Social Enterprising: DR Congo’s Untapped Resource?
*Editors Note- This piece originally appeared in NextBillion, on February 22nd, 2012.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the world of social entrepreneurship may seem strange bedfellows. One is constantly in the media for its good, the other for bad. One demonstrates economic empowerment, the other an absence thereof.
In fact, the most internationally known ‘enterprises’ in the Eastern DRC, a region plagued first by civil war, then ethnic conflict, and now roving militias funded by foreign militaries, seems perhaps as far from ‘social’ as you can get. Brutally controlled mines, illegal logging and poaching, raw mineral extraction, the list goes on.
But here’s where we may be wrong.
“UNEP study confirms DR Congo’s potential as world environmental powerhouse but warns of critical threats; Social entrepreneurs hold key for job creation and ‘green economy’ transformation in DR Congo”
Green economy in DRC? Social entrepreneurs? Wait, what?
A major Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the DRC, partially released in October 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) underlines the global significance and extraordinary potential of the country’s natural and mineral resources, and puts social entrepreneurship in the spotlight as a way to help realize it.
It seems that DRC’s tiny ‘social economy’ has been a natural outgrowth of the failure of the state, the informalization of the economy, and the collapse of social services. This led to, as the report puts it, a spontaneous creation of community managed “associations… found across natural resource based sectors – agriculture, mining, forestry, fisheries and water” that continue to thrive to this day.”
I spoke to Hassan Partow, the DR Congo programme manager at UNEP, who worked on the report, and he filled me in further. “While the DRC may institutionally/administratively be a ‘failed state’, it boasts a very dynamic and robust society” he wrote in an email. “As a result, social and environmental entrepreneurship has great potential. However, due to the lack of vision and policy support, the potential of these social enterprises has remained stifled in the form of non-profit associations.”
Yet these social entrepreneurs do exist, and given the vast wealth of natural resources the DRC holds, if resources are harnessed properly by local communities and entrepreneurs, they could be significant catalysts for economic and social development. As just one example, the DRC has the second largest forest carbon stock in the tropical world-giving it a clear major stake in the carbon market.
Weeks after learning about this report, as I bounced through Eastern DRC’s Ituri region, I kept my eye out for stories that could perhaps shed some light on this revelation.
The first man we met in Bunia, the quickly recovering capital of Ituri, was Kalongo Rwabikanga (pictured below). He was, by all definitions, the kind of guy I was looking for.
An inspiring Congolese man in his 30s, his organization Synergie Simama has brought together the work of ten local grassroots organizations around Ituri after the conflict, to empower and assist disabled and vulnerable communities through vocational training, physiotherapy, surgeries, education, and much more.
Kalongo left Bunia in 1999, when Congo’s second war broke out, to pursue a Masters degree in community development in Nairobi. “I left with an objective”, he told me, “because the situation in Bunia needed to change. There was a lack of knowledge about development, and if I had the opportunity to go to Nairobi to acquire the skills, I could return to help the community”
Despite tempting job opportunities elsewhere, he in fact returned in 2004, and saw a tremendous increase in the number of people left disabled from the violence, and realized a single project could not take care of everyone.
Treating disabilities is different from treating other illnesses. Malaria can be treated in a week- yet orthopedic surgery, or physiotherapy, is a long process. With limited budget support from Irish Aid and Catholic Blind Missions, Synergie Simama asks for direct community participation. People give what they have- If they don’t have, they don’t give. Many don’t have, so Kalongo decided “let’s increase the community capacity, so that the community can effectively contribute to the process of rehabilitation”
As a result, Synergie Simama now has several vocational training centers that teach sewing, tailoring, carpentry and welding, and help disabled individuals become economically independent and re-integrate into their communities. The organization also has begun large-scale agricultural activities. With a tractor, they help two communities (which were in direct conflict nine years ago) cultivate acres of communally-shared land. Apart from an increase food in the community, the families are able to sell the excess and generate some income to contribute to the rehabilitation process.
