Tag: free markets

Pulque: Aztec Drink Ferments New Economy
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

Reviving traditional foods and drinks can be an income-boosting source of new economic activity. Many cultures can benefit from looking again at their rich traditions to find new ways to increase enterprise. This can be difficult at first. Big global brands have many initial advantages: they are backed by wealthy and experienced international companies and can deploy aggressive marketing and distribution power to get products into the hands of consumers. The power of Coca Cola to reach all corners of the earth is legendary.

But the case of Mexican drink pulque shows how marrying the power of an ancient taste with a younger demographic can rejuvenate businesses. This is important because many emerging countries across the South have young populations – and yet unemployment is also high among these youthful populations. Engaging the youth market will be critical to the future prosperity and development of these countries.

Pulque is also playing a part in Mexico’s tourism strategy: the state government in Tlaxcala (http://www.tlaxcala.gob.mx)has created a ‘Pulque Route’ to draw in tourists.

Having for decades lost ground to slickly marketed alternatives like beer and tequila, pulque drinking is being revived with the help of a new generation of Mexicans re-discovering a beverage that boasts origins reaching back to the Aztecs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec).

There is also another benefit to reviving ancient food and drink: alarm has been raised over the diminishing range of food products consumed by people around the world. Throughout the history of farming, around 7,000 species of plants have been domesticated. Yet everyday diets only draw on 30 percent of these plants, and even this number has been going down as more people consume mass-market foods (FAO).

Once-rich culinary traditions have wilted and left many people unsure what to do with formerly common vegetables and fruits, even if they can actually find them in markets.

One consequence has been poor nutrition resulting from the reduction in consumption of high-vitamin foods, leading to stunted mental and physical development across the global South.

Pulque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulque) is made from the juice of maguey or agave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave), a spiky green plant. It has between three and four percent alcohol content. Unlike the well-known Mexican drink tequila, which is fermented and distilled to make a strong, clear alcoholic drink, pulque is a foamy and milky beverage that is fermented, not distilled.

Made from a sap harvested when the agave is mature, it appears in the Codex Borbonicus written by Aztec priests in the 1530s.

Advocates for the drink say it is high in Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid and packed with beneficial microbes for human digestion. It also has vitamins C, B-complex, D, E, amino acids and minerals such as iron and phosphorus.

Pulque had developed a bad reputation, with an image as a peasant drink lacking the class of tequila or beer. The stigma had built up over decades from its reputation as the favourite drink of alcoholic farmers, commonly depicted drinking pulque all day long.

Once pulque was available only at makeshift pulquerias: a few tables and chairs with farm animals roaming about. Portions were large, using gourds or, by the 1970s, plastic buckets. Some still sell the drink in this rough-and-ready fashion from containers hitched to donkeys.

Those behind the rebranding of the drink hope to move away from the former drinkers – largely poor, old and rural – to young urban drinkers. Pulque has taken on a “cool, retro” image tapping into a taste for connecting with Mexico’s Aztec roots.

In Pulqueria Las Duelistas in Mexico City, the young crowd like the new taste. “It is cooler than beer and a lot cheaper than Tequila,” Jaime Torres, a 22-year-old design student and computer tech for an advertising agency told the Washington Post. “It’s old Mexico.”

By 1886 a census found 817 pulquerias in Mexico City serving the residents of just 9,000 homes. By the 20th century, they had become so common that neighbourhoods would have a handful each. Now estimates place the number in Mexico City at between 60 and 100, with many closing when their owners die.

Las Duelistas is trying to buck that trend.

“This place has been in business for 92 years, and I have six as the owner, and I have totally changed the image of the pulqueria, a totally new concept, with different clientele,” said proprietor Arturo Garrido. “Most of my clients are young, and it is my way to continue giving life to the pulque.”

So, how have the pulquerias made themselves appealing to a new generation of drinkers? Music and new interior design have made the establishments more attractive to youth.

Pulque sells for 30 pesos, or about US $2.50, a litre. The most popular version is called curado (cured) and is infused with other flavours like strawberry, guava and celery to add greater appeal to a younger demographic.

“My customers aren’t old anymore. Now they’re young people,” said Nabor Martinez, the owner of another pulqueria, La Risa.

The drink is difficult to export because it keeps fermenting in the bottle or can. This makes it something special to Mexico, only enjoyed by a visit to the country.

