program development and execution. Those in the alumni community bring forward partners and projects for consideration, assist in recruiting new Fellows, and act as mentors to the new Fellows throughout the fellowship experience. In this mentor capacity, they provide guidance before departure, coaching while in the field, and advice and resources to support the implementation of each Fellowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Merck-oriented Impact Plan upon return. This ongoing engagement of Fellows fosters a grassroots community, spread across the global organization, with a clear focus on learning how to deliver greater value to patients. This community has a deep understanding of the global health context, an appreciation of how to drive change within a highly-complex system, and a willingness to advocate for changes that help Merck expand its collaboration among internal and external constituents to increase its impact around the world.

Whether in your day-to-day responsibilities or in your role as a mentor to future Fellows, as an alum of this program, you understand the power you have to make an impact and you are driven to use your abilities to make a difference inside and outside of Merck. - Philip Kuhl, Director of Business Consulting

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Entrepreneurial Leader Framework The four entrepreneurial leadership characteristics emphasized in the action-learning program are:

Commitment

Taking a disciplined, thoughtful, and rigorous approach with a bias toward action, learning, and iteration

Curiosity

Continually challenging personal mental models and leveraging the power of empathy to understand complex systems and to develop insights that fuel opportunities for impact

Connectivity

Seeking and integrating novel and disparate ideas from a varied network to generate innovation possibilities and initiate knowledge sharing or action

Collaboration

Engaging diverse perspectives from a broad array of stakeholders to create generative dialogue and enable teamwork that advances progress towards a goal

Through the development of a systemic architecture the Merck Fellowship program is achieving the benefit of designing to desired outcomes. While simply sending volunteers out into the field can drive beneficial impact on local communities, companies that are seeking to truly maximize the impact of their global pro bono programs should explore how an increasing focus on strategic alignment, capabilities development, and community can deliver significant returns. In the case of Merck, prioritizing the power of global pro bono and creating the structures to enable their people to succeed is driving both sustainable impact and powerful innovation within the company and communities around the world.

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Living Closer Together Requires Listening More Closely to One Another EQUITABLE URBANIZATION POWERED BY EDUCATION & INCLUSIVE DESIGN S cott Boylston

“I

’ve heard we shouldn’t cross over into West Savannah.” It was the first day of class, and already one of my students had heard that going into the neighborhoods we planned to visit for our project could lead to violent attacks against us. After living in the city for only six months, she had arrived at this conclusion without visiting the area herself. Our class of 12 Master’s students at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) would be spending the next 10 weeks with the residents of these two communities, giving form to their vision of the future by helping facilitate conversations between them, the companies responsible for heavy industrial pollution in the vicinity, and an environmental justice organization, as part of a social innovation and participatory design course. Over the years, I’ve heard similar expressions of concern from students on the first day of class, but by the end of the semester, their

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mindset is transformed. Instead, they express hope and empathy for these communities and a belief that inclusiveness has the power to foster empowerment, transformation, and community resilience. Too often relegated to generating creative solutions in service to business, designers have recently found new freedom—and purpose—in using their creativity in direct service to society. The SCAD Master’s in Design for Sustainability provides a dynamic experience that balances systems thinking, design strategy, and leadership, and leverages insights into behavior change—of individuals, organizations, and society—in pursuit of a common future. Classes focus as much on social innovation and cross-sector collaboration as they do on technical innovation and business strategies for the 21st century.

Photos: Savannah College of Art and Design

Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable

process of effective multi-stakeholder engagement to develop resilient cities around the world. This living laboratory approach reveals three key insights that designers performing in the social innovation space must embrace to be effective in designing for a complex urban environment.

1) THE IDEA IS THE CLIENT

In an effort to provide experiential learning opportunities within the social innovation sector, the program immerses students in real-world, multi-stakeholder situations, many of which have historically been hamstrung by an inability to locate and sustain an appreciation for common ground between would-be partners. By placing the students in the midst of a web of conflicting worldviews, the program nurtures a deeper and more rigorous form of empathy. With 145,000 residents, the city of Savannah provides students with a manageable microcosm of the dynamic relation-

ships within cities where various sectors of society grapple with entrenched social conditions. A growing dialogue, best articulated by researchers William Eggers and Paul Macmillan at Deloitte in their book The Solution Revolution, is focused on the solution economy, revealing the significant potential in cross-sector collaboration to address large-scale social challenges, which can become even more complex and oppressive in urban settings. In this context, the socially conscious designer provides an essential objective voiceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;informed by rigorous listening and enabled by visualization skillsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that can guide the

