CARE’S WORK ON THE PARTNERSHIP ON WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RENEWABLES (wPOWER)

Quarterly e- newsletter for the Wpower Project Issue no 2 August 2013

wPower Makes a Difference!

For the past 10 months, CARE’s work supported by the U.S. Department of State as part of its broader wPOWER efforts and in collaboration with clean energy suppliers has been implementing the wPower project in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda by engaging Village Agents (mostly women) as sellers and distributors of clean cook stoves and solar lanterns/lamps. Village Agents (VAs) have already started realizing economic and social benefits for being “last-mile” distributors of clean energy products. There are a number of success stories but this space has allowed us to share at least one from each country plus we provide an update in here of the numbers reached, revenues and profits to VAs, lessons and next plans. More below….

A Village Agent in Kenya discloses lasting

benefits from clean energy products

Leonidah Makori is one of CARE Kenya’s most successful franchisees who worked with the previous COSALO project. She facilitated formation of over 1,500 GS&L groups with 6 Community Based Trainers (CBTs) and through 20 Village Agents in her main operation area of Nyamira County. Leonidah has been selling clean cook stoves and solar lamps under wPower not only in Nyamira but also to some of the Kisii County Districts due to the high demand of the Jiko Tosha (M5000) ccok stoves and various solar lamp products being promoted by CARE’s wPower project and its private partners.

Leonidah observes that Jiko Tosha is preferred in her region than Easystove due to its size, design, colour, stability and clientele taste and preferences.

She invested in over 272 Jiko Tosha Cook Stoves and 532 solar lamps (firefly Mobile – 480 units, Power Pack Junior -32 units and Power Pack 5W – 20 units). In the first sales she made a net profit of KES 104,448 ($ 1,258) from Jiko Tosha only.

She reached this number after the first month of thorough training and awareness creation through the CBTs supporting the GS&L groups. She developed a work plan and consolidated various orders from the groups which informed how much to invest as capital. GS&L group members successfully managed to pay for all the products after taking loans from their groups.

Leonidah began stocking the clean energy products four months ago and has since made a second order of 600 Jiko Tosha cook stoves. The products are distributed as soon as they get to the store due to security reasons and with the various group orders, CBTs deliver the products immediately thereby minimizing excess stock.

Leonidah believes that one of the biggest challenges in her County is the poor households spending a lot of money on dangerous lighting solutions such as small paraffin lamps that produce toxic smoke. She shared an example where a drunken man was burnt to death when his small paraffin lamp caught fire. Another GS&L member lost 2 children while asleep after their beddings caught fire from a small lamp close to them.

She believes that the Cook Stoves and Micro Solar Lamps are the right solutions for the GS&L members and their surrounding communities. Leonidah has developed a tracking form that requires members to buy both the cook stove and solar lamps of their choice; this was a marketing strategy to help members save from paraffin and woodfuel costs and reduce poverty. Many non-GS&L members have since joined various groups due to the wPower initiative and Leonidah has greatly benefited from the fee-for-service proceeds as trained by the previous COSALO project.

High costs for transportation is a big challenge due to the hilly terrain where clients live. She requested the supplying companies to reduce the buying price to enable her reduce expenses on transportation across the two Counties and on storage costs.

“What hurt me most was when young girls in Suneka were raped

while collecting firewood this year as well as when GS&L members lose loved ones every now and then due to fires accidentally caused by small paraffin lamps, and smoke related diseases yet these affordable clean products are available to mitigate

these risks” Leonidah Makori

Project Partners:

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VAs in Tanzania sold more than 1600 cookstoves in the exhibitions

