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  • Fashion Closes Gap Between Catwalk and Crafts

    Fashion Closes Gap Between Catwalk and Crafts

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The notion of doing right with fashion has been getting a make-over in the past few years. In the West, non-sweatshop clothing and crafts from developing countries have long been confined to a small niche in the marketplace. They were seen at best as garments for the eccentric or unconventional, and at worst as a poor substitute for clothing and accessories peddled by the major manufacturers. Organic or ethically produced products were often stigmatized as unfashionable and frumpy.

    In Paris, the Ethical Fashion Show, now in its fourth year, showcases fashion that respects people and the environment while still being glamorous, luxurious and trendy. It has attracted designers from around the world, including Mongolia, Thailand, China, Peru and Bolivia. The show demands that all participants adhere to International Labour Organization conventions – including banning forced and child labour – respect the environment, create local employment and work with craftspeople to ensure skills are retained and the fashion reflects the diversity of the world’s cultures.

    As an example of the high growth in ethical fashion in the past year, the UK chain of clothing and food retailers Marks and Spencer has become the world’s biggest buyer of Fairtrade cotton.

    “I have only been in the business for the past 12 months, but at first it was hard to find producers,” said Tamzin Berry, owner of the British company Ethical Catwalk. “But now it has really taken off. Celebrities have helped to raise the profile. One line we carry, Red Mother, Madonna’s backing dancers wear it. I have found everybody in the business to be very approachable, genuinely caring and ethical people.”

    Style is the big consideration now, said Berry. “More of the trendy labels have taken up the challenge and it seems to be going the same way as the organic food. “

    “The fashion industry has one of the worst reputations of any industry,” Dr. Katie Beverley of the University of Leeds’ Nonwovens Research Group told The Guardian newspaper. “But the drive for ethical and environmental considerations in design has never been stronger.”

    In Mozambique, catwalk fashions are helping poor people and saving fast-depleting forests. A project by the International Trade Centre (a joint initiative between UNCTAD and the WTO (www.intracen.org)) in the forests of Sofala Province – stretching from Angola to southern Tanzania, Mozambique, and northern South Africa – targets this home of rare hardwoods. Local craftspeople in the town of Dondo were producing crafts for a tourist market that didn’t exist and a local market that couldn’t afford them. But by bringing on board the social entrepreneur Allan Schwarz – an expert in working with forest communities and an Ashoka fellow (www.ashoka.org) – they were able to create bracelets of high enough quality to sell in fashion magazines and be a hit at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. On average, workers wages have increased 14 times topping at US $300/month in a country where average income per year is US $250.

    Published: March 2007

    Resources

    • Potential designers and exhibitors can contact the Ethical Fashion Show by sending collection photos and a brief explanation on how the fashions contribute to the ethical fashion movement, to 4, rue Trousseau 75011 Paris. Email: unilove@wanadoo.fr
    • Ethical Catwalk: One of the UK’s leading suppliers of ethical fashion and accessories. They only use organic and Fairtrade products.
    • People Tree: A five-year-old online shopping site created in partnership with producers from the poorest communities around the world.
    • Allan Schwarz bracelets: www.allanschwarz.com
    • Cebra: Fair Trade Crafts from Africa: An online shopping site that sources handcrafted fair trade fashions and products from Africa.
    • Fair Indigo: A fair trade fashion company based in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

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

    Creative Commons License

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

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • A New Mobile Phone Aimed at the Poor

    A New Mobile Phone Aimed at the Poor

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    A low-cost Venezuelan mobile phone aimed at the South’s poor is proving that South-South technological cooperation works. Packed with features and costing no more than US $15 – making it one of the cheapest mobile handsets in the world – the phone is aimed at the fast-growing mobile market across the global South.

    The South is a dynamic market and has seen quick acceptance of mobile phones. The number of mobile phone users in the world passed 4 billion in 2008, and the fastest growth was in the South (ITU). The development of inexpensive handsets means the phones will be able to reach even more poor people. And packing these phones with the latest in multimedia capability means the poor will be able to make a technological leap.