One of the hardest concepts for our class partners to accept is that SCAD students will not create solutions for them. Partners are told early on that they will be treated as equal partners, not traditional design clients. Instead of only focusing on predetermined demands, the class focuses on their organizational mission, their business values, or their agency goals to bring stakeholders to support the same ideas, not individual organizations. More specifically, the class aligns seemingly disparate objectives to serve a central, unifying idea, such as the value partners can deliver to society by reducing the gap between the wealthy and the underserved. Before the class can design a solution that provides benefits for all stakeholders, the group must together reach a deep-seated commitment to bridging perceived divides. Students enable this process by helping partners embrace unexpected commonalities, and then stewarding a process of leveraging these latent alignments. F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 47

S t u d e nts i n S C A D ’s D e si g n for S ust a i nabi li ty progr am a re im m e rse d i n realw or l d, m ulti -stakeh old e r si tuati o n s.

Those designing for sustainability embrace the construct of collective impact because it champions the health of the entire system over its component parts. Of the five conditions of collective impact recommended by the mission-driven consulting firm FSG (a common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support) backbone support is the most essential. SCAD students learn to provide this critical underpinning, becoming guardians of the common agenda and determining when it’s appropriate for them to support the project by visualizing data or demonstrating the validity of potentially relevant innovations. Community partners are expected to keep their individual objectives in mind, but the students focus on the challenge of articulating—and frequently re-articulating—the value of the common agenda to each partner. By perpetually working in service to the mutually-agreed idea underpinning the project, designers ensure that all stakeholders remain empowered and engaged throughout the design process.

2) HEALTHY ADVERSITY BEGETS A WEALTH OF DIVERSITY Close observation of healthy natural systems reveals how various energy flows counteract one another, keeping the larger system in check, even as they prosper from symbiotic relationships. Similarly, a diversity of voices in social systems ensures a healthy resistance to extremes. Ziad Hassan, in his book The

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Social Labs Revolution, promotes the creation of multiple forms of capital as a means of preventing systemic collapse. “Organizations designed to produce only one form of capital,” he observes, “are a dying breed.” Hassan promotes the creation of physical, social, human, and intellectual capital as a vital supplement to the focus on financial capital at all costs, as evidenced by his work in initiatives such as the Sustainable Food Lab. The sole pursuit of financial capital, he argues, implies the destruction of other forms of capital (human, social, intellectual, and others), the very forms of wealth that generate abundance. Cities, generally speaking, are astonishingly rich in diversity. Initiatives designed to nurture and leverage that diversity often do so by amplifying alternative voices in order to counteract the overbearing and potentially destructive influence of dominant voices on the fabric of the city. Yet, the task of amplifying the voice of marginalized communities is not achieved through a singular focus on serving those communities directly, as much as on weaving the appropriate elements of the greater forces at play closer together with their needs and aspirations. Design for Sustainability students at SCAD spend as much time working with and learning from representatives of various municipal agencies that influence city functions as they do with members of their community of focus. Firsthand knowledge of nonprofits committed to the central topic at hand (whether it be food justice, equitable housing, or

economic empowerment) is as essential as relationships with city authorities and local thought leaders who possess a wealth of insights. Through sensitive interaction with all of these actors within a city’s vibrant ecosystem, the students can discover and leverage overlooked opportunities and underutilized resources. By discovering existing overlaps or unexpected linkages, students uncover the most promising opportunities. These opportunities exist less as gaps in infrastructure than as previously undiscovered bridges that can connect existing infrastructure to more of itself. This process unlocks social, human, and intellectual capital which, like nutrient cycles in complex natural systems, can feed one another in symbiotic fashion. As objective stewards of the core aim—a prosperous, equitable and sustainable cityscape—the design students remain focused on the health of the overall system, so that individual actors can remain focused on their own resilience.