“Reducing community poverty, and bringing the community together to help people with disabilities” is how Kalongo puts it.
In Bogoro village, the site of a brutal one-day, 200 person massacre back in 2003, we arrived just one day before Bogoro Muungano Kwa Maendeleo (BMM) was to graduate its fourth class. A sewing vocational center for at risk and disabled women, BMM (students pictured at right) is one of Synergie Simama’s most successful projects. The following morning, 15 women would take off on bus to their home villages armed with new skills, and a brand new sewing machine. According to Kalongo, 70 percent of graduates find or make work for themselves after the program.
Though I often write to shift the narrative of Africa toward a more positive tone, even I must confess, I did not expect to see such signs of hope and community-based entrepreneurship in the eastern Congo – and there are many more examples. And it’s not just the business that’s important to them. “We are clearing our minds of war,” one man told me.
Many of the social enterprise examples we explore on NextBillion are in relatively stable environments. Looking at the DRC, I have begun to wonder: What is the role of social enterprises in conflict resolution, and in both ongoing or post-conflict areas?
(*Editors Note- Originally published on The Huffington Post, January 12, 2012, by Jonathan Kalan)
A Chinese, Latin American, and North American student are sitting in a classroom. The teacher pulls out a map of Africa, and asks ‘tell me what you see”. The Chinese student speaks of opportunity and business; South African steel, Congolese minerals, and Angolan oil to power his country’s growth, and an endless list of future contracts for Chinese-built roads, bridges, and infrastructure to link the continent. The American reflects on Darfur, the Rwandan Genocide, thatched-roof villages, famine, Bono, Madonna, nonprofit work, and starving children. The Latin American student draws parallels in a tragic reflection of the worst parts of his own country; nefarious warlords, corruption, and poverty.
Who is right, and who is wrong? No one. And everyone. The complexity of this mighty and expansive continent can hardly be confined to a single narrative. Over one billion people. 54 independent states (as recognized by the UN). Nearly 3,000 languages. And as remarkably diverse as the continent is, so too should be the stories that emerge from it.
As I stepped through doorway of my concrete apartment in Nairobi, Kenya the other morning, I had the strange feeling I’d done something terribly wrong. I had just returned from two weeks traveling by local transport — bus, boat, motorcycle, and foot — through the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and as it happens, had an incredible, inspiring, and uplifting time.
Before you barrage me with your criticisms, and claim perhaps I’m blind, insensitive, ignorant, or arrogant for eliciting pleasure from my time in the D.R.C., let me explain myself.
The journey went hard against the grain of the typical Congo narrative; I did not pay a single bribe. Immigration officials turned out to be the friendliest and most helpful bunch I met. No men with AK-47s kidnapped me. I spent Christmas day hunting with Mbuti pygmies in the world’s second largest rainforest, swimming in crocodile-infested rivers with their children. I met with grassroots NGOs and social entrepreneurs that were changing communities and bringing hope. I encountered warm smiles, and generous hospitality. I saw a beautiful, untold side of the country.
In short, I was fortunate enough to be able to peer behind the constant narrative of war, conflict, corruption and poverty. I saw real people. I saw real lives. I saw raw potential. Disabled women breaking down stereotypes in their villages by starting small tailoring businesses. Young men, left crippled by the war, training to be carpenters and welders. Communities that massacred each other just nine years ago, collaborating economically and socially. People returning from being refugees and attempting normalcy — school, business, family…..
Hello readers!
Jeanne (Jane) Ugirimbabazi, sews a bag for Indego Africa at Cocoki, a women's cooperative in Kigali, Rwanda. Indego Africa is a social enterprise that partners with struggling cooperatives, helping them access global retail markets while providing essential business, literacy, english, and computer skills training.
I’m trilled to announce that a photograph from The (BoP) Project, documenting the remarkable work of social enterprise Indego Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, has won the ‘Africa Award’ for the World Bank’s CGAP Microfinance Photography Competition!
The competition, now in its sixth year, hosted more than 2,000 entries from professional and non-professional photographers from over 70 countries around the world.
