Darian Rodriguez Heyman's Blog, page 7

New Financial Technologies Offer Big Benefits to World’s Poor

Financial inclusion – bringing affordable financial services at affordable costs to disadvantaged and low-income groups – has made significant progress in recent years. But there are needs still to be addressed.

The number of adults worldwide without either a bank or mobile money account decreased by 20 percent to two billion last year, as the number of account holders has grown 13 percent in the developing world since 2011, according to The Global Findex Database 2014.

However, women still lag behind men. Only 58 percent of women have bank accounts, compared to 65 percent of men. In addition, hundreds of millions of people in developing countries – banked and unbanked alike – still rely on cash for government payments, transactions and remittances, despite the risks of theft associated with holding cash.

The rapid expansion of global connectivity provides an opportunity to make significant advances in financial and technological inclusion. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has cited mobile banking as one of the four areas which they anticipate will drive major breakthroughs in alleviating poverty and expanding financial inclusion over the next 15 years. And Groupe Speciale Mobile Association, a global association of mobile operators, projects that the number of mobile subscribers will grow from 3.6 billion today to 4.6 billion by 2020, of which 3.8 billion will be mobile internet subscribers.

But we can’t just sit and wait for technology to deliver on its promise. By creatively leveraging innovative financial technology – “fintech” – we can develop solutions that are affordable, convenient, transparent and accessible for more people, achieving impact at scale in markets where social and utility infrastructures may not exist.

That is the driving force behind the Citi Mobile Challenge, a global program designed to bring together developers and partners to support and accelerate digital banking innovation, and to develop solutions that can enable progress in communities across the globe.

The winners of this year’s Challenge were announced last week, chosen from more than 700 registrations from 101 countries. Many of the winning solutions are inclusive by their very nature: some, like Craft Silicon, a company from Nairobi, Kenya, are tackling the gaps in financial services linking social media to mobile payments, while others like Umati Capital are looking past the status quo and are reimagining how small businesses in financially underserved areas of the developing world can access financing and become part of a global supply chain.

Here are six areas where innovative fintech can make a considerable difference for underserved communities:

1. Distribution channels: Solutions that move small business owners away from cash and onto mobile payments, points-of-sale and other logistics systems can enable them to more accurately track the flow of money. Fintech can help connect small businesses with large payers, such as corporations and governments, opening up business opportunities that were previously inaccessible.

2. Transparency and accountability: Introducing digital accounts and payment systems does more than speed up transaction time and lower overhead. It results in a level of transparency and accountability that cash transactions cannot offer. In addition, it enables businesses, governments and individuals to combat fraud, spot and resolve errors, and build trust.

3. Customer on-boarding and identification: For customers who live in remote areas or who lack sufficient official identification, biometric and ID scanning technology can significantly lower customer acquisition costs and improve controls.

4. Financial capability: As the Global Findex and other recent research has indicated, simply introducing safe and accessible financial products does not automatically result in a more inclusive economy. When designed with a proper understanding of the lives and needs of those who will be using them, fintech solutions can empower individuals with the knowledge, skills and behaviors to manage their finances, save for the future and build a healthy financial identity.

5. Expanding rural access: Once upon a time, a community’s proximity to a brick-and-mortar bank branch determined whether that community had access to mainstream financial services. The rapid expansion of [entity display=”mobile” type=”section” active=”false” activated=”false” deactivated=”true” key=”/mobile” natural_id=”channel_3section_22″]mobile[/entity] technology has made it possible for service providers to reach previously underserved rural and remote areas with banking services that enable people to save and transfer money safely – the very definition of financial inclusion.

6. Micro-enterprise access: Increasing access to safe, affordable credit is a key factor for small businesses in developing countries. While organizations like Kiva have been operating in this space for years, there is broad demand for scalable, accessible solutions for supply-chain financing, micro-lending and other services that enable small business owners to weather income fluctuations, buy equipment or inventory, create jobs and thrive.

These are only a few opportunities among many others like payments or credit scoring. It is important to note that these areas are interdependent – each can support the others in promoting financial inclusivity.

Smart implementation is also an important challenge. An innovative technology can only succeed if it is well embedded into the financial ecosystem, with the right business model and the right incentives for stakeholders.

