The hidden cost of doing business #informaleconomy
This looks like its a low cost business operation with low barriers to entry. All you need to do is find a decent tree under which to display your wares. The reality is that these entrepreneurs have numerous fees and costs that they must pay in order to do business, regardless of how informal it […]
There’s more to informal trade than meets the eye
This photograph captures the way micro entrepreneurs in the informal economy perceive their business. There is more here than meets the eye at the first instance. Note the green logo of the Kenyan mobile money transfer system M-Pesa in the background of the cash transfer taking place, by hand, in the foreground. The customer is […]
Changing flows of trade
This unassuming pile of clothes caught my attention on market day in Busia, Kenya. They are mitumba (secondhand clothes) from India. This is a recent development, apparently, as traditionally mitumba tends to come from the ‘west’ (as can be noted by the name on the bag shown below). Clothes sourced from India have begun showing […]
Is the pay per use business model changing household purchasing dynamics?
The process of writing the previous post on India’s energy efficient cook-stove development efforts made me pause and reconsider my assumptions. Here’s the snippet that struck me in the article. Philips took its India stove to more mature markets in Africa, where a raft of foreign-funded stove projects had familiarised customers with the product. This […]
Future scenarios for sub Saharan Africa’s opportunity and market
When you look at selected sub Saharan African markets from the perspective of being a micro-SME up here in Finland, you discover just attractive they can be. This is Team Finland’s futures based report on four most promising (defined by size, growth and ease of doing business) countries: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. Using […]
Innovation, under conditions of resource scarcity
When Mkulima Young, a social media community for young farmers in Kenya tweeted this photograph of a motorcycle modified to pump water, I was delighted. It had been a long time since I’d seen such an excellent example of innovative product development under conditions of resource scarcity. REculture, the group blog hosted by the now […]
Collapsing the sustainable agricultural value chain of commodities with a single tweet
Tony Addison of UNU-Wider, in Helsinki, just tweeted this photograph, expressing his pleasure at seeing Rwandan coffee at his favourite coffee shop, Roastery. I retweeted it and within minutes, Josh Kariuki proudly tweeted that his neighbourhood Gachatha coffee, from Nyeri county in Kenya, was being sold far away in Helsinki, Finland, by name. The next […]
Is there a tipping point price for low income customer behavioural change?
When the price of the LPG cylinders dropped significantly earlier this year, it was noticed that increasing numbers of urban lower income customers were purchasing the entry level size of 6kg – seen displayed along the top of the display unit above. “A good number of my customers come from the slum,” said Kinuthia on […]
Trade in East Africa – A very short introduction to a very long history
Who were the pioneers who opened up the trade routes that criss cross the seas and deep into the interior from the ancient ports of Zanzibar and Mombasa? We don’t know who these intrepid sailors must have been, making their profit from rich Roman’s wives seeking Indian silks and spices, but the African continent’s eastern […]
Lessons for Formal Finance from Informal financial services
On one of my many field explorations on rural financial services, I found out, that for one mama biashara, as soon as payment checks in, she withdraws all her funds from her local coffee SACCO account, and spreads it out via micro-deposits across her more than 5 local informal savings groups (from right to […]