Some, however, like Everado Gonzalez, director of the 2003 documentary “Pulque Song,” about an old-school establishment, lament the loss of the old atmosphere.

“A pulqueria is not a cantina. It’s not a bar,” Gonzalez said. “It is a refuge, or was, for the lowest classes of society. Your drink is cheap. You are not sitting at a table, with good manners. You don’t need a table. You sit on a bench, where you can do what you want, say what you want.

“It was a beautiful island of freedom.”

Published: September 2011

Resources

1) Teh Botol Sosro: It is a drink of cool, black, sweetened tea with a hint of jasmine. Invented by the Indonesian family of Sosrodjojos, Sosro was founded in central Java in the 1940s. Website: http://www.sosro.com

2) Just Food is a web portal packed with the latest news on the global food industry and packed with events and special briefings to fill entrepreneurs in on the difficult issues and constantly shifting market demands. Website:http://www.just-food.com

3) Small businesses looking to develop their brand can find plenty of free advice and resources here. Website:http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com

4) Brandchannel: The world’s only online exchange about branding, packed with resources, debates and contacts to help businesses intelligently build their brand. Website:http://www.brandchannel.com

Mezcal or mescal, is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from any type of agave (Wikipedia). In the summer of 2022 Southern Innovator was introduced to the brand Marin&Marin (https://www.marinymarinmezcal.com). Their mezcal is hand made in a traditional Mexican way and is 100% organic and Fair Trade.

Marín y Marín Mezcal Video Rev

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.

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
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17/11/2022
Indonesian Middle Class Recycle Wealth Back into Domestic Economy
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

The global downturn and economic crisis is now into its third year. Economic growth has dropped across the South, as the knock-on effect of shrinking credit and slowing global markets took its toll.

One solution to re-starting growth and building up domestic industries is to target local products at the existing middle class, which in turn grows the middle class by creating better paying jobs.

Globally, 2009 saw 70 million people join the emerging-market middle class, with incomes between $6,000 and $30,000. And 1 billion people are expected to join the middle class by 2020. It has been called “the story of the decade,” by Goldman Sachs’s chief economist Jim O’Neill, who forecasts their global spending power will outstrip the developed world in two decades.

Indonesia’s middle class first began to grow in the 1980s. But rising prosperity took a heavy blow with the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, when the currency was devalued, pitching millions of people back into poverty.

Even so, Indonesia’s middle class is estimated to be between 35 and 40 million people (out of a population of 230 million) and they pay out roughly US $750-1000 on monthly household spending.

They are a mix of people, including professionals in management, banking, accounts, specialized law, bio-technology, engineering and other areas – all skills needed to run the market economy.

Like members of the middle class around the world, increasingly affluent Indonesians forge their identity through consumerism and lifestyle. This desire for goods and services represents a huge business opportunity. Often, this is captured by large multinational companies with long experience of selling branded goods and services.

Indonesia, however, is having great success growing its middle class despite the global economic downturn by building up the domestic market. Millie Stephanie, the director of Indonesia Tatler Magazine, told the BBC that two-thirds of the country’s economy runs on domestic consumption.

New middle class housing is springing up around the capital Jakarta. Home ownership for many, unthinkable a decade go, is now possible as banks make more loans possible. This in turn feeds into more consumption.

By turning to local products – something the Indonesian government is encouraging by increasing its own spending on local goods and services in 2010 by US $21.32 billion, according to Industry Minister MS Hidayat – a cycle is created where middle class wealth creates middle class jobs in local companies.

The department store chain of Matahari (http://www.matahari.co.id/) – the largest local department store in Indonesia – is a good example. Eighty percent of the goods it sells are made in Indonesia. The store targets the middle class with products like jeans that Indonesians can afford. And this strategy has helped Indonesia to get through the downturn.

According to Widia Augustinia, who runs the PT Inti Garmindo Persada jeans factory, the company was able to triple production despite the downturn.

“In the last few years we kept getting calls from our clients saying they had sold all our jeans and they wanted more, so we had to expand our business and had to hire more people,” she told the BBC.

One of the factory’s workers, 37-year-old Miriam, has seen her salary increase annually over the last four years while she has worked in the factory. The increasing wealth means she can now educate her children and buy a TV and a motorcycle.

This matters when half the population are living on less than two dollars a day. This recycling of middle class wealth into the Indonesian economy is making more workers become part of the emerging middle class with the jobs created.

