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DREAMS (Delivering Resilient Enterprises and Market Systems) merges Village Enterprise’s poverty graduation program with Mercy Corps’ expertise in market systems development in order to equip refugees with the skills, resources, and markets to start sustainable businesses and graduate from extreme poverty.

“What makes DREAMS so special is the unique partnership between Village Enterprise and Mercy Corps that drives innovation as we take on two of the biggest challenges facing the world today—forced displacement and poverty,” said Liz Corbishley, Chief Strategy and Partnerships Officer at Village Enterprise. “DREAMS started as a project focused on providing sustainable support to refugees, and it has grown into a new model for ending extreme poverty—equipping the most vulnerable households with the skills, resources, and markets to become self-reliant.”

Rose Kujang, a refugee from South Sudan, harvests sesame for her business in Uganda as part of DREAMS. Photo credit: Jjumba Martin for Mercy Corps

The first-of-its-kind model is already transforming the lives of refugees living in the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda, and DREAMS is about to launch in Dollo Ado Refugee Camp in Ethiopia. In total, DREAMS will reach more than 33,000 households across the two countries and impact more than 200,000 lives.

The model will be studied in a randomized controlled trial conducted by IDinsight, providing valuable evidence and insights that can be used by the international development and humanitarian aid sectors to better serve refugees and others living in extreme poverty in the future. This comes at a crucial moment, as the refugee crisis continues to grow in the world and climate change, conflict, and other shocks threaten to push hundreds of millions of people into extreme poverty.

“Self-sustaining solutions like DREAMS have never been more essential,” said Allison Huggins, Mercy Corps Deputy Regional Director for Africa. “As we look for solutions to address multiple forces—from climate change to the rise of violent extremist movements and globalization—rising global inequality will continue to play out in ways that profoundly impact the ability of poor households to sustainably escape from poverty.”

DREAMS for Refugees was a 2021 winner of the Larsen Lam ICONIQ Impact Award for Refugees managed by Lever for Change. DREAMS is funded by Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, ICONIQ Impact, IKEA Foundation, Sea Grape Foundation, and The Patchwork Collective.

“Having to flee, leaving behind your home, belongings, and sometimes your family members is incomprehensible for most of us,” said Annemieke de Jong, Head of Programmes, Refugee Livelihoods at the IKEA Foundation. “We firmly believe we can effectively invest in healing and building livelihoods through DREAMS so families can get back on their feet, doing what families should do best—be a loving and thriving place to be.”

“We are thrilled to see DREAMS recognized by Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas,” said Dianne Calvi, Chief Executive Officer of Village Enterprise. “In partnership with Mercy Corps, we’re looking for more foundations and individuals to join us so that DREAMS can reach even more vulnerable families and communities across Africa.”

About Village Enterprise

Village Enterprise’s mission is to end extreme poverty in rural Africa through entrepreneurship, innovation, and collective action. We work with vulnerable women, refugees, and youth who are most impacted by climate change, conflict, and displacement, and equip them with skills and resources to launch climate-smart businesses, build savings, and put themselves and their families onto a sustainable path out of extreme poverty. Village Enterprise has started over 74,000 businesses, trained over 264,000 first-time entrepreneurs, and positively transformed the lives of over 1,565,000 people in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is a global team of nearly 6,000 humanitarians working to create a world where everyone can prosper. In more than 40 countries affected by crisis, disaster, poverty, and climate change we work alongside communities, local governments, forward-thinking corporations, and social entrepreneurs to meet urgent needs and develop long-term solutions to make lasting change possible. Mercy Corps has a total operating budget of over $550M and in 2022 reached over 38 million people.

Contact

Brett Slezak, Vice President of Marketing and Communications
bretts@villageenterprise.org   |   +1 (254) 541-7250

The post DREAMS for Refugees from Village Enterprise and Mercy Corps Wins Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award appeared first on Village Enterprise.

As the largest single unrestricted donation in Village Enterprise’s history, the gift will be a cornerstone of Village Enterprise’s work to equip three million first-time entrepreneurs in Africa with skills and resources to launch sustainable businesses, ending extreme poverty and building climate resilience for 20 million women, children, and men by 2030.

“It’s only fitting that Ms. Scott’s generous gift comes during Women’s History Month, as it will be life-changing for women living in extreme poverty in Africa and their families,” said Dianne Calvi, Village Enterprise Chief Executive Officer. “When women have opportunities to launch climate-smart businesses, they not only lift themselves and their families out of poverty—they are also equipped to adapt to the threats of climate change. As East Africa is going through its worst drought in four decades, this is crucial to ensuring long-term prosperity for the most vulnerable households.”

Through collective action with governments, multi- and bi-lateral agencies, funders, other nonprofits, and private sector companies, Village Enterprise is currently scaling their cost-effective poverty graduation model to end extreme poverty and drive climate resilience in Africa. With funding from Cartier Philanthropy, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Delta Fund, the Government of Kenya, IKEA Foundation, The Starbucks Foundation, UN Women, Whole Planet Foundation, among others, Village Enterprise has already trained more than 264,000 entrepreneurs in Africa, transforming the lives of more than 1,565,000 people living in extreme poverty.