3) TO ACHIEVE URBAN EQUITY, ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

enthusiasm needed to unlock a community’s imagination and reveal its collective aspiration. Yet, succumbing to such common tendencies fails to acknowledge the basic reality that the persistence of change, when harnessed correctly, has the potential to expose significant breakthroughs. Turbulent eddies of counter-flows are not the primary force in life; it is the constancy and the force of forward flowing water that is preeminent, yet the appropriate form and direction of energy to release conversations from the turbulence is often misunderstood or overlooked. New ideas are often dismissed as being impractical or out of touch. Design puts new ideas into concrete form as a way of demonstrating their value. In this way de-

new values through the creation of artifacts have all been effectively used to successfully generate new visions for the future. Rather than focusing on which gadget can attract the most consumers, Design for Sustainability students apply these tools to solicit participation in dialogue around how a just and sustainable world can burst forth. Design, when practiced with humility and a holistic vision, can help steward well-intentioned groups toward a shared future, facilitating new conversations and injecting old relationships with a renewed sense of partnership. In an era of dynamic change, when belief systems, social habits, and global relations are all under pressure, nurturing a shared vision for a common future is difficult but essential. Within rapidly growing cities, which are presently home to approximately half the world’s population, people live closer and closer to one another, all the while feeling more and more isolated. The traditional disciplinary pipelines of public policy and systems management can only do so much to counteract this trend. Yet, the conversations needed to advance progress easily become mired in social dynamics that spiral downward rather than upward. Too often, this deterioration is driven by erroneously negative perceptions among disparate groups that unwittingly reinforce socio-economic divides. A new generation of individuals committed to stewarding future-driven dialogues is desperately needed to insure a more equitable society. Greater empathy among those who would facilitate that emergence is the first step in the journey toward this goal. As a practice grounded in human-centered research, the field of design holds great promise for increasing the likelihood of thriving cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

Fear of repeating past failures can stifle the enthusiasm needed to unlock a community’s imagination and reveal its collective aspiration.

If cities have any hope of addressing the significant challenges they face, it exists within the willingness of citizens to transcend their ingrained worldviews for the sake of a future of shared prosperity. My fearful graduate student was not one to cling to misperceptions, and she quickly recognized her uninformed impression was a symptom of a larger social condition. As a member of a team dedicated to building bridges between conflicting worldviews, and realizing she was unwittingly perpetuating the very dynamic we intended to overturn, she identified her own assumptions as a target behavior she needed to address. Too often, leaders let the swirl of yesterday’s ineffective initiatives frame the strategy for what is possible tomorrow. Fear of repeating past failures can stifle the

sign opens the door to an emerging future. Otto Scharmer, founder of the Presencing Institute, calls for the creation of collective sensing organs which, “use the power of shared seeing and dialog to tap into an unused resource of collective sensing and thinking together.” Leaders at the Presencing Institute teach group dialogue skills for ‘letting go…then letting come,’ to help collaborators across divides discover a deeper connectivity. The ‘letting come’ is the first step toward concretely bringing into the world an entirely different form of working together, which can only be achieved once those involved let go of habitual ways of thinking. Design thinking tools such as contextual inquiry, prototyping, role playing, visualization, and demonstration of

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Dow Discovers the Value of a Swamp

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY AND THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY COLLABORATE TO ESTIMATE NATURE’S VALUE TO BUSINESS AROUND THE WORLD

Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts Goal 15: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss

Laura Asiala

hat’s the value of a swamp? Traditionally, an accountant would book the value at the cost of acquisition. Environmentalists might argue for the value of its natural preservation and diversity, leading the charge for philanthropic contributions to save the wetlands. Politicians might try to eliminate it in favor of a parking lot for new development or to protect a watershed for tourism, hunting, and fishing, making impassioned speeches about its importance to the economy. But what if that swamp could naturally convert waste water from a nearby manufacturing site at a cost far cheaper than building and maintaining a water treatment plant? Suddenly, the interests of the accountant, the environmentalist, the politician, and the corporate engineer coalesce around the same goal: protecting the wetland. “It’s all about scale,” said Dr. Neil Hawkins, Corporate Vice President, EH&S, and Chief Sustainability Officer of The Dow Chemical Company, as he spoke of the company’s collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC). “We spend three to four billion dollars every year in capital. We spend $1.6 billion dollars every year in research. How do you leverage those investments for a win-win for the company and for nature?”

Moving ‘Natural Capital’ from Theory to Practice In 2011, Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and CEO of Dow, and Mark Tercek, CEO of TNC, launched a courageous collaboration. Speaking from the Detroit Economic Club, Liveris and Tercek announced that one of the world’s largest science and technology companies and one of the world’s largest environmental nonprofits would join forces to figure out how to value the services of nature in order to inform business decisions. “It’s never been a ‘photo-op’ kind of relationship,” said Hawkins. “It was always built around the notion that we were solving together one of the biggest challenges facing the planet: how to bring the business community into saving ecosystems because it makes business sense to do that.” The original inspiration for this collaborative effort was the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which provided a scientific appraisal of the world’s ecosystems and the services they provide. Published in 2005, the reports represented the first attempts to codify the value of nature for business, building