In Africa, the Aureos Advisers (http://www.aureos.com/) private equity firm specializes in investing in African small and medium size enterprises, and is having great success with it despite the downturn. Its niche is finding and investing in companies that sell quality local products.

Run by Sri Lankan-born Sev Vettivetpillai, it raised US $150 million in 2009 to invest in Africa, much of it from pension funds.

“That’s a large sum of money in a market where raising capital is tough,” he told The Guardian newspaper.

Leverage was a game when cheap debt was around,” he says of the old private equity market that went up in flames in 2008. “Today a large chunk of growth is in emerging markets and we have proved you can invest responsibly in these markets and achieve attractive returns while paying attention to building sustainable businesses.”

And the faith in small and medium-sized African businesses has been paying off despite the economic turmoil: since most of the companies have little debt, they have not suffered in the downturn. And since many do not export much to Europe or the United States, they have not suffered from the consumer slump.

“When markets crashed 60 percent, good management teams were making sure they had cash, not much debt,” said Vettivetpillai. “Most banks don’t lend to these SMEs. And that has saved a number of those businesses. So we had an upward lift in earning growth in 2008 when many people showed a drop.”

Published: March 2010

Resources

1) A paper from the University of Hawaii by Mohammad Hasan Ansori on Indonesia’s middle class. Website: http://tinyurl.com/ylq7nf6

2) The red dot logo stands for belonging to the best in design and business. The red dot is an internationally recognised quality label for excellent design that is aimed at all those who would like to improve their business activities with the help of design. Website: http://www.red-dot.de/

3) A video on designing for the middle class in emerging markets. Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JLO1RuQIPw&feature=related

4) Product design strategies for emerging markets. Website: http://www.appliancemagazine.com/editorial.php?article=1633&zone=1&first=1

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.

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
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15/11/2022
Havana’s Restaurant Boom Augers in New Age of Entrepreneurs
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

Cuba, the Caribbean island nation known for its 1959 revolution and its tourism industry, is undergoing a shift in its economic strategy. The country has had heavy state control of its industries and business activities since the country adopted the official policy of state socialism and joined the Communist economic sphere headed by the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Cuba was pitched into an economic crisis as it lost access to preferential trade subsidies. This period is known as the ‘Special Period’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period) and was marked by a severe reduction in access to fuel as supplies and subsidies from the Soviet Union disappeared. Some of the iconic images of the time include people abandoning their cars and turning to bicycles to get around, or using make-shift truck-buses packed with workers. Exports collapsed and slashed the size of the economy by a third.

Fast-forward to today, and tourism is booming. A record 2.7 million tourists went to Cuba in 2011, earning the country US $2.3 billion. And it is catering to this tourism market that probably offers the best near-term opportunities. With wages still just 50 per cent of what they were in 1989 many are taking up this new opportunity to become entrepreneurs.

To become an entrepreneur, Cubans need to apply for a pink identification card with their name and photo and the words “Autorizacion Para Ejercer el Trabajo por Cuenta Propria.” This gives authority “to work for your own account.” With the card, a person can start a business, hire staff and pay them what they like.

Cuba’s economy has been through many phases since the revolution, swinging between loosening up the ability of people to establish private businesses – and pulling back, restricting private enterprise. But since 2008, there has been a significant shift to encouraging greater private enterprise, entrepreneurship and the ownership of private property – once banned – to stimulate the economy.

“This is the most important thing to happen in Cuba since the revolution in 1959,” Juan Triana, senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy at Havana University, told The Sunday Times Magazine.

One visible sign of this change is the flourishing of what is called locally ‘paladar’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladar), or privately run restaurants.

Paladares are usually located in a person’s home and staffed by family members. Their customers are a mix of tourists, expatriates living in Cuba, and Cubans with a high enough income to be able to afford restaurant meals.

The cost of a meal in these restaurants can run from US $40 to US $60 for two people.

Stocking the kitchen is not easy. Cuba experiences food shortages and there is still rationing for many. Basics like eggs can be hard to find. As for exotic, imported ingredients, many chefs rely on visitors to stock their larders.

Cuba will have to re-build its food sector to make this a lasting improvement.

The agriculture sector has declined and, where Cuba once provided a third of the world’s sugar harvest, the country now has to import half of its food supply. Measures are in the works to change this, with smallholder farmers now able to own 165 acres of land and sell their produce to private customers and hotels.

One restaurant owner, Héctor Higuera Martinez, told The New York Times:“You dream up a recipe that you’d like to make but then you can’t find the ingredients.