Through viable, scalable and sustainable solutions for business and government, the fintech sector is working to expand financial inclusion in ways that philanthropy alone often cannot.

 

Corporate-NGO Partnerships: Why They Work And Why They Don’t

At our recent Inclusion Inc. conference at The Fletcher School, there was a fascinating conversation between Tim Cross, President of YouthBuild International, and two of YouthBuild’s corporate partners, Lata Reddy, President of The Prudential Foundation and Dina Silver Pokedoff, Senior Manager of Branding for the Saint-Gobain Corporation.

The discussion offered insights into what it takes to get a partnership started with different kinds of corporate entities, and, more critically, what it takes to ensure that the partnership endures.

Corporations and NGOs are very different in their goals, structures, motivating factors and cultures. They enter into relationships with each other with differing objectives.

As these kinds of relationships mature, corporations and NGOs are getting somewhat less wary of each other. They are also investing in fewer partnerships, choosing to focus on specific strategic relationships. But there are still many bumps on the road ahead.

Consider their differing motivations. According to the Corporate-NGO Partnerships Barometer, the primary motivation for a corporation to enter such a partnership is to enhance its brand, reputation and credibility. On the other hand, NGOs enter partnerships primarily to access funds.

It is telling that long-term stability and impact is the second most important motivation for both parties. This suggests that each has an incentive to build long-term relationships.

For the fifth year in a row, the relationship between Marks & Spencer and Oxfam was voted “most admired” in the 2014 Barometer study. What are the factors behind a strong – and admirable – relationship? What can companies and NGOs do to develop such relationships?

In YouthBuild’s case, Tim Cross mentioned five ways in which corporate partners are valuable to his organization.

1. Companies have the jobs. They represent the demand side for YouthBuild’s services – helping young people develop essential skills.

2. Companies have technical expertise that YothBuild does not have.

3. Corporate volunteers are key resources that YouthBuild can draw upon.

4. Companies have leverage with many of the enabling institutions, and with key actors like government. 

5. Companies can provide essential funding for YouthBuild’s programs.

Through the multi-year research study that we are conducting in collaboration with Citi Foundation into what motivates investment in sustainable and inclusive business, we have learned that companies consider social enterprises and NGOs as essential partners in several key areas:

1. Knowledge about execution challenges, facilitating factors and inhibitors on the ground, particularly in unfamiliar territory, like inaccessible parts of developing countries.

2. Talent acquisition from communities where the company has limited reach.

3. Mechanisms for scaling up their operations by creating extensions of the corporate organization.

4. Establishing key relationships with local actors and communities and building brand equity. This would include building credibility and goodwill with political and regulatory bodies as well.

5. Mechanisms for developing market insight by tapping into local customer needs, doing market research and learning from pilots.

The more reasons that each party can cite for entering into the relationship, the greater the likelihood that it will last, and contribute to strategic goals.

Of course, there are many stumbling blocks. Consider five common sets of challenges in initiating, scaling and sustaining partnerships:

1. How compatible are the goals and cultures of the two parties?

2. Are there mutually accepted metrics to gauge the success of the relationship and its impact? Does the relationship lead to tangible business value for the company and measurably contribute to the NGO’s social purpose?

3. Does the inherently asymmetric nature of the relationship lead to friction?

4. To what extent is the relationship dependent on personal connections and chemistry among key individuals?

5. Do differences in time horizons and shifts in priorities, particularly from the corporate side, prevent the development of a long-term, strategic relationship?

Help us move the needle by telling us how you initiate and evaluate inclusive business activities at your organization: take a survey conducted by The Fletcher School in collaboration with Citi Foundation.

Montreal Launches First Social Entrepreneurship Hub

In April, Montreal’s first social entrepreneurship hub, l’Esplanade, opened its doors. The 11,000 square-foot space, located in the booming Mile-Ex district, is a co-working space, a social enterprise incubator and accelerator, and a meeting place for anyone who wishes to start a social business or to finance one, or simply wants find out what a social enterprise is all about.

“We plan on being very inclusive,” says Samuel Gervais, l’Esplanade’s general manager. “We invite traditional businesses to rent co-working space for their employees in order for them to work there a few hours every week. They get to feel the vibe, talk to our social entrepreneurs at the water cooler. This is how projects, and progress, will happen. Otherwise, if it remains a side-track, the concept of social entrepreneurship will reach a plateau.”

