Global Barter for Disadvantaged Populations
Location
Development and manufacture of self-help items urgently need by the poor to achieve self-sufficiency, and use of a unique global barter trade to help the poor acquire these items without having cash.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Year initiative/program began:
2007
Field of work
Other
If Field of Work is "Other" please define in 1-2 words below (and explain in detail in the entry form):
Service / Activity focus (If "other" please explain in entry form)
Other
Year organization founded (yyyy)
1995
YouTube Upload
None
Project URL
Positioning of your initiative on the Mosaic of Solutions™ diagram:
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Lack of access to markets or products
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Turn hidden value into alternative markets
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic
None
Name Your Project
Global Barter for Disadvantaged Populations
Describe Your Idea
Development and manufacture of self-help items urgently need by the poor to achieve self-sufficiency, and use of a unique global barter trade to help the poor acquire these items without having cash.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Development and manufacture of self-help items urgently need by the poor to achieve self-sufficiency, and use of a unique global barter trade to help the poor acquire these items without having cash.
Describe what makes your idea unique—different from all others in the field.
A series of innovative products give the poor safe, efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly options for soon meeting basic needs, and the affliated barter effort helps the poor acquire these items using whatever they have in surplus.
How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
There are 2.9 billion potential stakeholders for subject innovation, so the challenge is to implement the innovation one village, one area, and one developing nation at a time.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how did you create them?
In Kenya, the starting point, NPI worked to create an affiliated social enterprise, Quick Lift, Ltd., (QL2), to undertake manufacturing and marketing of NPI's self-help products using barter trade as the main feature of the marketing effort(s).
In which sector do these partners work? (Check all that apply)
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
Taking one step at a time, the intended long-term impact is to provide 2.9 billion impoverished people, worldwide, with the opportunity to soon attain self-sufficiency and well-being.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation.
The target populations generally live in social, economic, and political isolation in those nations where they reside --- and they are not part of the global economy. With expanded barter trade, these populations can become a part of that economy and thereby provide for their own well-being.
Does your innovation address and/or change banking regulations?
Change in banking regulations will not be required, but it would be helpful if some banks would accept barter notes used as part of subject barter trade.
How many people does your innovation serve or plan to serve? Exactly who will benefit from your innovation?
As noted above, the long-term plan is to serve 2.9 billion impoverished populations, worldwide.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Financing source
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
Intial funding will be provided by an E.U. Foundation. Expansion will be funded by profits from the barter trade effort operated as a social enterprise.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization:
In 2008, NPI's annual budget will be US$7 million. This revenue was primarily generated by royalty income from NPI's technologies owned. NPI has 5 full-time staff, and 27 volunteers.
What are the main financial barriers and how do you plan to address them?
The only real financial barrier was in raising additional funds needed to develop a unique two-way, satellite-type, text-messaging pager, with foreign language and burst transmission capability, to provide inexpensive communications for remote areas where most barter trade will occur. The pager also needed to be powered using a hand-crank generator. GIT Satellite solved this problem by the development this pager, for NPI.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow the initiative?
The secret to growing the initiative will be to find markets for what poor populations have to trade. As an example, a poor village in Africa wants to acquire potable water and sanitation systems by using Neem seeds to make the trade. For this trade, W.R. Grace Co. will pay cash for Neem seeds since they now use these seeds to make an organic insecticide.
The Story
Please select one
What was the motivation or defining moment that led to the creation of this innovation? Tell us the story.
As a result of five decades of work, in 42 developing nations, NPI's President and founder (Nuttle) invented the self-help products needed by impoverished populations, and then created a unique barter program to help the poor acquire these products without having cash.
Please provide a personal bio of the social innovator behind this initiative.
The inventor, David A. Nuttle, was reared on a Kansas farm and has a B.S. Degree in Agriculture as well as five decades of agricultural development experience in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as the U.S. He is a published author, and inventor of 63 self-help technologies.
Nuttle has received many national and international honors for his work, to include "The Thomas Jefferson Award for Humanitarian Service."
a) Please identify the individuals that your innovation benefits (Please check all that apply)
Producers , Consumers , Holders of assets.
b) Do you help the people you serve to buy goods or services using financial innovation? If so, how?
Subject innovation allows the poor to acquire essential goods by means of unique barter trade. The financial aspect of the innovation is the unique way to convert unusual barter items into the cash needed to operate a social enterprise to benefit the poor.
c) Do you help the people you serve to sell goods or services using financial innovation? If so, how?
Barter trade is used to help the poor sell goods they would otherwise have no market for.
 | daminibutalia said: Very interesting and innovative idea while still being very feasible. Would you have a readily available number on the organisations ... about this Competition Entry. - 1190 days ago read more > |
Comments
Very interesting and innovative idea while still being very feasible. Would you have a readily available number on the organisations that have been able to be a part of this initiative? How are these organisations identified and approached? Further, how are logistics handled for the transport of the barter items? Is it paid for by the organisation and do they get a tax allowance for bearing this cost?
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XLRI University Ambassador
SIGMA, XLRI Jamshedpur, India
sigma@xlri.ac.in