The sounds of knives and forks hitting against plates of complimentary omelets and breakfast burritos rang through the Palmer Conference Center at the Lyle school of engineering on Wednesday. This was the last Download@Lyle event for the fall, and the event covered market based solutions for poverty alleviation.
Dr. Eva Szalkai Csaky, director of the Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity and the keynote speaker, talked about treating the poor around the world as consumers and producers rather than people who need to rely on charity.
“These are very complex problems that the poor face,” said Csaky. “You cannot take a single-pronged approach. You really need to address multiple, interconnected barriers and problems simultaneously.”
Csaky explained the field of market-based solutions as a possible alternative or supplement to government interventions. She cited a successful example called Project Shakti.
Project Shakti, essentially, trains poor women in India as micro-entrepreneurs to sell their products and create a better life for themselves. So far, Project Shakti has provided entrepreneurial opportunities to over 65,000 people, including 12,000 Indian women.
People in poverty actually have a base of $5 trillion in purchasing power.
Csaky mentioned a study in Kenya that found over 60 percent of the low-income population had a cell phone and over 83 percent had a SIM card.
“People forego buying food just to be able to buy cell phone minutes,” said Csaky. “[They] use that cell phone because it is so empowering in terms of getting work, finding information, and finding markets for their products.”
She also addressed the scale of global developmental challenges, including
- 2.8 billion people living on less than $2-per-day
- One billion children in poverty
- 1.3 billion without access to electricity
- 2.5 billion lacking sanitation
- Almost one billion people without access to clean water
The low success rate of market based solutions, though, is what Csaky said adds to the complexity of the situation and presents barriers for adoption, such as various consumer needs and preferences, affordability, distribution, and push-products.
“Looking at over 400 market-based solutions in sub-Saharan Africa, they have found that only 11 percent of those have managed to scale,” said Csaky.
She stressed that the same technology may not work in every country, and even in the same country a certain technology may not work with every community. But Csaky added that the issue of push products is the most critical in developing market-based solutions.
A push product is a technology designed for a specific consumer, but later retargeted to include another, with very different circumstances. Csaky cited an example involving a water filtration system originally designed for yachts, which was later retargeted to include base-of-the-pyramid consumers.
“Someone has come up with a technology without consulting the people that it’s supposed to help,” said Csaky.
One approach to a solution for these problems is through SMU’s Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity. The institute’s mission statement includes the development of sustainable, affordable technologies that remedy the challenges faced by the global poor.
Csaky proposed a formula in the Wednesday morning event:
High impact innovation
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The capability of SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering
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Testing and piloting infrastructure
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Seed funding
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An improved technology, performance data, and an integrated approach to facilitate funding and scaling.
“The stage that this market is at, you need to do a lot of upfront work,” Csaky said. “There is a lot of trial and error, and testing and piloting before you figure out what it is that is going to work.”