For decades, Quebec has had a strong tradition of social economy, but social entrepreneurship has a shorter history in the province. The impulse to grow the ecosystem came from l’Institut du Nouveau-Monde (INM), an NGO that focuses on citizen participation. INM launched a program called “À go on change le monde” (“Ready, set, go, let’s change the world”), an incubator for social innovation. At that time, INM wanted to take social innovation to the next level by offering the community a hub. This is how l’Esplanade was born.

It took two years to make it happen. “We started with a market survey,” says Gervais. “We wanted to verify that there was a real need for our hub, and if there were other projects like ours out there. That is how we discovered Salon 1861, another social enterprise hub created by social entrepreneur Natalie Volland. Our projects are complementary, so we collaborate.”

Natalie Volland is the CEO of Immeubles Quo Vadis, a rare breed of real estate promoters that work on social enterprise initiatives. Salon 1861 will open next summer in Montreal’s La Petite-Bourgogne district. It is located in an old church.

“You have to do a lot of surveys and networking in order to identify the members of the social enterprise community before you can start renting or building any space. Otherwise, your hub will be empty. You need to build traction first,” says Gervais.

Where do you start? “We covered all the angles, you have to. We worked with the economic development community, the foundations, the impact-investing community, the academic world and the co-working community. All these pillars were crucial to the success of our hub.”

L’Esplanade saw no need to reinvent the wheel. Quebec has many programs to help entrepreneurs. The point was to make sure these programs would acknowledge the unique nature of social entrepreneurs and understand their business models.

As for the academic world, many professors who teach and research the social enterprise phenomenon would welcome a hub where they could meet with members of the community and nourish their research. And lots of students are interested in social entrepreneurship, either as a way of life or as a way of making a contribution. Hubs like l’Esplanade need their energy.

Some foundations have identified social innovation as a target for their investments. L’Esplanade is financed by Silver Dollar, Bombardier, and Saputo. It also works with the McConnell Family Foundation.

Finding investors can be quite challenging. “You have to reach out to the impact-investing community,” says Gervais. “You have to network… a lot. More and more financial institutions have impact-investing funds. If you start there, it could be easier to get introduced to impact investors.”

L’Esplanade’s growth strategy includes strong national and international connections to other hubs. “We made contact with hubs and social enterprise organizations in Canada and Europe. We work closely with MaRS, in Toronto, and we are part of Virgin Unite. We also have ties with Canadian co-working associations, such as Coworking Ontario. They helped us develop a health insurance package we will offer to our tenants.”

L’Esplanade’s plans for next year include industry specific initiatives. “We’re inspired by Vancouver and Toronto’s experiences. We want to add sector-focused accelerator programs, aside from our general program. We are targeting smart city and food security startups, for example.”

Epidemic Response Needs an Overhaul

Epidemics are not new to humankind. The Plague of Justinian in 541 AD, the black plague, the WWI flu pandemic – each killed tens of millions. HIV/AIDS has killed more than 36 million people since it was discovered in 1981. Throughout human history, epidemic diseases are estimated to have claimed over 200 million lives.

Increased global efforts

Over the past few decades an increasing number of research groups and academic institutions have been created that are dedicated to stopping infectious diseases. International policies have been drafted and there have been major scientific breakthroughs.

In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the eradication of smallpox, a virus that is thought to have infected humans for millennia, following tremendous global efforts in research and mass immunization. This was the first time that humans deliberately eradicated a virus.

Ebola response weak

The West African Ebola outbreak raises important and urgent questions. Why were the initial cases met with such a slow and unprepared response? The first Ebola outbreak was reported in 1976; the disease is not new.

It’s not just Ebola – other epidemic diseases provide constant reminders that we need new and more innovative ways of responding. Although the first cholera pandemic occurred in 1817, outbreaks still occur almost every year, mostly in Africa. The death toll is usually greatest in areas that lack the money, trained medical personnel, and infrastructure needed to detect outbreaks at their onset and to respond appropriately.

In January of this year the WHO reported a steady decline in cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Then in late March these same countries warned of a possible resurgence of new cases, and President Alpha Conde of Guinea recently declared a 45-day “health emergency” in five regions.

