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Last night I woke up at 3 AM and went on ichat and was able to talk to my brother, Connor and cousin, Jenna. Because there is little internet service at the lodge, the only time you get really good, accessible service is when everyone is asleep and no one is on the network. It was great chatting with them and I hope to catch up with them and my family some more this coming weekend!
This morning I had a wonderful breakfast, fresh fruit salad and an egg on toast! The food at the lodge is great! There is even a pool for swimming and laying out! The lodge is a huge destination for Europeans. I have met those from England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy! They are all quite young so listening to loud music, smoking a cigarette, and chugging beers and taking shots was rather normal. I was unable to do any of that as I had to wake up early for meetings this morning but there is a great vibe at the lodge and I look forward to the activity and commotion this weekend!
Our first meeting was with a man named Rick at Tough Stuff, a solar company based in Nairobi, Kenya. Rick is currently working on his masters in international management. MicroLoan is currently piloting a project with their clients to enable women to sell or rent solar products from Tough Stuff and Solar Aid. The products include: panels, lights, battery packs, and phone chargers. Our clients must have a years’ worth of loan repayment history in order to partake in this project with MicroLoan Foundation. Our women are having no problems selling as they are very easy to sell to those individuals who have enough collateral to purchase. We currently have eight women working on the solar sales model which includes five of each of the products. The cost of the entire package is 27,000 MWK and the women have a three month period to repay. The other mode that two women are piloting is the solar rental model. The rental model equips the women with a larger stock, ten, and the entire package costs 38,000MWK and the women are given a longer period, six months, to repay their loan. Something I learned that was very interesting was that the women were renting out much of their products to grinding mills. Equipping these mills with lights allows them to work much later into the night! Another interesting fact was that Malawi has approximately 8% of their population on the national grid so the solar market could be huge here!
Following our first meet we then traveled to the Market Linkages Initiative (MLI) office, a project supported by USAID. Paolo and I met with a Malawian, Rachel, who is their Market Information Specialist. The MLI is a two year regional program funded by the Global Hunger & Food Security Initiative to promote growth in food staples and food security, integrating small holder farmers into more efficient national and regional markets. MLI works in seven other African countries: Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Brundi, Rwanda, and the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
-Expand and strengthen Grain bulking Systems (GBS) in target locations
-Enhance capacity of small holder farmers to integrate into GBS
-Sustain GBS operations in relevant market institutions
-Institutionalize platforms that disseminate lessons learned and best practice.
MicroLoan Foundation is working with MLI as they just rolled out a SMS market information system. The platform, Esoko, was started in 2009 by a team of programmers in Ghana and is currently being used in the eight African countries. Esoko allows farmers and others in agribusiness to use their cell phones to share and receive customized, real time market information, including prices and offers. My work in Malawi will include working with the SMS software and establishing training sessions with our loan officers in the field to better facilitate the sale of produce grown by our clients. Our clients are growing, healthy, high quality produce and are having much trouble selling in village markets as many others are selling, decreasing the price and demand! I will be putting together some further research on Esoko in the coming days so please look for more!
The final leg of the day ended with a small lunch and tour of a new supermarket that just opened in Malawi four days ago, Spar. The store is very nice and is used by those Malawians with a bit more money! It was so open and in a newly constructed open mall. In fact, my dad sent me an article prior to knowing this! Read the article! Spar in Malawi They plan on opening 10 more supermarkets and express convenient stores across the country over the next five years! Paolo and I asked to speak with the store manager about where they source all their locally grown produce. She told us that she is looking for suppliers and will sign contracts with anyone that offers the best price. She also said she has been restocking shelves about four times a day as many customers are flocking to the fresh, clean, and just simply beautiful produce. We are going to continue talks with her and try and supply Spar with our clients produce on a bi-weekly/weekly basis!
All the best
Jimmy
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