    The Venezuelan phone is being championed as the world’s cheapest mobile phone. It is a bold effort to create an affordable mobile phone packed with features: a camera, WAP internet access (wireless application protocol), FM radio, and MP3 and MP4 players for music and videos.

    The phone uses inexpensive parts from China and is assembled in Venezuela. A quarter of the cost of manufacturing the phone is subsidized by the government. Venezuela often uses the profits from its oil industry to subsidize social goals.

    The phone was launched on Mother’s Day by Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez with a call to his mother. Chavez boasted to the Guardian newspaper: “This telephone will be the biggest seller not only in Venezuela but the world.”

    With his usual bravado, he said that “whoever doesn’t have Vergatario is nothing” – a statement that has become the marketing slogan for the phone on its website.

    The phone already has a waiting list of 10,000 people. The phones are assembled in western Venezuela by Vetelca, a joint state (85 percent) and Chinese (15 percent) company. Vetelca hope to make 600,000 phones in 2009, and to sell more than 2 million in 2011. Exports will first target the Caribbean and then the world.

    The desire to spark technological innovation at home is also alive in the Southern African country of Mozambique, which is making the bold move to start manufacturing computers for schools in the country. Like other African countries, Mozambique is connecting schools with computers and the internet. By manufacturing the laptop computers within the country, Mozambiquans are increasing the program’s economic benefit to the country, and building advanced technical skills.

    Most Southern African countries rely on importing computers, and Rwanda, South Africa and Ethiopia are getting their school computers from the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) (www.laptop.org) initiative from the United States.

    The Mozambique laptops are call Magalhael (www.portatilmagalhaes.com) and are made in partnership with the Mozambican Ministry of Science and Technology (www.mct.gov.mz/portal/page?_pageid=615,1&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL) and Portugal Telecom (www.telecom.pt/InternetResource/PTSite/PT). They come with a 60 gigabyte (GB) hard drive and 2 GB of RAM (memory) and are entirely built in Mozambique.

    Read these stories on ICT4D from Development Challenges, South-South Solutions:

    Published: June 2009

    Resources

    • Google Android: Android is a software for mobile phones that allows people to create useful applications (apps) for the phones. Website: http://code.google.com/android/and www.android.com
    • Kabissa: Space for Change in Africa: An online African web community promoting and supporting the transition to Web 2.0 services in Africa. Offers lots of opportunities to meet people throughout Africa and learn more.Website: www.kabissa.org
    • Business Fights Poverty: Business Fights Poverty is the free-to-join, fast-growing, international network for professionals passionate about fighting world poverty through good business.Website:http://businessfightspoverty.ning.com/
    • BOP Source is a platform for companies and individuals at the BOP to directly communicate, ultimately fostering close working relationships, and for NGOs and companies to dialogue and form mutually valuable public-private partnerships that serve the BOP. Website:http://bopsource.ning.com/
    • Venezuelan Phone. Website: www.vergatorio.com

    Like this story? Please check out our first issue of Southern Innovator on mobile phones and information technology.

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

    Creative Commons License

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

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Grassroots Entrepreneurs Now Have Many Ways to Fund their Enterprises

    Grassroots Entrepreneurs Now Have Many Ways to Fund their Enterprises

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY


    In the past, African entrepreneurs were extremely limited in the options for funding their plans. They had to rely on often ineffective national banks or local networks based on political, tribal or family connections to secure funding for enterprises. That has now changed, and there is an explosion in new thinking on business start-ups and how best to help grassroots entrepreneurs.

    Concepts such as socially responsible investing, social enterprises and fair trade have opened up new frontiers for business development. All focus on the so-called triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. Economist Milton Friedman’s refrain that the only social responsibility of business was to increase profits, is being proven wrong. Some even go as far as to say social enterprise is the model for the 21st century.

    “There’s lots of money to be made here,” said James Baderman of What If, an innovation company in the UK that employs 300 people and devotes 10 percent of its profits to helping social enterprises develop and grow. “There are huge opportunities; just look at the double-digit growth in fair trade and organic goods over the past decade. Consumers are increasingly making choices based on the ethical nature of products.”