The Ebola epidemic is a global concern. The WHO International Health Regulations are a legally binding agreement to prevent the international spread of disease, through which each of 194 state parties “has new obligations to prevent and control the spread of disease inside and outside their borders”. As populations become more interconnected, and business increasingly globalized, outbreaks are no longer local.

Opportunities for innovation

There is demand for more integrated responses, and better ways of detecting and preventing epidemics before they make the news. There are calls for more efficient management of existing resources, and faster and more cost-effective deployment. We need to ensure not only quantity, but – importantly – quality of care.

Advances in mobile and electronic health technology, sensors, diagnostics and genomics start to offer possibilities. Social entrepreneurs coming from, or working directly with, affected communities in co-participatory models, start to expose some of the needed innovations, not only in terms of products, services, and delivery of care, but of new business models. During the Ebola outbreak, strong leadership from local health workers and government representatives reminded the world of the compelling role of community participation – these are voices that should be heard more often.

Effective data analytics can play a crucial role in helping detect and prevent future outbreaks, particularly if coupled with emerging health technologies. This could feed into existing initiatives, such as the WHO´s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.

Analytics can also serve as a basis for evidence-driven policy-making, efficient resource allocation, and better healthcare management.

It is of utmost importance to understand the lessons that can be drawn from the Ebola outbreak, and above all, what measures can be taken to avert future epidemics.

Does Every Impact Investment Need to Hit the Bullseye?

Suppose there are two investors, each with $10 million and each of whom wishes to earn a positive rate of return.

The first cares nothing about social and environmental scorecards or new impact investing approaches per se, but recognizes she will likely be helping society by investing in the social sectors, such as health or education, in poor nations.

The second investor wants profits plus quantifiable, targeted social impact through a corporate vehicle that is bound tightly, even inextricably, to its social mission. He invests his $10 million in a social enterprise that has a mission-bound charter, commitments to widely approved social impact indicators, and a mandate to incur monitoring costs, even if that means posting a loss in the early days. Perhaps it is a for-profit water distribution program at the village level.

Question: Which investor should we prefer?

I have a confession to make. I once believed that the second investor, the “impact first” investor, was the one that everyone should, and eventually could, opt to support. I deeply believed that the appetite of retail investors for such investments lay just under the surface, if only we could provide the right vehicles.

I now confess that I was wrong. We should actually focus on both types of investor.

Over the past 12 months investment banks, financial advisors, and family offices have all been coming to my agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, saying that their clients want to get involved in impact investing. Finally! I thought. But, guess what? Investors have a hard time finding the pure impact investment vehicles that have the liquidity, exit mechanisms, reporting, and many of the other necessities that a seasoned investor expects.

What is capable of bridging the gap between investor appetite and viable investments? More concretely, where does a financial advisor or an investment bank turn when they want to meet the long-awaited client interest in impact investing?

One answer is sector funds: funds organized around commercial activity that is socially beneficial by definition, such as health care, education, water, microfinance and the like.

Yet is that true impact investing? Advocates have long asserted that impact investing means having the intent to generate social and financial returns and to measure them. Does the intent to generate impact at the investee level matter or is it enough that the investors have intent? If investors are rigorously measuring their impact, isn’t that more important than having intent?

Consider the case of a medical clinic CEO who is having a clear impact because he is targeting low-income families in Senegal. If he is too busy to invest in metrics, do we tell him that he’s not part of our impact investing club? Objective impact measurement systems are hard and it is also hard to prove intent.

We need to recognize that impact investing – along with its precursors, socially responsible investing, blended capital and shared value investing – has evolved to the point that we can and must embrace a wide range of approaches, priorities, target financial returns, and levels of rigor in impact measurement.

We should be mindful of the legitimate concern that if we open the field too wide, we risk a flood of greenwashed investments or “old wine in new bottles” that could undermine the whole sector. But we should also acknowledge that openness to different approaches will involve measurement by degrees, not strict categorizations.

Laurie Spengler of Enclude uses the analogy of a bullseye on a dart board. The purest impact investments will be ones that score highest on their intent to create social value, on the difficulty of the sector, and on the rigor of metrics. And they will most likely represent the smallest circle on the target in dollar terms. They hit the bullseye.

There may be other investment strategies in the concentric rings around that target, each of which has varying degrees of impact, intentionality or measurement rigor. They should be welcome and recognized as important. The farther away from the bullseye, the fewer constraints and the larger the available capital pool.