“One day you go out to get salt and there’s no salt. And I mean no salt,Anywhere.”

Martinez trained with a well-known Cuban chef and did a stint in Paris before returning to Havana. He has turned a 19th-century mansion into the restaurant Le Chansonnier (http://www.cubajunky. com/havana/restaurant_le_chansonnier.html) and decorated the walls with the work of local artists.

Martinez sees the paladares as a turning point in changing Cuba’s reputation for having boring food. “I believe we can play an important role in revolutionizing Cuban cuisine.”

Cuba is making the difficult shift from having an economy where 80 per cent of activity is in the state sector, to a mixed model balanced between private and public ownership.

Havana’s historic district offers tourists renovated colonial architecture mixed with shops, restaurants and bars. As a tourist strolls from the renovated district, they quickly come across the rest of Havana, which has beautiful buildings from the colonial period, 1950s American-influenced architecture with its fading retro signage, and more utilitarian Soviet-era architecture.

While charming and home to most of the city’s residents, much of it is rundown and crowded and in need of investment and renovation.

But things are changing fast. Oyaki Curbelo and Cedric Fernando use spices brought in by visitors for Bollywood, their restaurant in the Nuevo Vedado area (http://cubantripadvisor.com/destinations/havana-cityoutskirts/bollywood-paladar/). It has a small menu of Indian and Sri Lankan dishes, including shrimp curry with ginger and tamarind. The restaurant sources its curry leaves from a tree located in the Sri Lankan Embassy.

Another restaurant, Atelier (http://www.cubaabsolutely.com/articles/travel/article_travel.php?landa=70),located in a mansion in the Vedado neighbourhood, serves European Continental food and has a roof terrace letting diners enjoy the a view of the Havana skyline.

The restaurant Doña Eutimia (https://www.facebook.com/paladardona.eutimia) serves up Cuban favourites off the Cathedral Square. Specialties include a dish made of shredded beef with garlic, tomato, oregano and bay leaves.

At Vistamer (http://www.stay.com/havana/restaurant/4249/paladar-vistamar/),diners can enjoy garlic-laden lobster tails and lemon meringue pie. At the paladar Café Laurent (http://www.cubaabsolutely.com/articles/travel/article_travel.php?landa=71), the menu includes meatballs with sesame seeds and mustard in red-wine and tarragon sauce, according to The New York Times.

Habana Chef in the Vedado district (http://cubantripadvisor.com/destinations/havana-city-outskirts/habana-chefpaladar/) was started by Joel Begue and chef Ivan Rodriguez. Begue gained his experience in the state restaurant sector and took the opportunity to get a licence when the government offered them in 2011. He borrowed US $25,000 to start the restaurant and has been able to pay back half so far. His current success is prompting him to look into opening a second restaurant in the capital.

An enthusiastic Andrew Macdonald, who is looking for investment opportunities for a half a billion dollar fund held by the Escencia Anglo-Cuban firm, told The Sunday Times magazine, “Cuba is the top emerging tourism market in the Caribbean by a mile, and it’s in the top five emerging markets globally.”

Published: May 2012

Resources

1) Advice on starting a restaurant and links to additional resources. Website: runarestaurant.co.uk

2) How to start a restaurant: From Entrepreneur magazine, a guide to the planning required to start a successful restaurant. Website: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/73384

3) AlaMesa: A directory of restaurants in Cuba. Website: alamesacuba.com

4) Southern Innovator: Youth and Entrepreneurship Issue: The new global magazine is launching its second issue and is packed with innovative entrepreneurs and youth using business to tackle poverty. Website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/86451057/Southern-Innovator-Magazine-Issue-2

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/10/brazilian-restaurant-serves-amazonian-treats/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/19/cooking-up-a-recipe-to-end-poverty/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/24/latin-american-food-renaissance-excites-diners/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/woman-restaurant-entrepreneur-embraces-brand-driven-growth/

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-3/

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
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11/11/2022
Building an Interactive Radio Network for Farmers in Nigeria
By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

As solar power technology has improved, new pioneers have emerged to exploit this innovation. Several decades ago, solar power was seen as too expensive for wide-scale roll out in poor countries and communities. But today, an army of solar technology pioneers has fanned out across the world to show the new wave of innovations and how they make solar power affordable.

More than 1.7 billion people around the world have no domestic electricity supply, of whom more than 500 million live in sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank). Without access to domestic electricity, these people need to fall back on expensive, battery-powered devices or use gas generators and lamps: a cost that eats into their income.