    Many in the social enterprise movement believe breaking the cycle of poverty and economic stagnation requires more than charity; it requires the creation of sustainable businesses that will pay local taxes and employ local people. They have also adopted and adapted the techniques used by multinational companies to improve the desirability of their products. A key part of these new socially responsible businesses is branding and marketing.

    In Kenya, the UK’s Traidcraft (www.traidcraft.co.uk) – an organization that fights poverty through a wide range of trade-related activities combining a development charity with a trading company – is working with the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network to develop markets for Kenyan herbs, spices and related products in local and international markets. These include gums, resins (e.g. frankincense), herbs such as coriander, oregano, garlic and lemon grass; spices such as paprika, chillies, rosemary, lemon balm, and essential oils such as pepper tree oil, sinoni oil, and megalocapus oil – all grown in marginalised, arid areas.In another development focused on Kenya – but applicable across Africa – is being led by the UK-based Mark Leonard Trust (http://markleonard.net/). Called the Mainstreaming African Crafts project, it seeks to boost demand for Kenyan craft products in the UK market. It will build demand by focusing on growth areas (such as baskets, jewellery, leather), emphasizing the distinctiveness of African craft products and support product development in line with identified market trends. The aim is to launch a branded Kenyan product range at an international trade fair in 2008.

    Along with improving the branding and marketing of social enterprises and fair trade businesses, funding options are becoming more varied. One new source of funding for budding social entrepreneurs is the William James Foundation’s 4th Annual Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition. It awards winners who develop business plans that blend people, planet and profit together with over US $40,000 in cash and expert advice to make sure it is spent well. Past winners have included business ventures as varied as an Afghan company that sends SMS text messages on security alerts, to others making hand-made organic clothing and portable vaccine packs for remote areas.

    “We’re at a tipping point wherein the entrepreneur who builds in long-term values of sustainability is the one who will be successful,” said Ian Fisk, executive director of the William James Foundation and a long-time sustainable business activist through Net Impact (http://www.netimpact.org/index.cfm). “Most of what people think of as environmental and social activism in business is simply long-term thinking about energy costs and human resources. There are thousands of good ideas out there. The foundation wants to find those that are attached to solid business plans and help them succeed.”

    The success of this approach has also attracted the attention of multinational companies like the oil company Shell. At the Shell Foundation (www.shellfoundation.org), they look at all the enterprises they support from a hardnosed, business perspective. Rather than seeing a producer who needs to produce, they look first at the market and the consumer, and then work backwards to get the producer to make the appropriate products that will sell. “No micro-enterprise is sustainable unless there is a viable route to market,” said Sharna Jarvis, Programme Manager for the Shell Foundation. “The problem with the standard model for micro-finance is that it begins with the producer, not the consumer. It is all about what someone wants to make – there is not enough emphasis on whether anyone will buy it.”

    A new internet search engine has also been launched that is seeking a new way to create a steady flow of funds to nonprofit enterprises working to reduce poverty. Called GoodSearch (www.GoodSearch.com), it plows 50 percent of its advertising revenue (about a penny a search) back into nonprofits selected by its users. Powered by the well-known portal Yahoo!, if for example 1,000 supporters just searched twice a day, it would raise US $7,300 a year for an organization.

    Published: February 2007

    Resources

    • The Fairtrade Foundation (FTF) helps farmers and other producers to earn a decent living and obtain good healthcare and education. Fair Trade Resource Network: http://fairtraderesource.org/about.html
    • Unltd (pronounced Unlimited), a charity supporting social entrepreneurs: www.unltd.org.ukExcellent resource to link with branded social enterprises and all the resources required to get started: www.socialenterprise.org.uk
    • Equitrade helps businesses in poor countries to develop finished or part-finished products to sell in rich countries: www.equitrade.org
    • The 4th Annual Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition is open to for-profit business (or business ideas) with at least one member who is a current student or has graduated within the past five years.
    • For more information contact: www.williamjamesfoundation.org or email ian.fisk@williamjamesfoundation.org.