“Over the past seven years, I have been impressed by Village Enterprise’s proven and cost-effective intervention to work with the most vulnerable to provide them with the tools to live a better life,” said Pascale de la Frégonnière, Strategic Advisor to the Board at Cartier Philanthropy. “They are constantly innovating and improving on their model to increase their impact especially among women and are not afraid of taking on very ambitious challenges, such as successfully putting together and implementing the first development impact bond for poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. Cartier Philanthropy is excited to continue to invest in Village Enterprise’s life-changing program.”

Village Enterprise’s impact is driven by their passionate, talented African team. Studied by two rigorous, independent randomized controlled trials, which were conducted by Innovations for Poverty Action and IDinsight, the Village Enterprise model is proven to cost-effectively increase consumption, assets, income, savings, net wealth, nutrition, and food security for participants living in extreme poverty. It has also been shown to increase the mental health, well-being, and sense of economic standing of women in the program.

Village Enterprise’s award-winning poverty graduation model is at the center of collective action initiatives taking on the most pressing issues in Africa. Through partnerships with small locally-led organizations, as well as large international nonprofits such as African Wildlife Foundation, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, and Wildlife Conservation Society, Village Enterprise’s approach is reducing deforestation and poaching, combating food insecurity and acute child malnutrition, and supporting refugees and displaced populations fleeing conflict.

“Mercy Corps is proud to partner with Village Enterprise to alleviate poverty in rural Africa,” said Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Corps. “Their team is passionate about ending extreme poverty and focused on transformative impact. By combining our evidence-based approaches and working together in refugee camps—one of the world’s most challenging contexts—we are building the foundation to transform the way the humanitarian sector approaches refugee assistance.”

Village Enterprise’s work has been recognized at the highest level by Candid, Charity Navigator, the Drucker Institute, Great Nonprofits, Founders Pledge, Million Lives Collective, and The Life You Can Save. Their DREAMS for Refugees initiative with Mercy Corps was a winner of the Larsen Lam ICONIQ Impact Award in 2021.

“Ms. Scott’s gift is a powerful testament to our work and to the fact that we can’t end extreme poverty alone,” said Dianne Calvi. “We’re looking for more governments, agencies, companies, and individuals to join us in taking collective action to end extreme poverty. After all, we go further together.”

About Village Enterprise

Village Enterprise’s mission is to end extreme poverty in rural Africa through entrepreneurship, innovation, and collective action. We work with vulnerable women, refugees, and youth who are most impacted by climate change, conflict, and displacement, and equip them with skills and resources to launch climate-smart businesses, build savings, and put themselves and their families onto a sustainable path out of extreme poverty. Village Enterprise has started over 74,000 businesses, trained over 264,000 first-time entrepreneurs, and positively transformed the lives of over 1,565,000 people in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

Contact

Brett Slezak, Vice President of Marketing and Communications
bretts@villageenterprise.org   |   +1 (254) 541-7250

The post A $7M Gift from MacKenzie Scott Will Help Village Enterprise End Extreme Poverty for 20 Million People in Africa appeared first on Village Enterprise.

‘Do you want to slaughter the chicken?’

Harriet and Philomena are both looking at me expectedly as the bird wriggles under Harriet’s armpit. Behind them one-year-old Israel crawls back and forth across the immaculately swept floor of the compound, leaving little wet patches where he sits. Six-year-old Ken shimmies up the mango tree to attach a rope swing, completely ignored by his mother and grandmother as he balances precariously in the branches.

‘No thank you,’ I say, avoiding making eye contact with the soon-to-be dinner. ‘I’ve not done it before, and I think it’s best to leave to you. I can help with cooking though?’

Philomena nods, takes the chicken from her daughter, and disappears in the thatched hut that I believe is the kitchen and storeroom. Harriet frowns critically at my dress. ‘You need to cover up because of the fire,’ she tells me, and fetches a green scarf to wrap around my waist, protecting me from waist to ankles. I do as I’m told although this additional layer is vaguely torturous in the heat. In what seems like less time than it takes me to buy a chicken in Carrefour, Philomena is back with a dead, plucked animal.

‘I’m not actually a very good cook,’ I tell them both as I follow to the thatched hut that houses the charcoal fire. They both turn to stare at me, incredulous. I get the feeling they would be less surprised if I told them I had two heads than if I said I was a woman who didn’t know how to cook.

‘We can teach you!’ Harriet proclaims enthusiastically. Philomena agrees, but very quickly they decide that I am more hindrance than help. ‘Siobhan, take Auntie round the village with Chairman,’ Harriet instructs, shooing me away.

