On March 15, Artemisia and Ashoka’s Changemakers will launch a global search for initiatives that help build the field of social business. They’re looking for models that demonstrate how social business initiatives can thrive and scale up their impact on quality of life.
I’d like to nominate one successful model: Indego Africa, a social enterprise built upon the belief that Africans living in poverty can overcome their circumstance by taking full advantage of market opportunities and upgrading their job skills to improve their long-term earning prospects. Indego Africa connects women’s cooperatives in Rwanda with export markets for their handicrafts and then reinvests 100% of profits from sales toward business skills training programs. Empowerment is achieved through a combination of skills, confidence, and access to information.
Indego Africa has improved the lives of more than 150 women and their 600 dependents (approximately) since 2006. Their social impact includes: (i) ~ 336% increase in the number of women earning more than US$ 1 a day; (ii) ~ 96% increase in the number of families eating at least twice in a day; (iii) ~ 42% reduction in the number of women with no permanent residence and 26% increase in the number of households with beds for all residents.*
Indego’s approach is unique in that the ultimate goal is for the women to achieve independence in three areas: personal finance, independence from Indego Africa, and access to the export market. This commitment to self-reliance is a stark contrast to many of Indego’s peers in Rwanda, including microfinance agencies, which thrive on the continued dependency of their constituents.
I believe Indego Africa’s model is viable and scalable because of the organization’s structure and transparency. Founder Matt Mitro and Senior Vice President Benjamin Stone are both well-trained attorneys. Equipped with corporate legal backgrounds, they established strong infrastructure and organizational systems very early on, as well as to-market opportunities for their constituency. With such extensive and documented systems, Indego Africa is uniquely poised to expand rapidly across the glob. The organization’s unusual approach has become the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. HBS Professor Kathleen McGinn remarked, “This is completely backward from what everyone else does. They created all the processes before they started, designed all the procedures, translated them into the language the women needed, and created the links to the American market.”**
Mitro and Stone have taken the time to plan ahead for every aspect of the organization. Their detailed long-term and short-term strategic plans clarify their objectives and map out the sequential development of Indego Africa as well as its clients and partners. Strategic plans, in addition to organizational documents and internal policies, are available on their website to maintain transparency and accountability.
Indego Africa plans to expand to other African countries within the next two years. As it grows, I wonder what adjustments will have to be made in order for Indego to be successful in each locality; after all, the organization’s success is partially attributable to a local business environment that encourages entrepreneurship. Rwanda has been ranked by the World Bank in 2010 as the 67th easiest place to do business in the world. Jumping up from 143rd place, Rwanda is the first African country to be listed as the world’s biggest reformer. Much of the red tape has been removed from doing business in Rwanda; it now takes a local entrepreneur just two procedures and three days to start a company.
In late January this year, Indego Africa and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe hosted a reception about social enterprise in Rwanda. Featured speaker Stephen Kinzer, Princeton professor and author of A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It, told the remarkable story of how a country that was devastated by genocide 16 years ago is now on its way to become one of the stars of Africa. Rwanda is a powerful case study on how to transform a poor country into a prosperous country in a short period of time.
Kinzer cited hard work, self-development, and a rejection by the outside world as the keys to Rwanda’s success. In 1994, the international community did little to prevent the ethnic tension in Rwanda from escalating into genocide. In the span of 100 days, nearly 1 million people were slaughtered. After the tragedy, President Paul Kagame decided Rwanda needed to take control of its own development process. His intention is to wean his country off of foreign development aid through a combination of smart economic policy and intelligent business practices. Instead of following the foreign aid models of the past 50 years, Rwanda has focused on facilitating entrepreneurship and making Rwandans “the best they can be” according to Kinzer.
It will be interesting to continue to watch Rwanda and Indego Africa in the coming years. Both the country and the organization have taken a unique approach to business and development that we can learn from. My hope is that just as Rwanda is rapidly becoming the star of Africa, Indego Africa will emerge as a star in the field of social business.
* Indego Africa 2009 Social Impact Report
** “New Approach to Pro Bono”. The Recorder. January 4, 2010
Jerryanne Heath is the CEO and Founder of ConceptLink Consulting, a firm that helps US and international social-mission organizations connect with their stakeholders through various event management and communications strategies. She is also co-chair of the Africa Social Enterprise Forum.
Image Courtesy Indego Africa