Whatever one’s strategy, the key now is to be transparent about our investment offerings, so that investors can meet their own priorities and the field can grow in diversity, inclusion, size and impact.

Online to Onsite: Communication to the Rescue

When powerful earthquakes and aftershocks ravaged Nepal in April and May, social media rushed to the rescue. As aid workers, authorities and foreign agencies struggled to save lives amid devastated infrastructure, a parallel aid campaign took off on the web.

Facebook activated its Safety Check feature to help people reassure their friends and families, and victims and eyewitnesses turned to social networks to request help.

When disaster strikes, the first thing that both victims and rescue workers seek is reliable information. Yet when aid organizations and workers engage in rescue efforts in disaster zones, natural or man-made, an essential aid is often put on the backburner: communication.

I was at the Skoll World Forum earlier this year where I attended a session on how to leverage media to get attention. It was an enriching discussion led by Jim Fruchterman, a leading social entrepreneur, and Morgan Clendaniel, founding editor of Fast Company’s Co.Exist site.

Many questions from the audience made me realize that plenty of people still believe that communication strategies are only relevant and effective to raise funds and awareness.

But in reality, communication tools are like first aid – they save lives on the ground when leveraged at the right time.

For example: non-profit software company Ushaidi’s crisis maps have been helping aid workers save thousands of lives and address urgent humanitarian needs around the world. It all began in 2010 in the wake of the Haitian quake. Eyewitnesses flooded Ushaidi with tweets, e-mails and images. Millions of “digital humanitarians” from around the world volunteered to sift and collate relevant information and plot it on a live map. The map helped rescue workers to identify areas where medical care was urgently needed, while victims used the same map to seek aid.

In the same year, a communication campaign saved lives in Afghanistan.

Ribbons of asphalt roads had replaced cratered paths in Afghanistan’s Panjshir valley, but the roads lacked safety signs.  As Afghans zoomed along the freshly tarred roads, the rate of accidents surged, overshadowing the government’s developmental feat.

My former organization Sayara Strategies was called on to roll out print ads, television and radio commercials, and outreach to popular Afghan artists – all to convey a simple, lifesaving message: “drive safely.”

This road safety campaign may seem ordinary, but in a country like Afghanistan, where an entire generation has seen nothing but instability, such campaigns are a basic necessity.

And now with social media on the frontlines, engaging communication strategies can trigger global action within hours or even minutes. These same strategies also bridge the “information gap” between the developed and developing world.

When we design relief plans, the priority question should be: how do we bring not only food and medicine – but also information – to the victims? For when we inform, educate and engage people, they can collaborate for lasting social impact.

Is Place-Based Investment Ready For A Surge in Impact Capital?

For at least a couple of decades now, we’ve seen an incremental, yet steady growth of impact investing within the investment community – that is, the use of capital to generate measurable social or environmental improvements alongside financial returns. This growth, while not insignificant, has not reached anywhere close to its full potential, estimated to be as much as $200 billion. A recent announcement by global investment powerhouse BlackRock that it will unveil its own new vehicle to channel capital for social good could change all that substantially and trigger a boom in impact investing.

That’s tremendously good news for people like me who are working to direct impact investment into urban communities. At the same time, this development challenges us to be ready to capture this new surge of opportunity.

To be sure, there’s nothing new about impact investing per se among the big Wall Street players such as Goldman Sachs or Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, who have long helped clients steer investments to or away from companies based on their environmental, social and governance records. And BlackRock, too, already offers clients ways to focus on these types of considerations.

But because BlackRock brings to its new BlackRock Impact initiative the reputation of a firm that pioneered exchange-traded funds in the 1990s and a $1,974 trillion industry, it has the potential to transform the practice of impact investing at an unprecedented scale. If BlackRock Impact can attract significantly more new funds or channel even a small amount of money away from ETFs, it can pour much more capital into this still-burgeoning field than ever before. Just as importantly, it can also put an end to the question many still ask about whether impact investing is really all hype.

Exciting as this moment is for those of us who have long promoted investment in America’s cities to improve the lives of low-income people and communities, it won’t be a cinch to capture a considerable portion of the coming swell of capital.