Jukuila VSLA Apex and 6 VAs make quick wins at National Annual Trade Fair in Tanzania! JUKUILA is an umbrella/Apex of VAs representing several VSLAs in Ilala district of Dar es Salaam region. JUKUILA was established in October 2010, at the time CARE’s largest VSLA programe, Ongeza Akiba was ending. The association has 900 groups with more than 22,500 active members. In April 2013, ARTI Energy trained 60 members of Jukuila on products knoweldege, sales and marketing techniques. Since then, members of Jukuila have been doing cookstoves and solar lamps sales to a number of customers. ARTI Energy and Jukuila recently participated in the Dar es-Salaam International Trade Fair, known as SabaSaba (July 7th), and the Dodoma’s Kilimo Kwanza Agricultural Fair, known as NaneNane (August 8th). With Jukuila, ARTI formulated a sales structure that maximised incentives and positive outcomes for the apex and the VAs involved along with promoting ARTI’s interests. Six enthusiastic, knowledgeable and committed VAs (women) were identified to work with ARTI as salespeople across the two trade fairs. ARTI and Jukuila spent 17 days demonstrating and selling solar lamps and cook stoves. The events drew huge crowds as is the case each year and ARTI and Jukuila were able to display and distribute its products to a large number of interested customers from all over Tanzania. ARTI provided stock to Jukuila, at wholesale price, that was then sold by the chosen VAs through ARTI’s booth at retail prices thereby earning profits on each product. At the end of each event these total profits were calculated and Jukuila was given the opportunity to directly convert this into stock purchases to supply the large number of VAs in Dar es-Salaam. The VAs involved were given the opportunity to take their share of the profit in the form of stock and then proceeded to make their own profit from its resale to their customers. Across the two events, The 6 VAs sold 1600 clean cook stoves, and eventually earned Tshs 1.6 million (US$ 1,000) margin. ‘We intend to use the profit to increase our stove sales and also extend credit to other individual VAs for wider outreach” Ms Bahati, Vice Chairperson This initiative has provided Jukuila and the VAs with the needed capital to purchase larger amounts of stock while VAs who participated as saleswomen have gained valuable sale expertise. Those involved have been energised by the sales they have made at these events and are keen to expand their own enterprises and capitalise on the market demand for clean energy products they have witnessed. ARTI and Jukuila have already seen a marked increase in the sales orders and enthusiasm of those who participated and is keen to work closely with these entrepreneurs to transfer this positivity toward the project and its products to other VAs in their areas. “Now, we have enough sales and marketing skills acquired from ARTI” Ms Bahati, Vice Chairperson

Issue no 2 August 2013 CARE’S PARTNERSHIP ON WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RENEWABLES (wPOWER)

Immaculee’s strory on Canarumwe clean cook stoves - Rwanda

“I am Immaculee Uwimana, 38 years old. I am married. I have been a member of VSL Group since 2007, now I am the Village Agent managing about 13 VSL Groups in Ruhango district, Kinihira sector here in Rwanda. CARE and Billem introducuded the Canarumwe cooking stoves to us in May 2013 and started to use it in June 2013. Previously, I consumed between 2 to 3 bundles of firewood per day to cook meals, and sometime more than that, but I only use less than 1 bundel which is a third of the cost of fuel I used in the past, it is only 5 pieces of wood and it takes little time for the food to be ready. I am so happy because it makes my life easy and simple. Now, with Canarumwe stove, I can cook three times a day since it’s quick and takes little time to get ready, with no or very little smoke. Fetching the firewood is no longer a problem to my children because the consumption has reduced at high perecentage, cleaning the kitchen is not that difficult - my children are happy to do the cleaning. After using it for sometime, I discovered that this might be a good business to me and my famility, I went into it. Within a short time, I sold 60 Canarumwe stoves to other VSL members and other people in our village, and managed to get 30,000 RFw (US$ 50) as profit; this money (profit) helped me to buy a small pig which will help me to get more money in the future and organic manure. Canarumwe cooking stove will improve our economy, health and sanitation in general –Thanks to CARE and Billem”

Typipical Canarumwe domestic cook stove

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Issue no 2 August 2013 CARE’S PARTNERSHIP ON WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RENEWABLES (wPOWER)

wPower Achievements

Summary of Clean-Energy Sales as of August 2013

The wPOWER intends to faciltate distribution of 186,190 solar lamps and 28,688 clean cook stoves over a perid of 3 years. For year one, the target is to distribute 30,600 lamps and 5,100 cook stoves.

Up to August 2013, a total of 2,435 solar lamps and 7,046 clean cook stoves have been sold by 207 active Village Agents and women entrepreneurs across Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. This means, year one target for cookstoves is surpased by over 38%!