*

I have worked at Village Enterprise for the past six years, but this is the first time that I have spent a full 24 hours in one of the villages we serve. While I am passionate about our impact and team, can cite statistics, and have met many entrepreneurs we’ve trained, I learn very quickly in this visit to Opadoi Village that this is not enough. What I have been seeing is the Big Picture; but I have been missing the Whole Picture.

Let me explain another way. When I was a child I was given a ‘painting by numbers’ kit. This was a picture made up of lots of different small shapes, each one with a number in the middle. On the back there was a key that told me what color corresponded with what number. For example, all 1s were to be painted a spring green, all 2s a dark green, all 3s a deep blue, etc. The idea was that when the painter completed the picture, what had originally looked like a random collection of small shapes revealed a beautiful landscape.

At the start of the week I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what made up Village Enterprise’s beautiful landscape. However, impact, case studies, and drive-by field trips don’t capture the way that expressions flit across Philomena’s face like clouds across the sky on a windy day. They don’t capture the fierceness of Harriet’s hug, or the sweaty small of your back from dancing until the whole village collapses in exhaustion. They don’t capture the fact that although Village Enterprise is an important part of these people’s lives, they are not defined by their business success. It is almost as though a color is missing in the paint-by-numbers picture I had. I could see the Big Picture, but not the Whole Picture. I was missing the color that gives warmth, depth, and vibrancy.

I was missing the yellow.

*

Siobhan is seven years old and delighted to be appointed as one of my tour guides. She narrates life as only young children can; telling me so-and-so is fat, that those boys are definitely going to fall off the motorbike if they continue to drive like that, and all men like playing cards. A potentially unreliable guide on her own, she is joined by John, the Village Chairman. John was elected Chairman four years ago and takes his role extremely seriously. He is obviously well-respected by the village he serves, and seems related by blood or marriage to a good number of the households. As we walk I hear him remind a group of men sitting under a tarpaulin that bar-holes are not going to be open tonight, in honor of the visitor.

‘See! I told you!’ crows Siobhan as she notes the men are playing cards.

‘Yoga,’ I say, greeting the men who smile at me and gesture me to join their game, in spite of the fact I have potentially ruined any fun plans they may have had for later.

‘We need to keep going,’ John tells them, marching me forward. ‘We have a lot to see.’

There are a total of 114 households in the village, with an unpaved road running through the center. In the time I am there I don’t see any cars; most people are either walking or riding bicycles. There is no power (although plenty of houses have small solar lights and some also have solar radios), and jerry cans snake in queues as women gather at the water points. Most of the village is navigated by small, dusty paths that weave between homes and dry grass. ‘Climate change,’ John tells me. ‘It makes our businesses hard.’

The first house we visit belongs to Deborah. She sees us in the distance and starts running towards her compound, carrying a chair for me to sit on. Her home is typical of the rest in the village; a dusty plot of earth surrounded by small, thatched huts–each one a separate room with a separate function. Deborah shakes my hand and smiles shyly as I compliment her on her Village Enterprise t-shirt. She tells me that the Business Savings Group all saved to buy matching t-shirts. I am told to sit on the chair, and Siobhan perches on the tree trunk that serves as a second seat.

‘No Siobhan!’ I tell her, ‘Deborah is the grown up, so she gets to sit down!’ Siobhan rolls her eyes at me and disappears to play with some of the children that have been following us since we left.

‘I used to be the one who begged for food at my neighbors,’ Deborah begins. ‘But now that I have a business, I can feed all my children.’ As she says the last part she visibly grows in stature. I ask her what her business is, and she describes that after Village Enterprise’s training she interviewed her neighbors and found there was a demand for fish.

‘That’s right,’ John confirms. ‘Everyone comes to Deborah’s house now when they want to buy small fish.’

Deborah has seven children, and is so proud she can now feed them and afford medicine. As we walk to the next house I ask John what this means for gender relations and whether it caused any problems. ‘Oh no. Actually, we men were having a lot of pressure to get money for the family and we are happy it is now a team effort!’

The crowd of children following us is growing in number and Siobhan takes my hand proprietarily. Emboldened, another little girl pushes forward from the group to take my other hand, and the rest trip along happily at our heels.

‘This is Janet,’ John says, introducing me to an older woman when we arrive at the next household. ‘She is also a Village Enterprise participant.’

Janet is enthusiastically whooping and waving her arms. She pulls me into one of her huts and my eyes take a moment to adjust to the sudden darkness. One side of the hut is portioned off with a blanket hanging down. She reaches underneath and finds what she is looking for–a plastic basket. Opening this she shows me a mat, some plates, and some mugs. John is poking his head in the doorway. ‘She is showing you what she bought with her SWAP savings!’

‘Wow! They are very beautiful!’

Janet nods in delighted agreement and wants to be photographed with her new belongings.

Siobhan meanwhile has badgered one of Janet’s adult children to shake some mangoes from the tree. ‘Shiv! They’re not ripe!’ the man says in futile protest, even as he starts shaking the tree. Siobhan just shrugs, concentrating on trimming her fingernails with a razor blade she found on the floor. A couple of mangos fall down.