The winning photos can be viewed in a slideshow here…
Thanks for all your support!
Do Social Enterprises Answer the ‘Occupy’ Call?
(*Editors Note- This post originally appeared on NextBillion.net, January 2nd, 2012, as “Best Ideas of 2011; The Reshaping of Capitalism” by Jonathan Kalan)
One hundred years ago, Nobel Prize winning, free-market capitalism economist Milton Friedman was born into this world. Private enterprises, Friedman claimed, must be the foundation of economic prosperity.
Since then, the capitalist system Friedman so avidly endorsed and its profit-maximizing private enterprises have undoubtedly created enormous prosperity and wealth, improving living standards around the world. They have been the financial steam engine powering sweeping advancements and achievements in technology and medicine, transforming the way we live, work, imagine, and interact. Yet at the same time, when spliced opened and examined, capitalism has certainly had its pitfalls. These same capital-driven advancements have also served to accelerate the proverbial “global race to the bottom” – an endless and occasionally dangerous global search to cut costs and boost margins. Capitalism as we know it has vastly increased income inequalities, created a stark clash of classes, exploited labor, environments and resources, and permanently destroyed natural ecosystems.
Which brings me to the heart of this piece. Capitalism is slowly undergoing a massive transformation – and the Best Idea of 2011 was the Reshaping of Capitalism – a call launched by Occupy Wall Street, and answered by the Social Enterprise Movement…..
Nairobi- The Silicon Valley of Shit (GOOD.is)
(Authors Note: This piece originally appear on GOOD.is, November 17th, 2011, for World Toilet Day)
A “flying toilet” is a particularly Kenyan device: a small grocery bag used as a toilet and then tossed out the window onto the street. The first encounter is both fascinating and grotesque—was that seriously what I just stepped on?
Granted, finding a decent bathroom facility in a big city is never a fun endeavor. Even in the developed world, you can face an endless search for a public bathroom, perhaps ending with a dip into a Starbucks or McDonalds to purchase a latté and the privilege of a (relatively) clean bathroom for $2.
In Nairobi, $2 is half of many people’s daily income, and nearly half of Kenya’s population lacks access to proper sanitation. Almost 70 percent of everyone else uses the crudest form of “toilet” available—a hole in the ground. There are certainly no Starbucks, and only a handful of overcrowded, unhygienic, and sometimes unsafe public toilets are scattered around the center of the city—most of which have fallen into disrepair and cannot be used.
In the slums, where the majority of residents don’t have toilets in their dwellings, the solution is a small row of wooden shacks (pit latrines) with holes in the floor, built on raised platforms and shared by as many as 400 households. When it rains, there is nothing more than a few pieces of eroded wood stopping disease from floating around the rest of the neighborhood.
It’s been more than 30 years since the Kenyan government invested in urban public sanitation facilities, and what little infrastructure remained from the early era of independence has fallen into horrendous disrepair.
Yet while the government lacks funds, initiative, and directive for innovation in sanitation, a unique blend of social entrepreneurs have flocked to Nairobi, all seeking one noble goal: Profiting from peoples’ excrement.
(Originally appeared on The Huffington Post/IMPACT Section, on September 20th, 2011)
They flock from America’s top universities, grad programs and consulting firms to the pulsing heart of a new Africa. From glass towers and Ivied halls to cramped garages, cooperative work hubs, and overflowing makeshift live/workspaces, these young, talented and driven entrepreneurs are riding a new wave of social enterprises, crash landing into a rapidly rising east African capital.
The most populated city in east Africa, and one of the fastest growing, Nairobi, Kenya has become an extremely strategic regional center for business, banking, development, and politics. A destination hosting a diverse mingling of foreign inhabitants, from emissaries, ambassadors and development agencies to mobile innovators, technologists and consultants, Nairobi has just recently to crept into the international market as a city to keep an eye on.
