Our 2010 Gold Award winner D.light design has launched a micro finance project, in partnership with Christain Aid, that will bring solar lighting to 4,400 rural households in three Indian states in its first year.
The Northen Indian states of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chattisgarh have the worst rural electrification track record in India. The majority of people living in these states are socially excluded communities, mainly minority ethnic and caste groups, known as Adivasi and Dalits respectively. On average, these communities have a family income of less than 200 rupees per month, so they are unable to afford the 549 or 1699 rupees that D.light’s lanterns cost in India.
Energy, though, is already an expensive outgoing for poor households. In a country where almost 45% of households have no access to electricity, kerosene lamps are cheap to buy, but expensive to run. A survey revealed that on average families spend between 50 and 90 rupees a month on kerosene for lighting. Kerosene is also dangerous.
D.light and Christian Aid are developing a financing mechanism that will allow poor communities to avoid kerosene, leapfrog the grid and move straight to solar lighting. This project aims to reduce family monthly expenditure on lighting by 50%, increase family incomes by 20-30% and reduce CO2 emissions by 10,000 tonnes. Christian Aid has provided funding for the first 2,500 lanterns and will work with its Indian partners to identify young people to become 'rural entrepreneurs' who can manage the distribution and finance alongside a network of women's self-help groups. Two local partner organisations will work with the entrepreneurs to promote the technology within the villages, train the entrepreneurs in financial management and ensure the sustainability of the project.
Community self-help groups will collect orders from villagers and supply the solar lanterns on credit, charged at 12% annual interest over 10 months. This interest covers administrative costs and allows money to be reinvested in new stock, eventually making the whole project self-sustaining. D.light will supply the lanterns and train the rural entrepreneurs in customer education, battery replacement and sales and demand generation.
(pic: Woman in India with her D.light Kiran lamp)
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
D.light launches microfinance project to bring solar to poorest in Northern India
Monday, 2 March 2009
Inspiring words from the guru of microcredit, Professor Muhammad Yunus
On Thursday night we were lucky enough to have a lecture from the guru of microcredit, Professor Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank. He is a phenomenal, creative individual with the ability to come up with a life-changing idea a minute it seems. He has now developed his years of experience and knowledge into a concept he calls “social business” to address the problems of the poor. In the lecture, given in his intimate, conversational style, he spoke convincingly about the need for an urgent change in the world’s financial systems to promote lending to the credit-worthy poor, and spread the values of social business. The lecture hall at the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington was packed with people from all walks of life and all ages, with a great turnout of young people. Unlike many lectures, where papers shuffle and yawns are stifled, the atmosphere was quite electric, as the audience seemed to hang on every quiet and inspired word, each containing real resonance at this time of anxiety and uncertainty.
I first came across Professor Yunus’ work when working for the Panos Institute back in the 1980’s and we published a book called Banking the Unbankable, containing a chapter about his work in Bangladesh. Twenty years on, the Grameen Bank has spread microfinance to over 7 million people, offering small loans without collateral that are hugely improving the lives of poor women and their families in Bangladesh. Professor Yunus gave a moving description of his visit to a “Grameen woman”, one of his first lenders, and her daughter who is going to university thanks to his efforts. He commented sadly on the fact that this woman herself could have been where her daughter is now, if it were not for a system that stopped poor people from progressing and taking charge of their lives. He gently encourages all the children of these Grameen women to go out in the world and start up their own social businesses, instead of relying on others to give them work. I’m sure for many people in the audience he was lighting the spark of an idea…
Refreshingly, Professor Yunus sees the global financial crisis that we are constantly told will ruin lives and cause chaos, as an opportunity as well as challenge – an opportunity to bring about major changes in banking, the economic system and society. “The financial, environmental and food crises are all interrelated and are all driven by selfishness. We must seize this opportunity to come up with an alternative financial system, based on trust and selflessness. The poor are suffering from financial apartheid. They make up two-thirds of the world’s population but are currently excluded from the system. The real issue is not whether the poor are credit-worthy but whether banks are people-worthy” Professor Yunus told us.
We heard how the Grameen enterprises now number over 30 covering solar energy, mobile phones, water, health and many others, all driven by social motives. We at the Ashden Awards are very familiar with the member of the Grameen family that is expanding sustainable energy - Grameen Shakti. Last year they and their committed leader, Dipal Barua, won the Ashden Outstanding Achievement Award for incredible work installing solar home systems, biogas plants and improved stoves across Bangladesh. When they first won an award in 2006 for their solar energy programme and Dipal came to London to receive the prize, he was inspired by other winners using biogas and improved cooking stoves and decided to go back and do the same in Bangladesh. Two years later they’ve installed 220,000 solar home systems, 6,000 biogas plants and produced 23,000 improved stoves!
It was great to hear that the Grameen programmes so far are unaffected by the financial crisis - “While the financial world collapses all around us, our schemes are thriving - so who is really credit-worthy?” he remarked.
If you’re interested in these ideas, make sure you read Professor Yunus’ book which is now in paperback, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism where he puts forward his vision of a future where many embrace the idea of social business, business with a conscience that is not founded on the profit motive, but the motive to help others. “I think every problem can be turned into a social business. Each one is the development of a seed, and it can be replicated to change the world instead of to make money.”
Juliet Heller, Ashden Awards