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Th e E c o s y s t e m S e r vic e s I d e n t ifi c a ti o n & Inv e n t o r y, o r ES I I , Tool i s d e s i g n e d t o he l p co m p a ni es e sti m a t e t h e b u s i nes s val u e f ro m n a t u re.

on the pioneering work of Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins in Natural Capitalism. Yet, to date, such efforts had been more theoretical than actionable. “It’s one thing to be around U.N. meetings saying, ‘Business and nature go hand in hand,’” said Hawkins. “It’s another thing to figure out how to actually operationalize at a specific site.” Although Dow didn’t originate the idea of valuing nature for business, the company was committed to figuring out how to operationalize it. Starting with the conviction that nature had significant potential value for companies that could be converted into financial terms and used to better inform business decisions, Dow went looking for collaborators. They found, in Mark Tercek and TNC, the collaborator they needed. Tercek joined TNC in 2008, after a 24-year career in finance at Goldman Sachs, bringing with him extensive business experience. A champion of natural capital—valuing nature for its own sake as well as for the services it can provide—he saw the collaboration with Dow as an opportunity to bring it to life.

Forging an Environmental Collaboration Built to Last Companies sometimes embrace public partnerships with nonprofit partners for the sake of appearances, or short-term brand benefit, but alliances that achieve real outcomes are forged—lit-

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erally, in the pressure and heat of negotiation, dialogue, and compromise. In the beginning, the idea of valuing the services of nature was foreign to both organizations. Incorporated in 1897, Dow is a deeply conservative, traditional, science-and-technology company, with an engineering-driven culture. The Nature Conservancy is a confederation of local organizations, with a history of philanthropic funding and environmental activism. At every level of the collaboration, there were obstacles to overcome. At the highest level, leaders worked through classic change management challenges. Yet, instead of managing change across one organization, it was two. Hawkins is quick to point out the enormous goodwill between the organizations and the commitment to the shared goal, but still, “It wasn’t twice as hard, it was more like change management, squared.” Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once quipped, “All politics is local.” So, it turns out, is real environmentalism. Hawkins described the initial conversations between the parties, which began by exploring valuations of large geographic areas. “Let’s say you’re talking about the Great Lakes,” Hawkins said. “You can value that with regard to tourism, shipping, et cetera.” But for businesses to make decisions, they need a microeconomic approach, for example focusing on a specific location with a specific operation such as Ludington, Michigan, a small town on the eastern shore of Lake Photo: The Dow Chemical Company

Michigan, home to a former Dow calcium carbonate plant that may become a conservation and recreation site in the near future. “Estimating the value of nature to Dow and to the community is very difficult,” he explained. “You have to be able to estimate the value of nature on a narrow scale that is very geographically specific.” The challenge was figuring out how to assess natural assets at the local level, in order to build that value into decisions that concerned that particular site, to ensure Dow was able to make better business decisions for nature and the company. At the operational level, one of the greatest initial challenges was logistical: finding availability in the schedules of people in both organizations who had the most to contribute, many of whom were already fully obligated with other responsibilities. Dow engineers and TNC biologists had to make time to learn one another’s languages, and earn trust. Doing so required relentless and attentive leadership—constant articulation, direction, enrollment, re-enrollment, encouragement, feedback, and obstacle navigation—to ensure the joint teams had the right direction and right environment for productive output.