Close observers know that, disproportionately, impact investors tend to think first about funding projects in developing countries, not in the U.S., where there are still enormous needs. We need to give investors good reasons to believe that there are investable opportunities here at home.

Also, we need to make it easier to identify investment opportunities in places – that is, in the physical and social infrastructure of communities.

That, too, will be a challenge, but not impossible. But there lately has been an impressive increase in innovative new place-based investment opportunities, approaches and methodologies that could very well attract a growing pool of impact capital. Among them:

Crowdfunding. Locally crowdfunded, direct investments are now generating much-needed capital for community development projects and more. A Washington, D.C., startup Fundrise, for example, allows pools of local investors to back real estate projects in their own neighborhoods, with contributions big or small. It already has aggregated more than $30 million for local projects.

Loan dollars raised and dedicated to place. Organizations like the Calvert Foundation are making it easier for citizens to lend money in their own communities. The Foundation’s Ours to Own campaign, for instance, is trying to raise more than $30 million from people who want to invest in their own communities – for as little as $20 – to the Foundation’s Community Investment Note on Vested.org.

Peer-to-peer lending. Microfinance grants that enable loans to entrepreneurs and others have been perfected internationally by groups like Kiva. But we’ve seen in recent years a growing number of projects in the U.S., albeit in a limited number of cities, based on the same concept, coordinated through Kiva Cities. Each Kiva City is a partnership of community groups, leaders and microfinance organizations working together to fill the funding gap faced by many of our nation’s small businesses owners.

Locally raised venture capital.  One firm, Cutting Edge Capital, is on the road to mainstreaming Direct Public Offerings, enabling companies to “advertise freely and directly to the public and sign up an unlimited numbers of ‘accredited’ and ‘unaccredited’ investors (in other words, anyone).” They featured DPOs for a pickle company, restaurants and a current offering with CERO, a recycling co-op in Boston, and they’ve raised more than $5 million so far.

With innovative vehicles like these and the vast experience among traditional asset managers and philanthropies in how best to support vibrant, self-sustaining urban economies, there’s reason to be hopeful that the place-based impact investment market will capture what I believe will be a growing pool of impact capital.

But that’s not a guarantee, and sitting and hoping it happens is not a strategy for success. All of us who care about strengthening communities right here in America need to be ready to not only make the case for place-based investing but to make a market that can seize – deliberately and proactively – the opportunity before us.

 

 

Education Reform in Pakistan and the Role of NGOs

 

It has been a mixed year for those seeking a foothold on the arduous climb to education reform in Pakistan. But there is also good reason for optimism. The journey, no doubt, will be in small steps and will require patience and perseverance. It will also require a public voice to demand quality education and an efficient system of schooling for all children.

Dedicated organizations and activist groups continue to strive for reform, hoping to see systemic change. The largest and boldest education experiment in Pakistan is the non-profit education system run by The Citizens Foundation (TCF), which provides primary and secondary schools for underprivileged girls and boys in the country’s poorest communities.

With excellent professional management and a focus on delivering quality education, the TCF system stands out as a beacon of success, now poised to expand its influence to thousands of low-cost private schools that could benefit from TCF’s experience and expertise.

After surpassing its target of setting up 1,000 school units, TCF has now set its sights on a larger goal of bringing TCF-like quality education to one million more children through partnership with affordable private schools. TCF is doing this through a franchise model called the Quality Improvement Program, offered at no cost to the private schools.

Causes of the crisis

In my view, the underlying causes of the education crisis are the low priority it is given by policy makers, and a lack of public demand for affordable, accessible, quality education. To achieve real change, education NGOs and reform activists should band together to exert political pressure on the policy makers who hold the education purse strings.

Changing the status quo will also require public outcry and a vocal demand for many more schools and higher-quality education. Collectively, NGOs and other concerned groups need to speak up and mobilize this public demand.

NGOs are already doing outstanding work in altering the lives of thousands of underprivileged Pakistani children by providing better opportunities through education. Their efforts are to be commended and supported. But as a coalition, NGOs can be a stronger catalyst for change.

By default, NGOs and private schools are already a part of the national discourse on education. A coalition, as a collective voice for reforms, would mitigate risks and carry more weight. Such a coalition should strive to be an unbiased, non-political voice of reason and moderation.