‘I’ve just realized!’ the man says, handing them to her, ‘At dinner last night you said that expecting mothers like unripe mangos… your Mum is having another baby?!’

John smiles at this sideshow and turns his attention back to me and Janet. ‘Village Enterprise has really changed this community,’ he says. Janet adds something as I show her the photos I have taken on my phone. ‘She says she was the one playing the drum when you were dancing,’ he translates. ‘And she will do it again later.’ My big smile is swept aside by an enthusiastic hug before we proceed to the next household.

‘This must be the last one,’ John tells me. ‘Philomena will be waiting for us.’

Siobhan’s hand is now sticky from mango juice, adding to the layer of sunscreen, sweat, and dust I am coated in. ‘We are lucky because you have come to see us, Auntie,’ she confides as we trek along the path, side-by-side.

‘No,’ I correct, ‘I am lucky because I have come to see you.’

Siobhan pauses a moment, squints up at me, and then nods at the veracity of this statement. ‘Yes. You are lucky to come and see us.’

I recognize the owner of the next household from our dancing earlier in the day. Her energy and smile had been unmatched as she danced for joy, not for Instagram.

John says his greeting and then turns to me. ‘This is Alice. Her business is cassava.’

We walk thirty meters behind Alice’s compound and there is cassava drying in the sun, a machine for grinding, and several bags ready to take to market. I ask Alice about her business, and she tells me that this is something that she did before Village Enterprise. I am initially surprised, as we consistently refer to our participants as ‘first-time entrepreneurs,’ but of course. Of course people like Alice aren’t just sitting around waiting for help. Of course they are trying to do something.

‘What’s different now?’

Alice looks puzzled.

‘I mean, compared to before Village Enterprise?’

‘My children are in school and we eat different foods.’

I nod enthusiastically. ‘That’s wonderful! But what made the difference?’

Both Alice and John seem non-plussed by this question. It takes several attempts at asking it in different ways before Alice understands what I am asking. ‘We now make a profit,’ she tells me. ‘And if we are not making a profit, we know we need to change the business.’

‘So the business was not making money before?’

‘No–we didn’t know how to make money.’

‘Or how to know if they were making money,’ John adds. ‘Because they weren’t thinking of profit or record-keeping.’

Alice eyes up the bags of cassava. ‘But even now lots of people are doing cassava. We are thinking that we might change to millet to make more profit. And I have planted greens in my garden for my own household business.’

As we contemplate this decision an elderly gentleman approaches on his bicycle.

‘Ah, this is also John!’ John says. ‘John is one of our savings group treasurers and a village elder, and is joining us for dinner.’

John dismounts and greets us. We say goodbye to Alice, and John pushes his bike behind me. Siobhan has disappeared–hopefully to give some mangoes to her mother before she eats them all herself, although I have my doubts.

‘John has a very good business,’ John the Chairman tells me.

John the Treasurer nods. ‘I sell hides. Skins of animals.’

It’s hard work, he tells me, and no one else wants to clean the skins so everyone knows that he is the one to do it. He has been doing the business for years, but it is only since Village Enterprise that he has managed to make a profit. Before he didn’t know how to run a business–only how to clean hides. He is now doing very well.

‘So well,’ John the Chairman adds as we arrive back at Philomena’s, ‘That he managed to pay for his neighbor to take her son to hospital when he had a motorbike accident yesterday.’ John the Treasurer acknowledges this with only the slightest flicker of his mouth as he props up his bicycle.

Village Enterprise often talks about Ubuntu being our north-star value, and not for the first time I see how brightly this star shines in Opadoi Village. Obviously brighter than I am currently shining, as Harriet takes one look at me and instructs me to bathe before dinner. By the time I return from my bucket shower it is getting dark.

‘Switch off the light,’ Chairman John tells me. ‘We do it natural.’

I obey and the night sky above stretches out with an impossible number of stars. We eat in the moonlight; tearing the chicken with our hands.

‘The whole village says they are sleeping with Auntie Mzungu tonight,’ Harriet says with a laugh. She and Philomena are eating on a mat on the ground with the children, while the men and I sit on chairs in front of a low table. ‘But it is really only me, Ken, and Israel.’

I suspect the fact we shared a room for a night will be a story that Harriet tells for many years to come. And I know that it will be a story that I tell for many years to come.

For today is the day that Opadoi Village helped me to find the missing yellow.

The post The Missing Yellow appeared first on Village Enterprise.

We’re proud to report that the study showed overwhelmingly positive results, and a sustained and often increasing impact for our entrepreneurs and their families. In fact, both household consumption and savings continued to rise after the end of our program with an 83% increase in consumption and a 933% increase in savings over five years. You can read the full report here.