a specific site. ESII focuses on eight initial ecosystem services that are most critical to site operations and the surrounding community: water storage, water quality, water provisioning, air quality, flood control, climate regulation, erosion control, and visual and noise aesthetics. Most importantly, ESII delivers output in units that site personnel can use—for example, water storage in gallons to help the site assess needs for storm-water management. This output data can then be integrated into financial models that assess the value provided by the ecosystem—and compare it with alternatives. ESII has been tested at a number of sites across the United States, including in Illinois, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia. Once the reports of the analysis and supporting cases are complete, the ESII model will be made publicly available. Dow has already generated $200 million of economic value from the Seadrift wetland, a proof of concept that gave them the confidence to commit to deliver another $1 billion in value through projects that are good for business and good for ecosystems by 2025, as set forth in the company’s 10-year sustainability goals. By 2020, all research and development, capital, and TNC and Dow are learning together how to leverage real estate projects will be reMeasuring the Value of those resources and in so doing, are demonstrating quired to measure the value Nature for Business how collaboration—even among seemingly unlikely of ecosystem services to their partners—can advance the Global Goals, enabling During the initial pilots bottom line. in Freeport, Texas, and Santa companies everywhere to value nature in a way that Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Vitória, Brazil, local employees makes protecting precious natural environments Goals, the company’s third set from both organizations demonbusiness as usual. of 10-year goals, were set in the strated that it was possible to context of the United Nations estimate, and then operational2030 Sustainable Development ize, the value of nature. That Goals, ratified by the U.N. Geninformation was then used to eral Assembly in September. The outcome of this $1 billion colappropriately inform business decisions. “The single biggest out- laboration with TNC will make a significant contribution towards put from the collaboration so far is the ESII Tool,” said Hawkins. advancing SDG 15: to protect, restore, and promote the sustainable Pronounced “easy,” the Ecosystem Services Identification & Inven- use of the environment. tory, or ESII is designed to help companies estimate the business “I think people should study the economic value for the projvalue from nature on and adjacent to their sites, as well as the ects we’ve already done, and recognize this as a win-win project,” public value from lands on-site. “It came out of an idea we had said Hawkins. “We’re not preserving nature through philanthropy,” watching Texas,” Hawkins explained. “The Texas pilot was becom- he said. “We’re doing it, because nature provides a better service ing very academic, and we needed to make sure we would come at lower cost.” out of this with a tool which could be used by an engineer at a Corporations spend millions of dollars on strategic philanthrosite outside of the United States.” py, some of which is used to save ecosystems. Many also spend ESII enables a trained technician to enter site characteristics via billions on capital investments, research, and development. TNC simple, multiple choice questions on a tablet device. For example, and Dow are learning together how to leverage those resources whether the ground cover is grass, forest, or shrub, or whether and in so doing, are demonstrating how collaboration—even among water is present in the area on a perpetual or seasonal basis. The seemingly unlikely partners—can advance the Global Goals, enanswers to these and other questions are then combined with abling companies everywhere to value nature in a way that makes other data sources such as map data and climate data, into an al- protecting precious natural environments business as usual. gorithm that derives the level of ecosystem service performance of

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Peace Corps Paves a Pathway to Service-Driven Partnership A Peace Corps Assignment in El Salvador Plants Seeds of Community Transformation

The first group of 51 Peace Corps Volunteers worked in Gh ana as teachers in 1961.

D aniel Breneman

“T

ry this one here, it’s really sweet.” Alberto, an eightyear-old Salvadorian boy led me down a ravine, pointing to a strange green and yellow fruit. “And this one over here, there are so many of these, too!” yelled back his 14-year-old cousin, Orlando, as Alberto handed me another odd-looking fruit he had just picked from a nearby tree. I reluctantly accepted, having never seen any of these in my life. Hesitating only a moment, I bit into its scabrous and wrinkled flesh. It was indeed sweet. In the early days of my Peace Corps assignment in rural El Salvador, Alberto and Orlando offered me a crash course in survival, instructing me how to identify the native fruits and avoid the poison ivy. Fresh out of 10 weeks of intensive training in cross-cultural engagement and technical skills geared toward helping communities reach their development goals, I hadn’t expected to be learning how to survive in the wilderness from two kids that could barely read. We reached our destination, swam in the river, enjoyed our freshly picked fruit, and chatted about sports and girls. I had agreed to go along with them on their Saturday morn-

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ing activity—a long and steep hike down to the river from the mountain village of Atiluya—as a break from what had been a frustrating start to my assignment. As I settled into my new home, I quickly found that bonding with a handful of my host villagers that had just met me a few days before wasn’t going to be as easy as I first thought. I couldn’t simply apply my 10-week training and automatically engage the community to execute development projects of my own design. I was missing something. As we hiked back to the village, happy and energized, I realized that I still had much to learn about how to connect with people, build trust, and work together toward common goals. It turned out I was at the beginning of a transformative process brought about by my two years of service.

he idea of the Peace Corps was first introduced in 1960 during an impromptu presidential campaign speech by then-Senator John F. Kennedy. Addressing 5,000 students at the University of Michigan, Kennedy challenged them to dedicate two years of their lives to the challenge of workPhoto: Peace Corps

