4. Develop your proposal: You’ll have two months (from February to April) to work. Use your professional experience, creativity and knowledge to design innovative and scalable entrepreneurial solutions to the challenge presented by Ayuda en Acción.
01. BACKGROUND
Ayuda en Acción has been working to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable communities since 1981. Its main lines of cooperation involve strengthening and modernizing these communities’ productive and industrial capacity.
It has been developing projects in Cabo Delgado and Maputo in Mozambique since 2006. Its intervention there primarily focuses on minors, adolescents, young adults, and women in local communities and displaced peoples.
·Mozambique
Mozambique is one of the most impoverished countries in the world.Sixty percent of its population lives in extreme poverty, and they are particularly exposed to the effects of climate change: Mozambique ranks fifth in the climate risk index that evaluates 180 countries for the period 2000-2019.
The average age of the population is 17.6 years old. The average life expectancy in Mozambique is 65 for women and 59.1 for men, and the mortality rate of children under the age of five is 61.1 per 1,000 births.
The country’s literacy rate is 60%, and 50% of women are illiterate. Schools have deficient infrastructures and the teachers are barely trained. School absenteeism is a common problem among children, especially girls.
Eighty percent of the population lives on subsistence agriculture. Their chances of accessing the market are very limited because of the major inadequacies in the transportation infrastructures, energy supply, and services, coupled with a very low productivity rate. Ninety-five percent of agricultural yields are from dry-farming, which is highly exposed to climate change and the seasonality of the rainfall.
The working conditions are dominated by irregular, unstable, poorly paid, precarious jobs with high rotation. Many workers have to hold multiple jobs just to earn enough to live on.
More than 6,000 people are estimated to have died and more than 1 million have been displaced due to the armed conflict in the central and northern districts of Cabo Delgado. The lack of food, shelter, drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, and protection is aggravating people’s poverty and vulnerability.
·Work4Progress Program
Right now, the third phase of the Fundación la Caixa’s Work4Progress (W4P) program is underway in the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. This program has been crucial in promoting workplace integration and creating jobs.
In earlier phases, W4P has benefited around 40,000 people by boosting their incomes and access to work.
The goal of the program’s next phase is to encourage entrepreneurship and increase the income earned by vulnerable groups, especially young people and women.
To do so, Ayuda en Acción is focusing its efforts on improving job opportunities in Cabo Delgado and Maputo through agroindustry, micro-entrepreneurship, and job placement initiatives. The main challenge now is guaranteeing that these initiatives can be scaled up sustainably in the long term without losing their focus on helping the most vulnerable.
02. THE CHALLENGE IDENTIFIED
One of the main challenges is achieving the sustainable scale-up of Mapico, a farm commercialization cooperative that supports small local producers. This has proven to be essential in increasing farmers’ income, but it is facing major challenges in terms of its expansion, diversification, and sustainability without compromising its social mission.
Therefore, the goal is to design a scale-up model that enables Mapico to grow sustainably and profitably, adapting to the economic and social particularities of Mozambique while retaining its commitment to the development of small farmers.
Through the Designing Opportunities platform, the aim is to collect a series of ideas, recommendations, and viable tools that can strengthen Mapico’s growth, diversification, and sustainability strategy to ensure that its social mission is not only preserved but also enhanced.
The winning solution has to propose innovative ideas that include ethical, sustainable commercial practices that boost the competitiveness of small producers and have a positive, lasting impact on local communities.
03. 03. COLLABORATION WITH THE ESADE COMMUNITY
This project is an opportunity for the Esade community: its students, alumni, and professionals from different disciplines have the chance to apply their experience and knowledge to co-design a scale-up model for Mapico that integrates financial sustainability and social responsibility.
Through this participation, the people involved will work on a real project with social significance in Mozambique, which will enable them to engage in practical learning and develop their skills in a context of economic and social development.
This effort will be based on a co-design approach, in which multidisciplinary teams from Esade will analyze, design, and propose innovative solutions for the challenges that Mapico is facing. The goal is to develop a scale-up model that enables the cooperative to grow sustainably, improving its commercialization processes without losing sight of its social mission. This joint work will also promote the exchange of ideas among professionals in different fields, thus enriching the proposals with diverse perspectives.
Esade Alumni’s participation will be crucial in designing a winning solution by channeling a diverse range of ideas provided by students and professionals adapted to local realities with the potential to generate a positive, lasting change.
This proposal is based on prior collaboration between Ayuda en Acción and Esade Alumni, like the challenge last academic year which sought to improve the quality of life of fishing communities in Honduras through entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives: Social Innovations in Action
The new technology applied to traditional fishing, winner of the past challenge, has sparked fishing communities’ interest in exploring inclusive entrepreneurship opportunities as an alternative way to make a living. This is framed within the quest for alternative ways to lower the pressure on coastal and marine ecosystems along Honduras’s Atlantic coast.
