“Kadogo” kerosene vs “Lumpsum” LPG: Trade-offs and cost/benefit analysis
Following a fascinating conversation with @bankelele and @majiwater on Twitter regarding the cost of kerosene, pay as you go models and relative benefits of each, I’ve been inspired to write this post exploring the topic further. Before I proceed, I’d like to take a moment to clarify what the “Prepaid” in the title of this […]
Mapping global seasonality: national times of abundance and scarcity?
Connecting some dots made me think of this exercise. If national governments are increasingly looking at ways to bridge the informal economy with the formal, in order to provide more inclusive benefits to their citizens and at the same time there’s an increasing focus on providing inclusive financial services to those outside of the formal […]
Mobile phones, social media and the Maasai: Time to refresh the image
At first, I did not know what these two young men were upto during an enforced halt on our way to Kisii at the end of February this year. The road had been blocked by the local community demonstrating about land rights just a few kilometres outside of Narok, in the heart of Maasailand and […]
Price cuts in the prepaid economy
Sunil Bharti Mittal recently referred to a pattern of consumer behaviour that came as a surprise to Airtel Africa, leading to a rethink of their near future pricing strategy for this market. The Indian telecom company told participants at the Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Spain, that it was surprised to find that the […]
Some concerns about ‘pay as you go’ lighting solutions in rural markets
Having just got back yesterday after immersion in an arid part of rural Kenya, it struck me after coming across yet another solar lighting solution with a pay as you go or prepaid business model that this may become a barrier for many subsistence farmers, most of whom are off the grid and so, are […]
Convenience as a service
Convenience can mean different things to the household consumer, depending on their location. In urban Chicago, its stocking up the freezer and pantry with a trip to a megastore like Costco while in Singapore it might be the ubiquitous neighbourhood hawker stand where rice, meat, two veg can be had for as little as $2.50 […]
Immersion in rural Kenya
We start the immersion phase of our project tomorrow and leave for our first location in rural Kenya today. Our focus is to better understand household consumer behaviour and our methodology is inspired by the early stage of the human centered design process. Ukambani has been the traditional homeland of the Kamba people for at […]
Brazilian machinery taking the lead in East Africa
Dominic Wanjihia showed us this chaff cutter made in Brazil he’d picked up for 35,000 Kenyan Shillings (around USD400 or thereabouts). He’s using it to test and run his biogas generators at his workshop. Brazil? Not Indian or Chinese? What about the jua kali makers, don’t they make one far cheaper? Brazil, he said. They’ve […]
Why so much “BoP” marketing fails in the developing world
Increasingly I have been getting the sense that there are some fundamental issues with the way BoP focused organizations are developing, creating and implementing their market entry strategies. Here are four of the most obvious errors that I’m seeing: Assuming there’s no competition Most of these firms, particularly those coming in from the outside and […]
The multifunctionality of livestock in rural Kenya
This is an interesting research paper from Purdue’s Agricultural Economics department published in 2008. Titled Traits Affecting Household Livestock Marketing Decisions in Rural Kenya (pdf), it’s abstract informs us that: While many contemporary development programs with regard to Sub-Saharan Africa’s pastoralists promote improved livestock marketing as a way out of poverty, they also fail to […]