Goal 17: Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

ing alongside locals in developing nations. firewood-powered cooking stoves, and only But what began simply as a motivational a handful of the rustic wood and tin houses speech quickly became a reality when connected to a reliable water source. Many President Kennedy signed Executive Order families hike down the mountain on a daily 10924 in March 1961, establishing the Peace basis to fetch water and bathe. Malnutrition Corps on a temporary pilot basis. Just five rates among village children are still high months later, the first cohort of volunteers and dengue fever is common, claiming the departed for Ghana and Tanzania. lives of a handful of children each year. Today, the agency promotes its goals Many villagers believe their only hope for From the outside, the changes might have through a simple formula: train a person a prosperous future lies in the vague posseemed trivial, but for the community, the eager to go overseas to serve, and assign sibility of employment in the capital city or improvements were life-changing. Throughthem to work alongside a community and the long, expensive, and difficult migration out my time, I observed how a group of its members to develop effective communi- north to the United States. leaders learned to come together and help ty impact initiatives over the course of two In the early stages of my assignment, their small community of 650 people grow, years. Since its inception, nearly 220,000 many of the initial project ideas I proposed finding hope in the small but significant Americans have heeded the call to changes in their quality of life. public service and served as Peace My experience is not unique. Corps volunteers. Today, close to Each Returned Peace Corps VolunToday, the agency promotes its goals through 7,000 volunteers serve in over 60 teer, known among us as RPCVs, a simple formula: train a person eager to go countries, in diverse areas that will tell you a similar story of strugoverseas to serve, and assign them to work include education, health, youth gle, adaptation, communication, alongside a community and its members to engagement, and community deand ultimately, triumph. Collectivevelopment, trying to reach targets develop effective community impact initiatives ly, the Peace Corps represents an on goals set by the agency worldover the course of two years. incredible network of community wide, in coordination with other engagement experiences. Anyinternational development sector where in the world, RPCVs often efforts. Returned volunteers have seek out ways to come together, exchange also formed strong networks back home, failed miserably. I first tried to help villagstories, and reminisce about the struggles helping to expose a generation of Ameri- ers build efficient wood-burning stoves; and joys of living and serving in the remotcans who haven’t yet had a chance to serve three were built, and none survived. Then est areas of the globe. overseas to cultures and customs other there was the world map I started with the than their own. children at school that was never finished. till, the Peace Corps is not without its The projects I came up with were not wellcritics. I often receive mixed reactions tiluya is a picturesque mountainous conceived because the ideas behind them when I share my experience living and village in western El Salvador, a small did not originate from the local people working as a volunteer. Many people don’t community of 150 friendly families that themselves. In the days and months that understand why a young person would depend on the seasonal harvest of coffee followed my hike with Alberto and Orlando, choose to delay their career to go live and balsam tree extract, and survive on I learned to listen and engage Atiluya’s abroad for pennies. To many friends, two slash-and-burn farming of corn and beans leaders and community members, realizing years seems like a very long time to comon the steep mountain slopes. The local pri- that the purpose of my time there was not mit to living poor. Recently, my neighbor mary school offers village children the op- to focus on my vision, but the vision, ideas, asked me what was wrong with America portunity for formal classroom learning, but and goals of the community. that made me want to live elsewhere. In they must travel by bus to the next town Slowly, I developed a better sense of exchange for two years of service in a rural, if they want to continue their studies be- the work that needed to be done. Together, community setting, a volunteer gains an yond seventh grade. The village lacks basic we started a women’s group, built a health invaluable wealth of experience, a unique services, with limited electricity coverage, clinic, and obtained a grant to build a road.

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By 196 2 , Peace Cor ps e xpand ed to 28 host countr i es, incl udi n g Eth iop i a, pictured h ere.

perspective on the drivers of poverty, and an incredible lesson in the importance of humility and collaboration to arrive at successful outcomes. A few significant challenges during the past decade, including serious incidents of harassment and violence against volunteers, yielded a great deal of negative publicity, and triggered a strong reaction against the Peace Corps, most notably from the U.S. Congress. These events prompted the agency to reassess its approach to how it operates around the world, and how it recruits, places, and supports volunteers during their service and once they return home. Last year, the Peace Corps announced a change to its recruitment process, allowing applicants to apply for specific roles in certain countries, rather than simply enlisting to be sent on assignment anywhere in the world. Under the new mandate, volunteers spend much less time shaping the projects they will work on, and more time diving into existing projects to get the work done. The agency has also improved its support for volunteer safety and security while incountry and expanded its support systems for volunteers returning home. Services range from career fairs to university partnerships that provide subsidized RPCV fel-