“We’re thrilled to share our new longitudinal study results, which show sustained or improved results for the households we serve five years after participating in the Village Enterprise graduation program,” says Celeste Brubaker, Chief Impact Officer at Village Enterprise. “These findings are complemented by our recent external RCT results, which found no evidence of declining program impact over time. Results from both studies are especially remarkable given that final data collection for both took place in 2021 when millions of households in Africa were being pushed back into poverty due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data builds a compelling case that Village Enterprise graduates first-time entrepreneurs into a state of resilience.”

Building resilience is extremely important in Sub-Saharan Africa, as the negative impacts of climate change, inflation, and the pandemic all have the potential to be catastrophic for families living in extreme poverty. The results from the longitudinal study provide more strong evidence that our program equipped entrepreneurs with the skills they needed to adapt to the negative economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting their ability to adapt to future crises, or global and local shocks. Of note, 88% of the entrepreneurs in this study also reported the skills they learned through Village Enterprise helped them cope with the economic shocks of Covid-19. 

The longitudinal study results are especially meaningful as they build on the results from the Village Enterprise Development Impact Bond. Independently evaluated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) by IDinsight, our program achieved a projected lifetime benefit-cost ratio of 540%. In other words, for every $1 invested in the communities, over $5 of new income is generated by our entrepreneurs. The social benefits far exceed what it cost Village Enterprise to implement the program, including training entrepreneurs, awarding seed capital grants, and providing ongoing business mentoring and support during the first year. This showcases the immense power of our graduation program to sustainably and cost-effectively increase the income of our entrepreneurs, putting them on a sustainable path out of extreme poverty. Just like our longitudinal study, the RCT results were achieved despite the onset of the pandemic and the subsequent market closures and country-wide lockdowns.

On top of these achievements, we have made significant improvements to our program since 2017. These improvements include the implementation of a powerful adaptive management system, a streamlined and more interactive training curriculum, and the use of digital technologies—such as videos and mobile cash transfers—to maximize our efficiency and overall impact. Since these improvements were implemented after entrepreneurs in the longitudinal study graduated from our program, we hope to see even greater results for our entrepreneurs in future studies.

To further magnify our impact in the years to come, we plan to continue testing the latest technologies and methods for training, coaching, and evaluating. Most importantly, we will continue to keep our entrepreneurs at the forefront of everything we do. In an era of increased global shocks from Covid-19, conflict, and climate change, it is imperative we make sure the most vulnerable families have access to our program, equipping them with the skills and resources to adapt and thrive. To learn more about the Village Enterprise longitudinal study, read the full report using the link below. 

“In addition to confirming the persistent and often growing impact of our program in the communities we serve, the report contains important insights on outcomes for different population segments and the mediating influencers of impact,” Celeste says. “This is a fantastic read for anyone interested in learning more about fostering entrepreneurship and resilience among women living in extreme poverty in rural Africa.”

Read the full report here.

The post Results from the Village Enterprise Five-Year Longitudinal Study appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Great progress has been made in alleviating extreme poverty. According to the World Bank, the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped significantly from 1.9 billion people in 1990 to 689 million in 2017. But due to the Covid-19 pandemic, that progress has stalled for the first time in 25 years.

What does the evidence point to as possible solutions to this problem? The evidence suggests that entrepreneurship and innovation play important roles in driving poverty alleviation. Identifying and scaling up the most cost-effective, evidence-based solutions have never been more urgent as the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and sociopolitical conflict could push hundreds of millions of people into extreme poverty. Microcredit, cash transfers, and poverty graduation programs are three different approaches to providing people living in extreme poverty with a pathway out.

In the 2000s, these approaches underwent rigorous evaluations using randomized controlled trials (RCT) to generate evidence about the effectiveness of each approach. However, it wasn’t until 2019 that Michael Kremer, Abhijit Banerjee, and Esther Duflo were recognized as Nobel Laureates in Economics for recommending that we solve the problem of extreme poverty by using evidence to drive policy decisions and the allocation of funding.

In 2006, Muhammed Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Grameen Bank for their approach to eradicating poverty through microlending. However, the results of the RCTs demonstrated a less than impressive impact that microcredit has in increasing the income of those living in poverty: while microcredit did lead to some increase in small business ownership and business activity, it did not lead to increased income or profits, investments in children’s schooling, or substantial gains in women’s empowerment. Without increases in overall income, the loans did not lift people out of poverty for the most part.

In more recent years, there has been more interest in scaling up cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty. Cash transfers are efficient to distribute using mobile technology and provide people living in poverty with the flexibility and agency to decide how to allocate the funds. But the evidence on the effectiveness of cash transfers is mixed, and most of the evidence on cash transfers focuses on shorter-term results. While cash transfers can be impactful, they fail to address all the challenges households face beyond just capital constraints. We believe the variance in households that are ready to productively use cash transfers and variances in the amount, duration, recipient, conditions of cash transfers are the key drivers of the mixed effectiveness seen in the evidence base.