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/04/cuban-entrepreneurs-embracing-changes-to-economy/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/09/entrepreneurs-use-mobiles-and-it-to-tackle-indian-traffic-gridlock/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghana-oil-rich-city-sparks-entrepreneurs-and-debate/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/havanas-restaurant-boom-augers-in-new-age-of-entrepreneurs/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/15/indonesia-best-for-entrepreneurs/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/20/mobile-phones-engineering-souths-next-generation-of-entrepreneurs/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/12/17/mongolias-musical-entrepreneurs-led-way-out-of-crisis-2018/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/11/turning-street-children-into-entrepreneurs/

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

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

    Creative Commons License

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

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Entrepreneurs Use Mobiles and IT to Tackle Indian Traffic Gridlock

    Entrepreneurs Use Mobiles and IT to Tackle Indian Traffic Gridlock

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Around the world, traffic congestion is often accepted as the price paid for rapid development and economic dynamism. But as anyone who lives in a large city knows, a tipping point is soon reached where the congestion begins to harm economic activity by wasting people’s time in lengthy and aggravating commuting, and leaving them frazzled and burned out by the whole experience. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 95 percent of congestion growth in the coming years will come from developing countries. Even in developed countries like the United States, in 2000, the average driver experienced 27 hours of delays (up seven hours from 1980) (MIT Press). This balloons to 136 hours in Los Angeles.

    Developing countries are growing their vehicle numbers by between 10 and 30 percent per year (World Bank). In economic hotspots, growth is even faster. In India, the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore account for five percent of the nation’s population but have 14 percent of the total registered vehicles. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kenya, Mexico and Chile, 50 percent of cars are in the capital cities (www.peopleandplanet.net).

    India’s Koolpool is stepping in with a 21st century upgrade to the old concept of carpooling. India’s first carpooling service (in which drivers share rides to reduce congestion and save money) uses the power of the country’s mobile phone network to link up people by SMS (short message service) text. Already launched in Mumbai, it is being rolled out in other cities as well.

    Koolpool surveyed Indian drivers and found that the average car only had two passengers. Koolpool is an idea from the Mumbai Environmental Social Network (MESN), a registered charity with the mandate to come up with innovative solutions to environmental and infrastructure problems. Its goal is to prove “low-cost and high efficiency IT-based solutions are the way of the future. With no gestation period and minimal investment, they are profitable and more importantly for us, people friendly.” Koolpool claims that an increase from 1.7 passengers per vehicle to 2.04 will decrease travel time and pollution levels by 25 percent. It also claims to be the first carpooling service to combine SMS text messaging and IT.

    Ride-givers send a text message to Koolpool just before going down a major road. Koolpool then sends a list of ride seekers on the route, their membership identifications, the designated stopping point for pick-up, number of riders and login time. If there are no ride givers on that route, then ride seekers are pooled together to get a taxi and share the costs. Members of Koolpool pay an annual membership fee and exchange credits by mobile phone between ride seekers and ride givers, which are then redeemed at gas stations for petrol.

    And Koopool comes at just the right time: congestion in India will probably only get worse in the near term, as the government pledges to build even more roads and make the country’s cities “the flyover capital of Asia”.

    In Kolkata, says Sudarsanam Padam, former director of the Central Institute of Road Transport in the city of Pune, the average speed during peak hours in the central business district (CBD) area is as low as seven km/hr. Bangalore currently has average speeds of about 13-15 km/hr in its CBD, but this is expected to go down to three to eight km/hr in the next 15 years, according to the city’s police traffic commissioner, M N Reddi.

    Published: June 2007

    Resources

    • Mobility 2001: World Mobility at the End of the Twentieth Century and its Sustainability published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
    • Another Indian car pooling business allows people to post requests for rides on an internet bulletin board, Car Sales India.
    • Another solution to traffic congestion has been the motorcycle taxi. Beginning in Thailand, motorcycle taxis can now be found in Cambodia, India and the UK. Read more at here.
    • SENSEable City: A project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SENSEable City Laboratory to use the new generation of sensors and hand-held electronics to change how cities are understood and navigated. This includes creating real-time maps of cities that can then be used to help with avoiding traffic congestion and other problems.
    • Read more about India’s traffic congestion problem by India’s only science and environment biweekly online newsletter, Down to Earth.

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

    Creative Commons License

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

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022