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lowships. In order to ensure that the Peace Corps continues to play an important role in global diplomacy, the agency encourages RPCVs to use their network to continue to expose others to the benefits of embedded long-term service. Despite the many challenges the agency still faces, its mission to promote world peace and friendship remains more relevant than ever in an increasingly globalized world. In order to integrate the agency more fully into global development efforts, the Peace Corps has aligned itself with other development initiatives, seeking to play an important role in advancing the international development agenda, including the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. In the process, the Peace Corps has developed strong partnerships in all its countries, for example, to effectively reduce the prevalence of malaria and HIV, improve literacy rates, and empower women and youth.

n a world where U.S. development assistance can often seem unpredictable and disengaged from the realities of local communities, Peace Corps volunteers are powerful citizen diplomats, providing tangible community-level evidence of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to invest in improving the world.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, the ever-growing community of volunteers who have embraced the opportunity to serve continue to influence future generations of Americans who, in turn, will be better positioned to understand and engage in an interconnected world. The list of RPCVs who have taken up leadership positions in various companies, nonprofits, and government agencies continues to grow, including a few currently serving in Congress. These are leaders who have learned firsthand the true meaning of transcending cultural and linguistic boundaries to develop partnerships that effectively advance a common agenda, rooted in a common understanding among those who may hold different values and worldviews. The Peace Corps is a unique engine of partnership and collaboration, driven by the interests and needs of villages like my host community of Atiluya. The agency can use its volunteers to effectively advance the Sustainable Development Goals without overlooking that true sustainable development begins at the grassroots level. Perhaps with the right encouragement, more Americans will heed the call to serve, to seek ways to engage in effective community development that also promotes world peace and mutual understanding.

Photo: Peace Corps

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BOOK EXCERPT The Next Africa provides a fresh and realistic framework for working in a thriving, global Africa. Review by Amanda MacArthur News out of Africa often seems to be on a pendulum—the continent is either nearing complete collapse due to corruption, disease, and civil unrest, or the message is so polished as to be impossible to believe. As with most places, the reality is not so clear cut—while major challenges to widespread prosperity remain, the narrative is not nearly as dire as the nightly news might have you believe. The Next Africa: An Emerging Continent Becomes a Global Powerhouse by Aubrey Hruby and Jake Bright highlights how both homegrown and global business is driving transformation, while transparently outlining the continued challenges to sustainable growth. Africa is only now emerging from what the authors term the “Less Than Three Percent World”; a world in which the continent made up less than three percent of world trade, less than three percent of global GDP, and less than three percent of all Google hits. In recent years these numbers have moved in a positive direction, a result of a wave of transformation driven by business, modernization, and fresh talent. The Next Africa of the title refers to the continent’s flourishing technology, music, film, and fashion sectors and the African entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and innovators that are driving them forward. Hruby and Bright detail the influence of the continent’s wealthy and engaged diaspora who is eager to reengage with their home countries through new business ventures and investments. From the technological innovations of Silicon Savannah to Nigeria’s Nollywood moviemaking machine, Hruby and Bright capture the continent’s transformation. The common theme of The Next Africa is that African opportunity is just that—African. Through personal stories, research, and analysis, Hruby and Bright make clear that simply applying the same Western formulas for success will lead to less than satisfactory results. The following excerpt provides a strong framework for those looking to do business in the African context.

iven the myriad upbeat headlines on Sub-Saharan Africa’s fastgrowing economies, new stock and bond offerings, and record foreign investment, we receive a constant stream of questions on how businesses and individuals can get into these new markets to trade, sell, invest, or work. The region’s size, diversity, and rapidly changing nature presents a multitude of opportunities suitable for people from all backgrounds. As a result, our advice always depends on who you are, what you’re looking for, what skills you bring to the table, where you are in your career, and what your general risk tolerance is. The old way of “helping” African countries by donating to a charity

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is thankfully being supplanted by a full range of partnership options. From adventure travel, to mentoring entrepreneurs, investing in an Africa-focused mutual fund or joint-venturing with an African ﬁrm the imagination is the only limit to engaging the Next Africa.

Shedding the Developed Market Mind-Set Many of the key lessons for businesses entering Africa stem from the differences between operating in a developing country and developed country markets. Using a developed market mind-set— which benchmarks everything to how it works at home in San Francisco, Dallas, Toronto, or Manchester—causes companies to often

misevaluate an opportunity in an African market and adopt costly strategies. Understanding African markets, and all frontier markets, for that matter, requires empathy, a good read of history, and an openness to local cultures and context. By 2020 one billion people are predicted to live in slums globally. Companies that cannot do business in the narrow alleyways, the dense and informal housing, among the mass of people who characterize the slums, will be punished by the market. The developed market mind-set is not only a large driver of misconceptions about Africa; it is also one of the most important obstacles that businesses seeking success on the continent need to overcome.