So, what should be the role of NGOs in reforming the education system in Pakistan?   Improvements in content and teaching methods are at the top of the agenda. Some NGOs are already experimenting with more effective teaching methods and better, more learner-friendly content in their schools. Here’s how they can work together:

1. NGOs can strengthen pedagogy by using their schools as laboratories for innovative changes in curriculum and teaching methods, e.g. including courses to promote increased tolerance, training teachers to facilitate critical thinking in young minds, and promoting inquiry-based learning.

NGO-run schools should hold joint workshops to discuss and evaluate modern methods of teaching, using current technology and inquiry-based approaches. The next step would be to work towards having these innovations adopted in the public school system. This is where NGOs can play a greater role.

2. Studies confirm that there is a widening gap between education demand and supply. There are 25 million out-of-school children, increasing by three to four million per year. But there is a severe deficit of schools and teacher capacity.

NGOs run a few thousand schools and enroll a few hundred thousand students. They cannot fill the gap or act as substitute service providers. The responsibility for providing universal education rests with the state. The most effective role in this context is for NGOs to act as a pressure group, to lobby the state to discharge its responsibility to the citizens.

3. Education is a right that has to be won through political struggle. It will not be given to the citizens as charity, and we should not expect supply without effective demand. Therefore, NGOs need to act as consciousness-raising groups to mobilize excluded citizens around their basic right to a good education.

4. Both the state and international donors claim to have invested a very large amount of funds in education. This effort has been very high in visibility but very low in impact.

NGOs must act as a watchdog group on behalf of citizens, and demand greater accountability. Collaboration with the media to investigate the outcomes of specific projects would generate the pressure to improve results.

The reform effort will require political capital, as policy makers are more likely to respond to crowds than to individuals. Let’s work together to push for the quality education that is the right of every Pakistani child.

How To Find a Job in the Twenty-First Century

Remember the 2009 romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You? Early on, one character remarks that although you are unlikely to meet someone special in a bar, everybody claims to know somebody whose one-night stand led to true love.

Likewise, everyone knows somebody who got a job through a regular application process. Since this is the path of least resistance, most people are content with it. Yet the overwhelming evidence is that people find jobs based on whom they know and how they spend their time.

Since co-founding Amani Institute, an organization dedicated to providing new talent to the social sector, less than 20 percent of our staff have been hired through a regular application process.

The job-seekers I meet are usually ambitious, intelligent and well meaning. But most are just looking for jobs online and conducting a few half-hearted informational interviews. So they are frustrated that their job search is taking so long.

Furthermore, given their CVs, education levels, and self-assessments of their capabilities, their expectations are high. They are waiting until someone sees that, underneath their cover letters and resumes, lie rare gems whom you would be lucky to hire. Frequently, this is also what they have been led to believe by the career services center at their universities, where they learned this approach to job hunting.

This is what recruiters call “post and pray”, the conventional way to look for employment. But we are living in unconventional times. As Sal Giambanco discussed at the Skoll World Forum in 2014, “The demand for smart professionals who are technologically literate, globally astute, and operationally agile will significantly outpace supply over the next 10-15 years.”

Think about that for a minute. Despite all our best universities and training programs, the supply of talent for our workforce is simply not there. That’s a pretty damning conclusion. But therein also lies the opportunity.

Here are my top suggestions for smart, well-qualified people looking for meaningful, values-driven, self-actualizing jobs – which, really, should be everyone.

1. Close your laptop and go talk to people: Become a real person. Use your professional and alumni networks to set up meetings with people in your field of work. Get used to drinking coffee! Don’t hesitate to ask for advice – people love to share their wisdom.

Prioritize reconnecting with former colleagues, especially those that inspired or guided you in the past. They are often your best referrals because they have worked with you before. At first it may seem like you’re going into the wild without a map but slowly you will make new friends, broaden your professional network (the single most important currency of this era), and start to see patterns and trends that you can tap into.

I’m not suggesting that you refrain entirely from online job hunting; but do it as one part of a broader strategy. Spend your days being active: see points #2 and #3 below.

2. Explore your interests and don’t hesitate to follow a hunch: As you talk to people, share what you are looking for and what work you would consider ideal, but be open to learning about things you don’t yet know you are interested in, even if they aren’t directly related to your job search.

