Consider the paradox of America and India. In today’s world of industrial interconnectivity, outsourcing, and global community, the two are profoundly intertwined. Now consider the polarity of the educational destinies for the youth of each nation. Of course, there are exceptions to both. There are Indian preparatory schools, as there are American preparatory schools, where children awake to a world of ironed linen and crisp ties, the fruits of life encased in a financial hammock.

Stuart L Hart is the S C Johnson Chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise and Professor of Management at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management. In his new book, Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems, Hart argues that companies can become the catalyst for a truly sustainable form of global development-and profit in the process. The book was published by Wharton School Publishing in March 2005.

Cornell University and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) were recently awarded nearly $1.2million from USAID’s Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP).

A participatory rural appraisal saw the Nyota community in Kenya overturn commonly held assumptions about needs of the rural poor.

A participatory rural appraisal saw the Nyota community in Kenya overturn commonly held assumptions about needs of the rural poor.

It was in fact creating internal competition and gluts driving prices down for the community's products, even as the community was importing higher cost inputs and services from outside, the analysis revealed.

Nyota was resettled in 1973 to provide 2.5 acre homesteads/farms for black Kenyans. The area is relatively high (2258-2800 meters) and hilly with a few steep valleys and a few seasonal streams flowing southwards. Two tribes are dominant here—the Kikuyu and Kalenjin who fought in violent tribal clashes in the area in the early 1990s. Since then peace has been relatively stable. People depend on agriculture and livestock to earn income. The major cash crops in the area are pyrethrum and potatoes. High pyrethrum prices in the 1980s led to community reliance on the crop, but payment by the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya (PBK), a government-created parastatal organization, has been unreliable which has caused community suffering, especially from 2002 to present, and a current reliance on potato farming.

Nyota residents engage in a number of agricultural activities for income. These include: selling raw, unprocessed produce, selling livestock to local restaurants, selling milk, and daily farm labor. In addition, a limited number of non-farm jobs and trades are also sources of income. These include: carpentry, metal-smithing, bicycle repair, diesel-engine maintenance, charcoal making, transportation (using bicycles, donkey-carts, lorries and tractors), religious activities and land leasing. Self-Help Groups and Merry-Go-Round savings schemes are common and provide limited access to capital and small debt financing.

Analysis

The resource flow analysis was undertaken in Nyota as part of a BOP project. The aim of the analysis was to develop a deeper and more holistic understanding of economic activities in the community. Using Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques and working with community members, the BoP team identified the resources flowing into the community, the resources created/used/traded within the community, and the resources flowing out of the community.

The Nyota settlement itself was originally chosen because SC Johnson, a sponsor firm of the project and a partner in the Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab at Cornell University, is the single largest buyer of Kenyan pyrethrum or "Py". SCJ has suffered from erratic Py supply caused by uncertainty in the Kenyan Py industry caused primarily by mismanagement at the PBK. Nyota has traditionally been a pyrethrum-growing area and has been hard hit by non-payment for Py crops by the PBK. SCJ uses Py in several of its Raid products because Py is more efficacious and safer than similar synthetics and is an organic input that could be crucial to the economic development of rural Kenya.

The resource flow analysis showed that Nyota "imports" far more products than it "exports". Resources sold by residents are mostly farm produce, livestock or raw wool, or labor. Farm produce includes potatoes, maize, peas (not often) and green onions (not often). Livestock is mostly sold to restaurants—eggs, chickens, cows, sheep, goats, rabbit, turkey, geese, pigeons, and pigs. The community trades multiple goods and services within, including produce, livestock, fuel wood, labor, water, and goods such as sweaters, crochet coverings and furniture.

On the other hand a wide variety of resources are being "imported". These are: produce, packaged food, farm inputs, tools and agricultural implements, domestic consumables (e.g.: petrol, paraffin, soap, moisturizers, etc.), utility items (e.g.: paraffin lanterns, charcoal cook-stoves, cooking utensils, water containers, etc.), building materials for houses and, finally, clothing.

The analysis underlined and confirmed the need to increase the diversity of income-generating activities in the Nyota area. After the analysis, the BOP team worked with the community to generate ideas and plans to go forward. The community itself developed several plans like, for example, farmers adding value to the produce they grow (drying, preserving, canning, pressing), selling in the off-season and accessing new markets for their goods.

This article was written with material sourced from Justin DeKoszmovszky's PRA report which emerged from his work through the BOP Protocol Pilot team in Kenya in Summer 2005. Justin DeKoszmovszky completed the PRA Analysis with Catherine Burnett. He thanks Patrick Mburu, Elijah Kimani Wang’ombe, Mama Salome, James Kimani, the Pamoja Pioneers Self-Help Group, Richard Cheruiyot, and the more than 250 community members who participated in the workshops for their contributions to this work.

34 people from the private sector, several government representatives, 17 universities, 11 NGOs, 7 social entrepreneurs, and the UNDP Argentina organisation were present.

The meeting aimed at establishing a conceptual framework and common language among participants. Mark Milstein of Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management brought forward a number of questions for the audience during his presentation: What is needed locally? What knowledge should be created? How could the process evolve here? Who wants to be involved? What are the next steps?

Members of the Argentina group are interested in the process by which companies get involved with the base of the pyramid, how to develop learning partnerships among, companies, NGO and the government. They are also interested in learning how BOP projects could be financed. A key worry theme appeared to be consumption and they raised a number of questions in the presentation. What is the influence of consumption in the BOP? How can consumption related negatives at the top of the pyramid and new consumption at the BOP be resolved? The idea is not to increase consumption, if not to decrease it at the top of the pyramid, many members felt.

The Learning Lab is already involved in two case studies were developed: Edenor and El Ceibal. The first one is about an electricity company that develops an innovative system in order to make people pay the amount of electricity to be consumed. The second one is about a microcredit project.

But there are challenges. A large number of NGOs are reluctant to engage the concept, say members. For this reason members organized a workshop with NGOs and social entrepreneurs. Members say they developed a workshop with NGO and social entrepreneurs so as to make easier communication for future activities, and to know about their point of view and experience with the base of the pyramid. We also wanted to open a dialogue space in order to explain the concept.

Also, the BOP group is engaging the Argentinian media. They had met with journalists of different media organisations informed them about the Learning Laboratory. After the first meeting took place, they have followed up with journalists again.

The group plans to meet next on June 15-16, 2006 in Buenos Aires. Their website (Spanish) is here. Miguel Angel Gardetti is their contact.

Attendees at the First Meeting

Companies: Edenor, Ledesma, ABN AMRO, Petrobrás, Repsol YPF, Transener, Clariant Argentina, Pan American Energy, Arcor, Quilmes, Estudio Beccar Varela, Grupo Nueva, ERM, Amanco Argentina, Transportadora Gas del Norte, SC Johnson, Tetra Pack, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Gas Natural Ban)

Mmembers of the Government: Secretary of Sustainable Development, Ministry of Work and Ministry of Social Development

NGOs: Avina, Ashoka, Equidad, Consejo Empresario para el Desarrollo Sostenible, Fundación Cimientos, El Ceibal, Fundación Aguas Argentinas, UNDP Argentina, Grupo de Fundaciones, Fundación PRODIS, Help Argentina

Universities: UADE, Universidad Austral - IAE, Universidad del Salvador, Universidad Nacional Tres de Febrero, Universidad de Belgrano, Universidad Católica de Córdoba, Universidad de Flores) and public universities (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires).

Monica Touesnard is with Centre for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson School of Business, Cornell University. He works on the Base of the Pyramid project.