The developed market mind-set assumes that life and business in the United States or Europe is the same as the rest of the world. It assumes that there is electricity when you need it; that there is (generally) good road, rail, and aviation infrastructure; that there are excellent data sources to inform decisions; that there is an ecosystem of supportive businesses; that trash gets collected; that drivers follow traffic laws; and that contracts get enforced. These things are the exception not the norm in the rest of the world. The vast majority of humanity lives in countries deﬁned by different realities—countries where systems don’t work, where trust (the lifeblood of business) breaks down, where traffic chokes the street, and where informal economies carry the day. The following thought experiment can be particularly helpful in building empathy and breaking down mental barriers. The Great Depression of the 1930s was one of the most traumatizing periods in American history. The hardships of the era loom large in collective memory. By the mid-1930s, unemployment in the United States soared to 25 percent, people migrated across the country in search of work, and the Dust Bowl destroyed agricultural livelihoods. Companies were starved for capital, and politicians struggled to tamp down populist impulses. This American experience characterizes the everyday situation in some African countries despite rapid growth and transformation: unemployment is high, migration for survival is rampant, and African governments are constantly dealing with competing crises. To be successful in the region’s frontier markets, businesspeople need to dig deep into their empathy, imagination, and creativity. Solving one problem in this context often requires solving two, three, or four simultaneously, and proving to your partners that you are a long-run, valued resource. Other developing countries, such as China, India and Brazil, have successfully and rapidly ramped up their engagement in Africa, in part because their companies are not burdened by a developed market mind-set. The operating environment in their countries is more similar than different from that found in African countries. Companies and businesspeople from other developing countries have fewer problems doing business in African villages or slums, because they have villages and slums in their own home markets and are as used to operating in them as they are in posh neighborhoods and central business districts. In order to compete, U.S. companies will need to free themselves from the developed market mind-set and step out into the world as it truly is.

Some Basic Operating Principles: The Four Ps In addition to being empathetic and shedding the developed market mind-set, anyone who wants to get into Africa (be it through travel, business, or volunteering) will beneﬁt from adopting what we call the Four Ps Framework. The Four Ps are patience, persistence, personal relationships, and partnerships and understanding them yields a competitive advantage. One could argue

that applying these principles is important to navigating any business environment, but they are especially crucial in Africa.

PATIENCE There is a steep learning curve in gaining the necessary understanding of business culture in Africa—it takes time. For example, in many countries a potential business partner will say yes even though he or she really means no. Culturally, he or she is trying to be polite and respectful of your wishes. Knowing when yes means no is fundamental to understanding business relationships in Africa. To take another example, talking directly and frankly about money is generally a taboo that can cause offense, but Nigeria is an exception to that rule: there, talking about money early on in a business relationship is typically not a problem. Patience is required to learn the business norms and the pace of commercial activity on a country by country basis.

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS Business requires trust, and trust requires building personal relationships. This is especially true in African markets, where reputation is very important: good word of mouth can be an enormous asset. People (and personalities) matter in African countries—few people can drive enormous change, and even fewer can block it. Face-to-face interaction is often required, and it is not all that uncommon to hear, “Just come and see me, and we’ll discuss it then,” from a government official or business partner in response to a person or company with a problem that needs resolving.

PERSISTENCE Overcoming daily challenges and navigating policy uncertainty require persistence. While improving rapidly, systems taken for granted in developed markets are often lacking in African economies. It’s not that the policies are bad per se; rather that the policy-making process is often opaque, causing frustration on the part of investors. Persistence is required to overcome the numerous daily challenges. Managing expectations on investment, contracting, licensing, hiring, and other commercial time lines helps prevent the death of a project by a thousand cuts.

PARTNERSHIPS Without decades of experience, it is impossible to fully understand local risks. Working with people who are familiar with the region can help mitigate the risks speciﬁc to a particular market and sector. So many of the various issues that we’ve discussed can be solved by having a strong partner on the ground who can anticipate and help take care of any problems that arise, coordinate necessary meetings, gather hard-to-get market information, build personal relationships on behalf of a ﬁrm, and help decipher local business culture.

Adapted from THE NEXT AFRICA: An Emerging Continent Becomes A Global Powerhouse by Jake Bright and Aubrey Hruby. Copyright © 2015 by the author and reprinted by permission of Thomas Dunne Books F a l l 2 0 1 5 | 59

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