A friend of mine (R) is looking for work in corporate communications but his real passion is food. Another friend of mine (C) recently started a food business incubator. It makes perfect sense for R to explore what C is doing, regardless of the outcome. At best, there’s a job for R. At worst, he’ll have an interesting conversation and broaden his horizons.

In many ways, that’s precisely the point. Since we only connect the dots of our life in hindsight, it is by exploring things at the periphery of your interests that you discover new opportunities. In innovation-speak, this is called the Adjacent Possible and it’s where most new opportunities exist. Since we all want work that makes us personally and intellectually fulfilled, then isn’t it logical to look for that work amongst the things we most like doing?

Most important is realizing this: you do not know all of what’s out there. The world is full of crazy, cool people cooking up wonderful new things. I’m lucky because I meet these people everyday. A great website for this is Escape the City but there are many others as well.

3. See your unemployed time as a gift: Since time is the most precious resource we have, you should view periods of unemployment as a gift to yourself and others.

How will you use this time? Research about generative or creative people shows that their periods of unemployment are often correlated with their greatest productivity.

Therein lies a template. You can volunteer with an organization you care about, or support that friend struggling to get her startup off the ground. At the very least, get started on some of those back-burner ideas you have: start that blog or Twitter account, go deeper into a hobby, finish that photo album of your hiking trip in Nepal.

Staying productive helps you build your resume, do things that make you happy, increase your self-confidence, and may also pay some bills. Through the adjacent possible, it may also lead you to your next job.

There are other parallels between job hunting and dating. The equivalent of posting-and-praying is just going out to bars. People who are truly interested in others tend to find being single easier, because they aim to be intellectually and emotionally engaged by everyone they know. Similarly, people who are actively involved in their industries don’t have to hunt for jobs – opportunities find them.

I’m aware that what I’m suggesting goes against the grain, but in the era we’re living in there are no set rules anymore. So please don’t go by what your career services office told you to do.

The author acknowledges contributions by Nidhi Howell, his sister and a human resources professional.

How Technology Can Help Rebuild Health Systems in Nepal

Our family had just sat down for breakfast, ordered coffee and then the walls around us collapsed. My wife and I covered our children as we sought shelter under a table. It was surreal. Our car was totaled but, thank God, nobody was in it. Our life changed in those 30 seconds. That night we slept in sleeping bags outside our home with the rest of our neighborhood. There were aftershocks all through the night.

The view of the city from our home was completely dark. Kathmandu lost power for 72 hours. That’s 700,000 people without power or Internet. After two shaky nights and making sure the rest of our team at Medic Mobile was safe, we were in Health, Logistics, Emergency, Communications, and Shelter cluster meetings. We’ve seen aid and volunteers come from Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Israel, France, China, and the United States. We are seeing all levels of the government of Nepal working tirelessly to deliver aid. They’re getting the wounded treatment and making sure people have shelter.

We are not an organization focused on disaster response, but our team and our toolkit are in a unique position to help. We have teammates in Kathmandu, multiple active projects in Nepal using our tools, and a relationship with the Ministry of Health and Population. Our immediate focus is helping the government gather and analyze information from hospitals and clinics in affected areas. Medic Mobile can be deployed quickly and is designed to support health workers on their own devices – including smartphones, basic phones, and computers.

We know there is a risk of maternal and child deaths because routine systems of care have collapsed. To address this quickly, we are planning to deploy Medic Mobile for disease surveillance, antenatal care coordination, childhood immunization coordination, disease surveillance, stock monitoring, and general communication. We are working alongside committed partners and focusing on rebuilding in affected districts including Dhading, Gorkha, and Sindalpolchowk.

We are also providing our self-service software toolkit to health facilities and organizations that need it. Using GSM modems, airtime, and our free software, clinics can quickly create offline communication hubs and support community health workers and families.

My family and I have moved back into our home and we’re focused now on using our energy to help. An earthquake quite literally shakes you out of your normal life and immediately throws you into uncertainty. It is precisely this uncertainty that makes the solidarity of individuals, communities, governments and organizations in the relief efforts following an earthquake all the more remarkable.

All of the Nepalis who have worked non-stop during this response have left their own families and homes to help others in their country. Many have lost loved ones and suffered damage to their houses but have chosen to give to others. While the disaster here in Nepal has been devastating, underneath that layer of debris and rubble that we see is dedication, caring and a deep love for humanity.