Actual Sales commenced in January 2013, and so far Village Agents and women entrepreneurs have realised a total revenue of more than $225,000 and $39,000 in profits (an average income/profit of between US$ 26 – 499 per Village Agent.

CARE surpases year one target for clean cook stove distribution!

Samples of clean cook stoves and solar lamps

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Issue no 1 August 2013 CARE’S PARTNERSHIP ON WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RENEWABLES (wPOWER)

Major Lessons

Clean cook stoves and solar lamps that wPower works with now are more expensive products that require pre-financing for the VAs. This calls for the need to bundle these with more affordable fast selling products that have high social impact as well as high financial viability.

Small distributors like dlight and ARTI, that wPower partners with do not have large budgets to support financial viability. The need to cultivate relationships with large companies is high.

wPower project has demonstrated explicitly that VSLAs and their 4, 000, 000 plus members spread across Africa are a huge untapped market for various products and offer a potential solution for reaching remote BoP populations across Africa with the needed products. Without businesses, economies fail.

There is need for CARE to quickly develop and shape a viable and sustainable distribution network with capacity to play the role of market activation in return for a commission through partnerships with large companies and suppliers utilizing the current wPower platform. This will require an initial capital investment.

The CARE commission being piloted under wPower is the right direction towards adapting the JITA model in Africa where commissions will help to cover operational costs and replace grant funding eventually.

CARE is continuously being approached to partner with various product suppliers and needs to reach out to them proactively versus reactively. This timing is perfect for determining the types of products preferred across the 3 countries that can be added on existing ones and to exploring potential private investors.

Next Steps The coming months are going to be pivotal and will focus on

seeking investment and developing partnerships with large companies to jointly establish viable sales networks in wPower countries based on current existing timelines with COs.

Under wPOWER, CARE’s role is to mobilize and recruit (sensitization, identification, training, support, monitoring) the network of Village Agents and women entrepreneurs and link them to private suppliers in exchange for a commission for activating and creating a market to untapped rural remote areas where they were not able to reach before though this was not explicit in the original design.

CARE in Tanzania (with d.Light) and Rwanda (with Barefoot Power) is piloting this model by providing a minimum working capital injection of up to US$ 20,000 per country to partners/suppliers to enable them to extend credit to the VAs and women enterpreneurs in form of a revolving fund. This facility intends to bridge a credit gap amongst VAs and eventually boost sales, profits and commisons to both actors in the distribution and supply chain. Rigorous negotiations have taken place to develop VA and women entrepreneurs selection criteria jointly with partners, Key Performance Indicators, distribution model and processes as well as roles and responsibilities of all players from the supplier to the consumer level. Weekly sales updates are circulated to all players on a weekly schedule and regular meetings are organized where issues are discussed and challenges resolved. The short time between January 2013 to date has provided invaluable learning which is being utilised to shape viable multi-product distribution networks using the wPower platform in the coming fiscal year. It is too early to report on CARE’s commission earned to August but the next newsletter will do so.

CARE pilots capital injection to suppliers and gets commision

CONTACTS ACCESS AFRICA Sophie Chitedze Senior Technical Advisor CARE USA, Access Africa Tanzania Post, Box 10242 Daresalaam, Tanzania schitedze@care.org +255 784992268 Francis Songela wPOWER Multi Country Coordinator CARE USA, Access Africa Box 10242, Daresalaam, Tanzania francis.songela@co.e.org +255 783492601

RWANDA Glycerie Niyibizi and Sylvain Hakizimana CARE International in Rwanda glycerien.rw@co.care.org and sylvainh.rw@co.care.org KENYA Nelly Otieno and Bernard Mbithi CARE International in Kenya otieno@care.or.ke or muthiani@ksm.care.or.ke TANZANIA Leticia Pima and Cynthia Eliceus CARE International in Tanzania Leticia.pima@co.care.org & cynthia.eliceus@co.care.org

Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor girls and women because, equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. Last year CARE worked in 84 countries and reached 122 million people around the world. To learn more, visit www.care.org.