More than 90 percent of Nigeria’s estimated 155 million people (US Census Bureau) live on just US $2 a day. Many of them are small farmers in remote areas. Access to information is very poor, especially critical information that can improve farming methods and boost incomes.

One of the most effective ways to communicate to a large number of people over a large territory is through radio.

A clever use of solar-powered battery radios has enabled the building of a low-cost, two-way communications network for rural farmers. The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio (http://smallholdersfoundation.org) network broadcasts to 250,000 listeners with 10 hours of daily programming. The communications network reaches 3.5 million farmers in around 5,000 villages in Imo State (www.imostate.gov.ng), southeast Nigeria. The programming tackles issues from sustainable farming practices to HIV/AIDS and how to open a bank account . The clever part is the two-way dialogue between the listeners and the radio station. This is done through mobile radios known as AIR devices. They are small, solar-powered radios that let listeners send voice messages to the radio station. The message is stored on the radio station’s computers and later broadcast during a programme, allowing farmers to share their experiences, ask questions and receive answers in their own language.

The slim, hand-held silver-coloured radios have a small antenna and dials.

The network was created by Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, who won a 2010 Rolex Laureate award (http://young.rolexawards.com/laureates/nnaemeka_ikegwuonu). The awards seek to foster innovation in the next generation. Launched in 2009, it looks for “visionary young men and women at a critical juncture in their careers, enabling them to implement inventive ideas that tackle the world’s most pressing issues in five areas: science and health, applied technology, exploration, the environment and cultural preservation.”

Ikegwuonu hopes to bring the service to other parts of Nigeria.

His radio studio is the height of simplicity and sophistication: a laptop computer, a microphone, a headset and a small control board to manage the sound levels. The radio signal is broadcast through a 30-metre-high antenna.

Solar power is being creatively used in many countries to tackle energy poverty. This ranges from lamps and lights to cookers to small power packs for electronic devices, all the way to large hardware to power homes and communities.

In India, whole villages are already using solar energy and improving their standard of living. Various companies and projects are selling inexpensive solar appliances – from cooking stoves to lanterns and power generators – across the country.

A report by the International Finance Corporation called the sub-Saharan solar market the largest in the world – a market of 65 million potential customers, who could access off-grid lighting over the next five years (IFC). The report anticipated high growth rates of 40 to 50 percent for anyone entering the market, with less than one percent of the market currently being served.

With a billion Africans using just four percent of the world’s electricity (The Economist), energy poverty is already harming further economic growth and development gains. As Africa’s population is expected to double to 2 billion by 2050, the gap between people’s needs and the power available will be stark: in Nigeria, out of 79 power stations, only 17 are working (The Economist). It will take innovators like Ikegwuonu to bring hope to this situation and transform lives despite the obstacles.

Published: December 2011

Resources

1) ToughStuff has developed a modular range of affordable solar powered energy solutions to the three main power needs of poor consumers in the developing world – lighting, mobile phones and radios. Website:www.toughstuffonline.com

2) Solar Power Answers is a one-stop-shop for everything to do with solar power. It has a design manual and guides to the complex world of solar power equipment. Website:www.solar-power-answers.co.uk/index.php

3) How We Made It Africa: A website detailing success stories on businesses investing in Africa and how people are making the most of opportunities on the continent. Website:www.howwemadeitinafrica.com

4) Solar Sister: A clever way to sell solar lamps and torches using a network of women. Website: www.solarsister.org

5) D.light Design: Their lights use LEDs (light emitting diodes) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_lamp) and are four times brighter than a kerosene lantern according to D.Light Design. Website: www.dlightdesign.com

6) Lighting Africa: Lighting Africa, a joint IFC and World Bank program, is helping develop commercial off-grid lighting markets in Sub-Saharan Africa as part of the World Bank Group’s wider efforts to improve access to energy. Lighting Africa is mobilizing the private sector to build sustainable markets to provide safe, affordable, and modern off-grid lighting to 2.5 million people in Africaby 2012 and to 250 million people by 2030. Website: www.lightingafrica.org

7) A list of Nigerian companies selling solar-powered equipment and devices. Website: http://posharp.com/solar-energy-service-companies-in-nigeria-in-alphabetic-order_renewable.aspx?ptype=solar&btype=service&gtype=country_NG&xtype=ntype

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.

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
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11/11/2022