This leaves us to discuss the effectiveness of poverty graduation programs like the one Village Enterprise uses. Community-based and locally-led, the Village Enterprise poverty graduation program equips Africans living in extreme poverty with a cash transfer, training, and year-long mentoring by a local business mentor to start and successfully run group-based income-generating businesses and savings groups. Digital technology and a group-based approach make this more scalable and cost-effective. The advantage of poverty graduation programs is that they address multiple poverty traps: cash transfers address the lack of money; new businesses address the lack of economic opportunities; training addresses the lack of skills and knowledge; mentoring addresses the lack of confidence, know-how, and empowerment; savings groups address the lack of access to financial institutions; and more recently, digital tools tackle the lack of access to—and knowledge of how to use—technology.

One of the most important things we have done as an organization is to invest in research. When we wrote our strategic plan back in 2010, we included the priority to do an independent randomized controlled trial to develop the evidence for our new model. RCTs are now considered the gold standard for evaluating programs but this was quite a novel approach for a nonprofit with a small budget. While similar to the BRAC model that was evaluated in six countries under the CGAP, Ford Foundation research, Village Enterprise’s model had some important differences: a cash transfer rather than an asset transfer, the cash transfer given to a group of three individuals who self-select to run a group business, and training and mentoring at the group level rather than the household level and a one-year duration rather than a two to three year. These differences made our model significantly less expensive than the other graduation programs evaluated.

The independent randomized controlled trial results showed the Village Enterprise program generated one of the highest returns in overall consumption and household expenditure per dollar invested. Six of the seven randomized controlled trials of the poverty graduation approach, including Village Enterprise’s, generated positive results across multiple poverty indicators and important subjective well-being indicators like mental health, women’s empowerment, agency, and standing in the community. The evidence also demonstrated increases in income, consumption, savings, assets, food security, and nutrition. These results validated our theory of change, which posits that the ultra-poor households we serve face multiple barriers to leaving extreme poverty, and so cash or asset transfers must be complemented with other contextually relevant interventions such as financial and business training, mentoring and coaching, savings groups and so forth to help them productively invest the capital and launch their journeys out of poverty. As this evidence has emerged, funders, policymakers, and governments have begun to recognize and prioritize the poverty graduation approach.

If you are interested in learning more, please view Dianne’s video talk and/or podcast interview (see below), where she explored the evidence behind these different approaches, the latest innovations that could increase their impact, and the most promising approaches to scaling up the most effective solutions.

The post Harvard Center for International Development Speaker Series: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Evidence to Drive Poverty Alleviation appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Fast forward two years. Our team is working directly with the County Government of West Pokot to create a program that can be replicated throughout the region. The goal is to create opportunities so more people like Penina can experience positive life changes through business training and access to resources. This new venture is called The Economic Justice Program and is an Open Society Foundation (OSF)-funded project providing technical assistance to the County Government of West Pokot, Kenya. Additionally, this project is in partnership with Wasafiri Consulting, a think tank that helps leaders and their organizations—including governments—tackle some of humanity’s most complex problems. Through this project, we seek to empower business savings groups by registering existing groups into producer organizations, training the producer organizations, and then linking them to wholesale markets.

The county government has embraced Village Enterprise’s economic inclusion program and demonstrated its commitment through the cabinet to ensure that all programming within the county is adjusted to fit the element of economic inclusion. The commitment is visible through the involvement of the Governor, Professor John Lonyangapuo. The Governor is willing to partner with Village Enterprise to ensure that economic and social inclusion is in line with his vision to promote equity, ensure quality education, and strengthen the economy in the county. The governor appreciates the economic inclusion program and pledges to work closely and in partnership with Village Enterprise throughout the project to deliver the agreed-upon plan.

The Economic Justice Program is the first of its kind, a pilot project that will significantly assist the West Pokot County Government. This project has helped increase the capacity of government officials within their policy formulation processes and enabled them to address current gaps at the county level. The policy that will evolve out of the Economic Justice Project will be a tool for resource mobilization, fund utilization, and program implementation. Future policies will be formulated with best practices in mind while addressing illegalities that were present before and ensuring the presence of supporting systems.

The County Executive Committee Member of Finance, the Honorable Augustine Lotodo Monges, tells us that he is excited about the project and notes that the economic inclusion program would positively change how resources are shared and distributed at the county level. He affirms that “this is due to the noble idea of formulating a policy that will guide the distribution of resources in West Pokot County. Our target participants will be the poorest of the poor, as opposed to how it has been before, and this will go a long way in ensuring social and economic inclusion, hence improving the economy of our county.” He adds that the capacity of county executive committee members in the planning and budgeting processes, as well as the formulation and implementation of policies at the county level, will be improved after the various training sessions the cabinet received because of the Economic Justice Project.

Mrs. Emily Chepoghisio, the County Executive Committee Member for Youth Sports, Tourism and Gender, acknowledges that the Village Enterprise approach would place emphasis on targeting young people, women, and economically vulnerable groups. She notes that adjusting the programs at the county level will positively impact the community. 

