Would you like to collaborate with Esade Alumni and Ayuda en Acción in developing innovative business solutions to improve vulnerable communities in developing countries?
Video of the Honduras project in academic year 2023-24
Video of the Mozambique project in academic year 2024-25
This is your chance to make a difference. By joining forces, we can overcome any obstacle and create a more inclusive and sustainable future for everyone.
01. BACKGROUND ON MOZAMBIQUE
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 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.
02. THE CHALLENGE IDENTIFIED
In response to this situation, Ayuda en Acción is focusing its efforts on improving job opportunities in Cabo Delgado and Maputo via initiatives in agro-industry, micro-entrepreneurship, and job placement. One example is Mapiko, an organization financed by cooperation funds and supported by the Ayuda en Acción Foundation as part of the Work4Progress program of Fundación La Caixa, which is working to transform this situation.
Mapiko facilitates the fair sale of farm products, provides technical advice to farmers, and introduces new ways to generate a sustainable income. One of the main challenges is achieving the sustainable scale-up of Mapiko, which has proven to be essential in increasing farmers’ income, yet it is facing major challenges in terms of its expansion, diversification, and sustainability without compromising its social mission.
The challenge proposed exclusively to Esade alumni and students consists of coming up with innovative proposals based on an analysis of the social company Mapiko, its market, the local context, and similar and inspiring cases. The goal is for these proposals to help Mapiko reach more farmers, have more diversified productive lines, be more resilient, and become self-sustaining.
The goal is to gather a set of feasible ideas, recommendations, and tools via the Designing Opportunities platform that will strengthen Mapiko’s growth, diversification, and sustainability strategy to ensure that its social mission is not only preserved but also enhanced.
The participants have to answer any of these three questions, depending on their experience or area of expertise:
The proposed solutions should also mention what investments would be needed to answer these questions and make Mapiko self-sustaining. These ideas should be innovative, include ethical and sustainable trade practices, boost small farmers’ competitiveness, and generate a positive and lasting impact in the local communities.
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
RESULTS OF THE PROJECT WITH ESADE ALUMNI AND AYUDA EN ACCIÓN
The final contributions from the 60 members of the Esade Alumni community were incredible and will no doubt contribute to enriching the Ayuda en Acción project in Honduras and improving the lives of many people. Read more about the results in this article.
And good news! The project is going to continue! After talks with the fishers about the eight solutions presented, the consortium led by RARE Fish Forever and made up of the Ayuda En Acción Foundation and the Center of Marine Studies decided to launch a new and broader project: “Thriving Coasts – Empowering Coastal, Fisher-Farmer Communities to Protect Biodiversity & Build Prosperity in Honduras.” The following initiatives will be launched over the next four years:
The InnPESS technology will be scaled up to introduce renewable energy into the fishing chain to improve conservation of the catches and boost fishers’ income by around 62%.
Twenty-four MSME’s will be created, promoted, and funded as economic alternatives in other market segments for at least 800 fishers.
Six savings and loans banks will be organized (one per associated community) as funding mechanisms for the families being supported.
Solutions from the previous challenge on Designing Opportunities and development will be adapted and incorporated in conjunction with ESADE Alumni (such as the cooperative model applied to savings and loans banks, the trademark or seal of quality and guarantee in artisan fishing, and MSME’s to be promoted).
This project will become a project within Esade Alumni’s Together program.
This is an international program that supports generation of the productive economy and the improvement in the livelihoods of local populations in developing countries. This is why we have included the Ayuda en Acción project in Honduras with within it. Members of the Alumni community who participated in the Designing Opportunities challenge will also participate in this project.
DETAILS OF THE AYUDA EN ACCIÓN PROJECT IN HONDURAS
New technology applied to traditional fishing, the winner of the challenge in academic year 2022-23, has sparked the fishing communities’ interest in exploring opportunities for inclusive entrepreneurship as an alternative livelihood. This is framed within the search for alternative livelihoods to lower the pressure on the coastal and marine ecosystems along Honduras’s Atlantic coast.
Unsustainable fishing practices, the extraction of mangrove trees, and pollution are leading to a subsequent deterioration in the critical marine habitat and resulting in a decrease in ecosystem services, which is affecting the livelihoods of local fishers and farmers.
Climate change is reinforcing this negative trend with increasing sea temperatures, which may change the migration patterns of economically important fish species; the acidification induced by carbon emissions, which is threatening critical coralline habitats; and a higher frequency and severity of disasters, which affect both habitats and human wellbeing.
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.
JOIN THE NEW PROJECT!
Dates: From 3rd of March to 30th of April 2025
Venue: Online
Language: Spanish or English
To sign up, fill out the appropriate form and we’ll contact you about the next steps.
93 634 67 56 (Naila Q. Hawach)