Unsustainable fishing practices, the extraction of mangroves, and pollution are leading to subsequent degradation of the critical marine habitat, resulting in a decline in ecosystem services, which is affecting the livelihoods of local fishermen and farmers.
Climate change is reinforcing this negative trend via an increase in sea temperatures, which may change the migration patterns of economically important fish species, the acidification caused by carbon emissions that is threatening critical coral habitats, and more frequent and serious disasters that affect habitats and human wellbeing equally.
Who are the people who live in the communities where we are going to work in?
In the 33 coastal communities within the six municipalities of Colón, with a population of 46,847 inhabitants, are mestizos and Garifuna. Even though the latter still preserve their cultural and linguistic identity, they have to cope with marginalization by the Honduran government and a lack of socioeconomic participation, which leads to a deterioration in their living conditions.
Figures from the study conducted by Rare in 2021 reveal that between 63% and 85% of the households in different municipalities do not have enough income to cover their basic needs. Food scarcity is a concern, with up to 48% of households reporting low food availability in the past year. More than 50% of the population lives on less than 1 USD per day, and unemployment, especially among the rural Garifuna communities, is high, standing at approximately 51%.
This new inclusive entrepreneurship project by Esade Alumni and Ayuda en Acción aims to address these socioeconomic concerns while also promoting sustainable fishing practices and conservation of the marine environment in these Honduran communities.
How did this initiative begin?
The coastal communities of Honduras are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change and declining natural resources. After the reform of Honduras’s national fishing law in 2017, which eliminated the exclusive 3mn-zone for artisanal fishing, the coastal fishers, who depend directly on its natural resources for their livelihood and food, are now facing a crisis.
Due to smaller catches, coupled with the lack of technical capacity within the communities and municipal governments, as well as limited options for alternative livelihoods, the fishers-farmers are implementing destructive practices in order to maximize their short-term earnings at the expense of long-term sustainability. As the coastal ecosystems deteriorate, there is a downward spiral of food insecurity and socioeconomic and ecological vulnerability.
In the search for more sustainable and efficient artisanal fishing practices, in 2022 Ayuda en Acción launched a social innovation process and the co-creation of a technological challenge via Social Solver, an open digital innovation platform for social impact.
The project began with an active listening phase which involved fishers and other local stakeholders in order to identify a specific problem. Several challenges were highlighted, such as the loss in product due to a lack of refrigeration, low-cost sales on the beach, and the scarcity of processing infrastructures. The goal was to preserve a system to conserve fish quality that would enable at least 6 different species to be economically and sustainably exported. The solution had to be robust, easy to maintain, and as low-cost as possible, following the Frugal Innovation criteria.
Twenty-five proposals were received, and the one chosen came from a South African engineer who proposed keeping the fish alive during conservation.
This solution was adapted by making two prototype boats which were equipped with a tank, a recirculation pump, a photovoltaic panel, and a battery that the panel would charge. Field tests were conducted to assess the feasibility of the innovation, and a positive impact on catches, fish conservation, and the length of fishing workdays was found.
After the initial tests, a pilot phase got underway with 7 boats to measure the social, economic, and environmental impact of the innovation, along with a control group to compare the results. Significant improvements were found in catches, fish conservation, and family income.
Currently, evidence is being generated on the ground during the pilot phase, which will conclude in April 2024. The preliminary results suggest a positive impact on the fishing community and the sustainability of the marine ecosystem:
- One of the most important findings is that fish that live at greater depths (red fish like mahogany snapper, yellowtail snapper, and bluestriped grunt) cannot withstand the temperature changes and depth decompression, while white fish (blue runner, colabario, Chilean jack mackerel, longhorn cowfish) withstand it quite well and reach the beach alive and undamaged.
- Catches are better, given that the fish are attracted to the surface thanks to the light (connected to the battery), so there is better fishing
- Live bait can be conserved, which improves catches.
- The workday becomes as long as the fisher can take, because the energy lasts all night long and is recharged the following day with the sunlight.
- The pumping system to recirculate and oxygenate the water in the tank works very well nonstop.
We also measured the fact that the improvement in families’ resources has an effect on the sustenance of the households and the children’s education, as indirect beneficiaries.
Esade Alumni Social and Ayuda en Acción are joining forces in this project against poverty and inequality by promoting the self-sufficiency of vulnerable communities and creating a productive network.
Dates: From February to April 2025
Venue: Online
Language: Spanish or English
Would you be interested?
To sign up, fill out the appropriate form and we’ll contact you about the next steps.
93 634 67 56 (Naila Q. Hawach)