Yet economic potential and business prospects are only part of the reason why Nairobi’s become a bustling hub for young social innovators and social entrepreneurs from Brown, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, who give up jobs at McKinsey, Bain, and Goldman Sachs to be here. So what is it?
It’s what I’ve come to dub as the four P’s — Potential, Poverty, Politics, and Parties -- a unique blend that draws a distinct class of Gen-y ers looking to make money, make a name for themselves, and make a difference….
Continue Reading at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kalan/potential-poverty-politic_b_969338.html
3 Cups With Babu: The Road To Loliondo…
(*Editors note: This isn’t entirely BoP Project related, just a tale of travel, adventure, and miracle medicine that is, in my opinion, entirely worth sharing 
As the last scrap of sunlight dipped beyond horizon, we finally managed to wedge ourselves like a human jigsaw puzzle into the khaki colored Land Cruiser…
Our departure point was Arusha, the bustling wildlife safari mecca of Tanzania, yet a luxurious five-star safari to the Serengeti was perhaps the farthest possible experience from what we were in for. I could best describe the impending adventure as a “safari”, in the true Swahili sense of the word; A very long journey.
There were sixteen of us in all- three crammed in the front row, four in the second, and about nine in the back. A few mother and daughter pairs, a single businessmen, a government economist, a woman who held a prayer session every time we started the car, an old man who never uttered a word, and a handful small children- I still don’t exactly know who’s they were.
“Tumebanana!” Maria, a pleasant lady in her mid 40’s decorated in a beautiful green headdress and whom I was fortunate enough to share half a seat with, chuckled. “We are stuffed!” in English.
Three of us- photographer, journalist, and Max the translator- were headed to the tiny village of Samunge, in Loliondo, which lies deep in Northern Tanzania, skirting the boarder with Kenya. A rough five-hour drive from even the most faintly paved roads, it’s a place far beyond the beaten path of any foreign travelers, where brilliantly adorned Maasai warriors and their children chase down passing vehicles, hawking enormous bricks of salt hauled from Lake Natron. Ol Doinyo L’engai, (literally “Mountain of God” in the Maasai language) a highly active volcano hangs ominously in the distance, parading its destructive power through long, deep scars burned into the baron landscapes. Cell phones struggle to grasp even a single bar of reception.
Before this year, Loliondo was nothing more than an unremarkable dot on some remarkably detailed map. Yet since February, Loliondo, and the man it posses, retired Evangelical Lutheran pastor and “miracle healer” Rev. Ambilikile Mwasupile (known to most as simply “Babu”, a title showing respect), has captivated Tanzania’s attention and led to a massive migration of people flocking by bus, car, motorcycle, land cruiser and for the fortunate few, by helicopter, to this tiny rural village. At one point in March, it was reported that over 20,000 people per day were arriving at Loliondo, in search of the cure.
Recent Trip to North Eastern Kenya W/ Red Cross…
(See more photos from the trip at http://www.puravidaphotos.com)
April 22nd, 2010 was the last time Sahal H. Abdi, Kenya Red Cross Regional Manager for North Eastern Kenya, can recall a single drop of rain touching down on the scorched earth in Garissa, Kenya. That was over 16 months ago.
Since then, the riverbeds have emptied, leaving nothing but dusty scars on the landscape. Carcasses of goats, cows, and camels litter the side of the 370 km dirt highway between Garissa and Wajir, two of the largest towns in the region.
Last week, I took a 5 day trip into the severe drought-affected areas of Kenya with international Red Cross teams from Finland, Austria, Belgium, and Kenya to document the Red Cross’s work in the region. The purpose of our trip wasn’t simply to document a disaster. There’s enough of that already, and as BoP Project readers know already, I tend to focus on solutions. We were sent to document the short term and long term solutions that the Red Cross has implemented to try and relieve the emergency situation, and mitigate the impact of droughts in the future. Unfortunately, it’s no easy task, and as I have learned over the weeks trying to understand the situation in Kenya, the problems the region faces cannot be ignored. The solutions will only work if the core problems are addressed- which is why I feel it necessary here to provide a bit of context for the situation at hand.
