Last week I had my trip to the Bangladeshi country side. My friend Jordan Mallah once said about India: “They believe in re-incarnation and they drive like it.” While around 85% of Bangladesh is Muslim, and hence would not necessarily believe in re-incarnation like the Hindus, it does appear that most drivers are still banking on an afterlife. I was told by the security officer: “Bangladesh has the second highest number of traffic fatalities in the world!” (Did I catch a hint of pride in his voice??) But no worries, he said “just wear your seat belt.” When I informed him that none of the vehicles that I had driven in so far actually had seatbelts (in fact, they are mysteriously missing from every back seat in India, too) he just gave me a look as if to say “let’s not focus on the details here, lady.”
I’ve attached a video here in case none of you ever get to experience the joy yourselves: http://youtu.be/n47NIWQo8q8
On my second day in the country side, I attended an inauguration ceremony for a development project that was being launched. Apart from sitting in 100 degree heat, which occasionally got worse when the power went out and the fans turned off, and felt even hotter because of the scarf I had to wear to cover my shoulders, I managed to stay alive while listening to people speak in Bangla for 4 hours straight.
There was a parliament member who attended the event and I got to sit next to him during lunch. In order to fit in, I decided I too would eat my meal completely with just my right hand (no left hand here friends, as that’s for, should I say, “post meal”). I didn’t want to seem like some pampered American that required a spoon or a fork. Until they served me prawn. Have you ever tried to crack open a prawn one handed? Well, it’s actually impossible. And the little crustacean squirted right out of its shell and sprayed sauce all over my face and salwar kameez and I was thoroughly embarrassed because everyone just gave me this sad look like I clearly had issues. I wanted to say “you know people, I am actually REALLY good at eating with a fork.”
After the meeting, I met with producer groups and farmers for the specific development project that was being inaugurated. Clearly no one spoke English, and to my own fault I speak no Bangla, so the entire meeting had to be translated by my friendly counterpart, Mac Daddy (I swear, his name sounded similar). The problem with translations is that you can really miss some of the details. Here is an example of how our conversations was flowing: Me to farmers: “How challenging is that?” Mac Daddy turns to the farmers and asks a question that goes on for about a minute. The farmers talk, discuss, argue, Mac Daddy chimes in, they argue some more and then, 5 minutes later, Mac Daddy turns to me and says: “They said, ‘very challenging.’”
Despite the language barrier, I was able to successfully interview a number of suppliers, buyers, wholesalers, rice processors, fish pharmaceutical salesmen (seriously), farmers, community members, and development workers. The goal was to begin to understand where the agricultural value chain was breaking down in the rice and fish markets and how we might empower farmers by improving their position with suppliers and buyers by getting access to technical skills and other agricultural information (like prices). My job in this is to find larger companies that we might be able to partner with who can help provide these things (training, pricing information) while making a profit (so that they are encouraged to keep engaging after the development organization leaves). The biggest opportunity so far appears to be working with telecom players to develop and market products that give farmers access to information – like prices, buyers and sellers locations, technical capabilities, etc. If telecom providers can make money off of these services, and farmers can improve their quality and quantity of output, as well as their negotiating power, it’s a win-win. It also puts the power in the hands of the farmer and continues when the development agency leaves. I guess this is the equivalent of “teaching a man to fish” but in non-biblical times it has become “teaching a man to surf the web.”
I first realized that my hotel room in Chennai had 19 light switches when I found myself hunting around the hotel room for 5 minutes trying to find and extinguish the source of every light in the room so that I could go to bed. I finally gave up and just slept with one on – never did find the source. I just landed in Dhaka, Bangladesh and my new room has 25. I kind of feel like I must be missing something…but not the irony that the “land of many light switches” comes with rolling black outs.
I am coming to Dhaka after 3 weeks spent in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. The experience was much better than my first trip to India, where I made the mistake of coming in May (110 degree heat) and didn’t hire a driver because I was poor (Indian taxi drivers are a real joy to negotiate with). This time, as I had to fit in 10 business meetings with a 2 hour traffic jam in between each one (Mumbai), I was given a driver. From the car, I realized it is also much easier to ignore some of the smells and touches that I got a bit too much of last time I was here.
Although, someone did grab my butt at the Taj Mahal. And about 40-50 young boys approached me and asked for a joint photo. When I refused, most of them “secretly” took photos of me with their cell phones anyway. Some brazenly stood next to me smiling while their friends shot pictures. I try not to imagine how popular I would have been if I had actually bothered to shower that day.
When I’m not making friends at the Taj Mahal, I am working for a large international non-governmental organization (NGO) and helping them to better link up with the private sector to improve development outcomes – through more innovation, sustainability, access to products, etc. Indian businesses seem to be really ahead of the curve when it comes to creating what we term “pro-poor” products – or products that will improve the lives of the poor. They’ve even figured out how to do this by making a profit. I suppose a consumer base of hundreds of millions of people can be a motivating factor.
Where a large NGO comes in is by their deep roots in some of these communities - they can better identify needs and make those clear to businesses, identify potential entrepreneurs, spread health messages that sell products, develop entrepreneurial distribution channels, etc. I’ve been happily surprised by the opportunities that I have seen developing. The main roadblocks appear to be the growing pains of a new idea: NGOs don’t trust business and vice versa, both parties aren’t quite sitting at the table to co-develop ideas and products, they haven’t fully figured out how to leverage each other in all of the ways possible…But you can certainly see the tide rising.
My work so far has focused around brokering some of those deals. If you happen to be in an area where our NGO is present on Oct. 15th (Hindustan Lever’s Global Handwashing Day) and find yourself reading a story about a little boy who got diarrhea because he didn’t wash his hands, or playing a game where you have to recite “I promise to wash my hands after I go to the loo!” – you’ll know who is responsible. More excitingly, if you end up in one of these villages in the next year our hope is that you will find “Business Correspondents” who, with the help of some mobile software from the State Bank of India, will be able to provide you with banking services, without a bank. My other claim to fame this week is that I actually got a group of humans excited about the word "Operating Model," which is what we will be updating as we prep them to work more effectively with corporate partners.
Now I am in Bangladesh for 2 weeks to do something similar although it is starting with a one week long field visit to try and understand needs at the village-level. I’ve heard those needs do not include PowerPoint or clip art so I look forward to seeing what value a consultant can actually bring.