County Executive Committee Member for Education and Technical Training, Mrs. Ruth Kisabit, adds that “the addition of training focused on economic inclusion will be eye-opening for those who benefit from resources at the county level. They will be well-equipped with sufficient knowledge to uplift their lives.” 

An entrepreneur, who is also a participant of the ongoing Village Enterprise’s Economic Justice Program in West Pokot County, Rose Chelimo, has this to say about the approach:

“Village Enterprise’s poverty Graduation approach has impacted my life and that of my family. My group started with 50 chickens in 2019, and we now have 500 chickens within this short period. With the help of Village Enterprise, my group with three other groups will be registered as a producer organization, which means another milestone in economic inclusion.”

Ms. Chelimo is excited that they will now be eligible for government assistance provided to co-operatives including loans at lower rates of interest and relief in taxation. “We can now engage in major investments going forward,” she explains with a broad smile on her face.

With the support of Village Enterprise’s Economic Justice Program, Rose and other first-time entrepreneurs will be linked directly to value chains without interference from intermediaries, a nuisance by which they were previously constrained.

The Economic Justice Program intends to have buy-in from the County Government of West Pokot in order to incorporate the economic inclusion program in its future interventions, as a way of sustaining efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Nancy Chumo, the Country Director of  Village Enterprise Kenya, noted that this new program contributes to our organization’s strategy of scaling through governments. She tells us that, “in such an arrangement, it is impressive to see the West Pokot County Government adopt an economic inclusion program in service delivery, resource allocation, and governance.” This is an exciting time for the Village Enterprise Scaling Team as we begin drafting the Poverty Graduation Policy, a product of our strong technical assistance. This is also an exciting time for many of our entrepreneurs as the market linkage connection allows enterprises and savings groups the ability to receive increased returns from their investments due to better prices from more established markets.

The post Scaling the Village Enterprise Economic Inclusion Project: Partnership with Local Government appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Meanwhile, sitting in Nairobi, 2,500km away from Lomako, Village Enterprise’s scaling team is preparing to work alongside AWF to reach people just like Limbute. With funding provided by the Arcus Foundation, our team begins strategizing. The goal of this unique partnership is to determine whether Village Enterprise’s poverty Graduation Model can operate in such a different and challenging context. If the program can thrive, it will showcase whether this joint venture will positively impact the perception of the park and AWF, thereby reducing illegal hunting. The project is ambitious, but Village Enterprise is a pioneer in the poverty alleviation field, and innovation is our greatest strength.

Over the course of two years, our scaling team adapted our materials to the Lomako context and developed new training materials. The first year of this partnership was spent establishing Village Enterprise’s poverty Graduation Model alongside the AWF team. This included recruitment and training of field staff to set up the monitoring and evaluating systems. Upon their return to East Africa, the Village Enterprise team members continue to provide remote technical support to the AWF team and plan follow-up monitoring visits. 

For Anthony Omogin, our lead field associate, traveling to Lomako in 2018 marked his first time outside of East Africa. He was struck by the extreme poverty in the DRC; he saw large families sharing tiny palm leaf houses and children with distended bellies. Anthony spent hours on the back of a motorbike weaving down forest paths and over makeshift bridges to get to the next village. However, as the project continued, his impression of extreme poverty faded as he witnessed the incredible resilience and positive attitude of the people. Anthony recalls his interactions with Boyella Heretay, an orphan who could not afford to go to school and was learning to hunt instead. Like Limbute, Boyella spent months in the forest and was imprisoned by the park authorities when he was caught hunting illegally. He jumped at the chance to set up an alternative business enterprise so that he would no longer have to hunt illegally to make a living. Charly from AWF lived in Lomako years ago and is familiar with AWF’s recent work in the park.  He told Village Enterprise, “I am amazed to see the difference the program has made to the individuals that participated.  Lomako is a very difficult, complex context, and so the fact that the entrepreneurs have succeeded is even more impressive.” Adam from Arcus visited the project in March 2020. He wrote, “We have supported Village Enterprise to deliver their program in Western Uganda over the past several years, but this is the first time we supported them to provide technical assistance to another organization and the first time they worked in the DRC.  When I was in the field, I was struck by how the project has not only lifted local people out of poverty but also significantly improved relationships between these communities and the state partners responsible for managing biodiversity.”

After a few months of receiving business training and a small grant, Limbute opened a little pharmacy. With the income from this small business, he now not only can afford to send his children to school, but he is also paying for himself to go back to school. Anthony reports, ‘He said that during school break, the children would run up to him and say, “Hey, Daddy, will you give us some small money so we can buy a snack?” And he could give them something small. He says that he’s not ashamed of going back to school and studying very hard – he wants to become a doctor.

Limbute no longer hunts in the forest. He is now a respected business owner with a joint pharmacy and a family enterprise he established with his wife after earning enough income through his pharmacy. The family business is focused on buying household commodities (e.g., salt, sardines, sugar) from far-flung markets and selling these items in his village. Limbute’s life has changed entirely, and youth in his community are now coming to him seeking business advice!  