For the areas of Garissa and Wajir, not far from the Somali boarder, droughts are not a rare occurrence. It’s a hot, dry and arid region, exponentially worsened when rains fail to arrive for such prolonged periods of time.
We all (or at least those with half a brain…) are well aware that as result of global climate change, weather patterns are shifting drastically. The rains are becoming more sporadic, erratic, unpredictable and unreliable. While some countries have the infrastructure, policies, programs, and emergency relief services to be able to provide security for their citizens in times of crisis, Kenya, unfortunately, is not one of them.
The Problem in Kenya;
The World Bank’s lead economist for Kenya, Wolfgang Fengler said recently in an interview ”This crisis is manmade” “Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.” Based on my observations, I couldn’t agree more.
Yes, severe drought is caused by global climate change, but it’s the conditions that allow the drought to truly affect the people which is the biggest problem…
Here are some of the greatest challenges I’ve seen…
1.) The Population;
The communities in North Eastern Kenya are mostly pastoralists. Their livelihoods depend on their livestock, so they live day to day with no formal settlements, moving nomadically from one pasture to the next, looking for places for their cows, goats, and sheep to graze. They carry their homes and belongings on the backs of donkeys or camels.
These communities have no knowledge of farming and agriculture, and in most cases are quite content with this nomadic life. They don’t want to change.
But when the rain stops coming…. what can they do? They run out of pastures to graze in and river beds to drink from. Their animals die, and they are left with no choice to but temporarily settle somewhere they can access food and water. The environmental conditions are forcing them to change their lives drastically. If the rains come, they will most likely set off again and continue their pastoral ways.
2.) Marginalized communities;
Most pastoralists in the remote parts of the region probably don’t vote. And even if they do, sadly their voices hardly matter. There are few if any valuable resources in North Eastern Kenya, and little revenue coming in from the region- no industries, no big businesses, nothing. Just people, animals, and vast landscapes.
As a result, they are highly marginalized by the government. An aid worker once told me off hand that “the elected officials want to keep these people poor. That way, come election time, they can easily buy their vote and retain power”. While I’m not sure how true this is, I do know that votes are bought, and quite easily, in East Africa.
A point to this marginalization is that February last year, the office of the Prime Minister released a bulletin from their early warning systems saying that there would be severe drought from June-Oct of this year (2011). People knew this drought was coming. Yet was anything done? Unfortunately not.
3.) Infrastructure;
This is the greatest challenge that drought-prone areas face; and in fact the entire country faces. Paved roads are almost non-existant in parts of this region once you get past Garissa town. It’s expensive, difficult, and sometimes dangerous to get goods and supplies to the people that need it. Add to this the soaring cost of foods, and goods in the markets can be prohibitively expensive.
The saddest part of this is, and I wrote about this in a recent HuffPo Blog, is that farmers just a few hundred km south of Garissa, in the southern rift valley, have the reverse problem. They are throwing away their produce because either the market can’t reach them, or they can’t reach the market.
96% of sub-saharan African agriculture is still rain dependent, meaning only 4% of sub-saharan African can actually grow and harvest crops if the rains don’t come. Resources are vastly underused, and the lack of agricultural innovation and investment is close to tragic. There is water, underground, above ground, that’s not being used.
Along the Tana River in Garissa, where we visited a Red Cross program that helps formal pastoralists establish farms and irrigation systems along the river (which has been extremely successful), the Red Cross estimates that only 10% of rivers capacity is actually being harnessed.
The African Development Bank has also estimated that the region’s lack of infrastructure- roads, housing, water, electricity, sanitation- reduces it’s output by 40%. I’ve seen this first hand, and there’s no denying its truth.
The short term programs from the Red Cross and other nonprofits/agencies such as Water Trucking (sending water trucks to fill big tanks in more remote communities), School Feeding Programs, and Greenhouses, are unfortunately highly unsustainable. The Red Cross knows this, everyone knows this. But they are emergency measures to keep people alive, which at this point is quite needed. Unfortunately, these “emergency measures” are taken year after year.
