We present you our top 5 inspirations seeked through our client engagements in 2015.
A viable bio farming model for our small and marginal farmers
Indian agriculture is characterized by the over-whelming presence of small and marginal farmers. Small land holding is also a distinct feature of West Bengal’s agrarian economy, with 95.5% of total landholdings belonging to the small and marginal farmers. As in common knowledge, the small holders are more characterized with deprivation rather than prosperity.
Given this backdrop, is possible to transform the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers through instruments like investments? Yes it is.
Integrated Farming Model and small ditch irrigation supported by an International Development Institution and a leading local NGO in West Bengal promises to be a viable model impacting small and marginal farmers. We carried out a detailed economic analysis of the farming model, assessed its multi-faceted benefits to farmer’s family and brought out the increasing returns to investment. With this engagement, we came to the conclusion that the farmers’ income can increase by 2X to 3X by adopting this model.
A multinational corporation’s drive to create shared value for the farmers
The power of corporations to contribute in development is still under tapped. And to develop, nurture and maintain an inclusive sourcing value chain of farm produce which creates wealth and well-being for both farmers as well as corporates is a difficult yet a rewarding task.
We were inspired by our European MNC client who has already this achieved win-win integration of farmers in their sourcing chain and hired us to find insights and recommend ways to further improve the farmers’ socio-economic conditions, their farm economics and farm practices.
Development veterans exploring ways of delivering social development in a more financially sustainable way
Pursuit of social impact creation through a business model approach or a pure philanthropic approach is a key dilemma faced by the Bangladesh’s CSO community, the pioneers of country’s social development scene.
In this backdrop, we conducted a training workshop on business/sustainability planning & financial modelling for 7 leading NGOs in Bangladesh to inspire them of how market based innovations can be leveraged to deliver social impact.The leaders of these leading NGOs had decades of experience in bringing change in the lives of millions of Bangladeshi citizens through a pure philanthropic model and yet there are open to find new ways for delivering development. The entire pre-assessment and workshop was funded by an International Development organization.
Transformation of grass roots women entrepreneurs
Is it possible to unlock India’s rural clean energy market through network of women entrepreneurs and simultaneously enable their transformation as change makers? Yes, wPOWER India, a USAID program, is able to achieve it.
The wPOWER Global Summit in Delhi in April 2015 brought into limelight the achievements of grass roots women entrepreneurs in India and Africa in providing clean energy access. The transformation stories, the insights and the confidence of these women entrepreneurs as they interacted with the corporates were truly inspiring. Our firm has been the Program and Knowledge Partner for this 3 year USAID program.
Incubating entrepreneurs in the under developed states of India
The struggles, small and medium entrepreneurs face in under developed states of Eastern India and North East India were truly heroic. Lack of Infrastructure, access to markets and finance and more importantly the enabling ecosystem of mentors, seed capital stifled their growth. Our client, an International Development Institution appointed us to design an approach and model for a business incubation centre for these states.