Inspired by Limbute’s success, Village Enterprise’s scaling team continues to seek opportunities to make strides in our mission to end extreme poverty. Before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, our team was conducting scoping trips to other regions in the DRC and Congo-Brazzaville to see whether our poverty Graduation model could be adapted to support the efforts of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Additionally, we have just signed a contract to support World Vision to implement an adapted version of our poverty Graduation program in Cyclone Idai impacted areas of Mozambique.  We are also working with other international humanitarian organizations to adapt our program to work with refugees. 

All of this requires working with partners who are equally passionate about ending extreme poverty. If you share our passion, please get in touch, and, together, we can find a way to raise the human race out of poverty.

The post Decreasing Illegal Poaching with Enterprise Solutions appeared first on Village Enterprise.

– Winnie Auma

Winnie Auma is the Uganda Country Director of Village Enterprise. She has been a part of Village Enterprise since 2010 and held numerous positions within the organization. She holds degrees in Education and in Business Administration and Management, and was selected by the Harvard Kennedy School in May 2019 to participate in their Emerging Leaders Program for rising U.S. and international leaders. Winnie narrates an audiobook chapter of Peter Singer’s 10th-anniversary edition of his landmark book on reducing extreme poverty, The Life You Can Save, alongside celebrities Kristen Bell, Stephan Fry, and Paul Simon.

Peter Singer published his landmark book The Life You Can Save in 2009 to demonstrate why we must help those living in extreme poverty and illustrate the many ways to save lives by giving effectively.  In the decade since, the book has created massive change reducing global extreme poverty, founded a nonprofit organization of the same name to promote the idea of effective giving, raised millions of dollars for effective charities, and improved countless lives.

The 10^th Anniversary Edition of The Life You Can Save addresses the continuing need for change and aims to inform, inspire, and empower all to help those in need. Village Enterprise’s Uganda Country Director, Winnie Auma narrates a chapter of the audiobook version alongside celebrities Kristen Bell, Stephan Fry, Paul Simon, and more, and Village Enterprise is prominently featured in the section “Better than Aid” of the book. Download the ebook and audiobook here for FREE today.

The post When you touch a life, you’re changing generations appeared first on Village Enterprise.

I follow Santa through tall grasses, past banana plants that are slightly bent as if in a mid-bow after a tremendous ballet, and by sorghum and maize fields. She pushes her hands ahead and breaks any branches or plants that are blocking the path. We reach a sea of white cotton buds and enter the thick bush to find her fellow business owner busy harvesting. They share a greeting, and then Santa also begins plucking the fluffy crop from its beige cocoon. Santa began this cotton business a few months ago through the Village Enterprise market linkage pilot program in partnership with The Gulu Agricultural Development Company (GADCO). The business has given Santa hope. It has given her the ability to see that there are more possibilities in this world, which is something she hasn’t always been able to realize.

Life has been difficult for Santa. She spent more than five years in a refugee camp during the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency in northern Uganda when she and thousands of families were exiled from their homes. The camp was only a few kilometers from her family home and it was there that she gave birth to a child that only lived a few months. Then her husband was killed by the LRA. Santa was destroyed. She did not know how to carry on with life.

Eventually, she married her current husband and together they planted beans and sorghum during their first year of marriage. But the LRA burned everything to the ground. Then, they bought an ox and plow, but the ox died. Things felt pretty dire for Santa. It was one thing after the other. She carried on for a few years without a source of income and struggled to put food on the table.

Mirriam Aguti, a Village Enterprise business mentor, is the person who put an end to Santa’s difficult situation. She invited her to join the Village Enterprise program and learn how to start a business of her own. She rigorously applied herself to the lessons presented by Mirriam and became energized by the independence she gained from knowing how to earn and spend her own money. She was so inspired that she has since recruited many people to join the Village Enterprise program to start businesses of their own. She is an inspiration in her community due to her hard work and commitment to her cotton growing business.

Santa’s energetic joy cascades around her being and it is contagious: she was elected the Chairwoman of her business savings group, which is composed of ten three-person businesses or 30 individuals, because of her determined spirit. People are drawn to her because of her charisma and wisdom. She has an exceptional ability to bring people together and make them feel confident and strong.

Santa learned from Village Enterprise business trainings the importance of caring for her community: she goes and advises people in order to help people in her community feel cared for and to resolve conflicts.

“You are stronger and do better in a group than alone. Someone may be in a poor situation, Village Enterprise can uplift that person by helping him/her start a three-person business. When three people are given $150, together they come with different ideas and different skill sets, and they think through the smartest ways they can use that money to build a successful and profitable business.”

Santa dreams to build her own concrete house for herself and to build a strong, caring and united community. She is a leader determined to continue to uplift her village and to be an inspiration to those who haven’t been empowered yet.

This #GivingTuesday we want to fund two entire villages in northern Uganda so more people like Santa can realize their potential. Join our campaign: donate.villageenterprise.org/givingtuesday2019

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