The long term programs are much more successful. The example of the farms on the Tana River, called the Tana River Drought Recover Project, gave me a sense of hope that if people can only tap into the existing resources, and organizations can supply the knowledge and skills to help them do so, at least some of the situation can be mitigated, in certain parts along the river. Boosting the number of local farmers in the area would help boost the local economy, and potentially reduce the cost of food in the market.
Yet ultimately, the answer will come from better infrastructure, more investment in new agricultural techniques, more deep water wells, and a global attempt to try and curb climate change. People in this region will continue to be pastoralists, roaming the land in search of food and water for their livestock, except when those resources cannot be found. We can’t entirely change their lifestyle- and shouldn’t. But we can at least provide viable alternatives, better solutions for them when the wells run dry, and make it easier for them to adapt in tough times.
“Emergencies situations” should not be anticipated. And if they are, there is no reason they shouldn’t be prevented, or at least have solutions in place to deal with them.
Wasting Food In a Famine….
Hi Folks!
Here’s my take on the situation in northern Kenya for the Huffington Post- Comments appreciated!!
—–
East Africa is facing a massive tragedy. And here’s the thing; severe drought is only the half of it.
While severely malnourished Somalis are fleeing across the Kenyan boarder to escape famine (and persecution), an estimated 3.7 million Kenyans in the northern regions of the country are starving and in need of immediate assistance.
What’s worse? Small landholder farmers, several hundred kilometers away in Kenya’s southern Rift Valley, are being forced to ditch their crops. It’s a complete lose-lose situation. Farmers aren’t getting any returns on the crops they’ve invested their backbreaking labor, sweat, and cash into; people across the country are dying of starvation…..
Read More on HuffPo; Wasted Food in a Famine: the Real Tragedy
U.K., America & The Huffington Post….
Greetings!
It’s been a whirlwind of adventures in the “developed” world over the past 2 1/2 weeks, and as I sit writing this from the [lovely] Days Inn of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, in some sort of travel purgatory (my flight to Colorado was delayed, I wouldn’t make my connection, so they dumped me here for a night), I figured it might be a great time for an update!
Partially because of constant access to high-speed internet, the past weeks have been insanely productive. To start things off, I flew to London for the Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards at the end of June. Unfortunately, I lost in the Agribusiness category to a fantastic BBC World Tonight report (not too upset about that…. quite a worthy competitor , but the trip was full of incredible conversations, meetings, brainstorms, and connections. I was able to meet fellow young journalists working all across Africa, exploring similar themes of development and the new african narrative, as well as get a free tour of BBC’s head offices in White City. I was able to reconnect with old friends, and make plenty of new ones. A great evening with Christian Busch, Co-Founder of Sandbox Network, got me thinking more about Nairobi, and vast potential of Impact Entrepreneurs waiting to be connected all throughout the city. Definitely check out his recent TEDx-talk “Impact Organization”!
While back in the U.S., I’ve been able to put faces behind many long email chains, scramble to backup gigabytes upon gigabytes of precious photos and documents, and spend a few days wearing out my shoe leather on the pavements of NYC meeting with a handful of organizations and individuals.
I followed up with the good folks at Indego Africa, and as a result was finally able to finish and publish a blog on them for The Huffington Post IMPACT section, titled “Empowerment Trade in Rwanda”. I’ll be contributing to Huff Po as much as possible, working as always to expand the reach of these social entrepreneur’s stories to a fresh new audience around the globe.
Pending another airplane technical failure, I’ll be off to Boulder, Colorado tomorrow for a couple of days to see a few friends, catch some fresh mountain air, and try to connect with the team at Unreasonable Institute as they hold their second annual institute for fellows.
A week from tomorrow, I’ll be headed back to Tanzania, where I’ll begin to pack my (few) things for a new life in Nairobi, Kenya. I’m looking forward to the adventures ahead, and will, of course, keep you posted!
Cheers!
Jonathan
