I’ve been in India two weeks now, talking social enterprise with some remarkably rare changemakers (social enterprise is an explosive field being explored here on campus by emerging groups like the GW Social Enterprise Forum). Last Monday I sat in a cramped concrete office deep in Chennai’s industrial park, drinking tea with Mr. Mukundan – a wrinkled but wildly energetic old man – as he discussed his low-cost alternative energy stove that runs off 100% plant oil… something that will not only positively impact the pocketbooks of the world’s rural poor, but help tackle one of the largest, albeit strangest, causes of global greenhouse gas emissions: kerosene stoves.

Earlier, I paid a visit to Mr. Vivekanandan in rural Coimbatore: 67 years old, 10th grade level of education, and a passion for his work that is rare for most. He’s invented a mechanical food grinder for rural communities that traditionally grind their wheat and spices by hand (or with expensive, inefficient machines). With a brilliant business model under his belt – to sell the machines on credit to rural distributors, who in turn sell it for cash to a village entrepreneur who runs and maintains it for the entire community – he’s poised to transform a critical but strenuous facet of life for low-income households.

I hopped in a cab today and drove a couple hours into the rural outskirts of Chennai. At 2pm, it was the peak of India’s stifling and wet midday sun. I sat in a small, sterile room of a neonatal clinic, sweating and scribbling notes as Dr. Sathya Jeganathan – a soft-spoken, elderly woman draped in a maroon sari – explained her efforts to save thousands of newborns with her low-cost infant warmer. With the medical innovation up and running (one that can be manufactured and maintained by local carpenters and electricians rather than expensive and unattainable biomedical engineers), she’s on a brilliant start. I walked through the facility, watching nurses attend to frail, premature newborns alive only by the ingenuity of this woman.

Of course, changemaking means facing down the ancien régime. Dr. Jeganathan explained how the World Bank is pouring millions into the central government’s health coffers, permitting it to purchase expensive, un-maintainable medical equipment from well-connected domestic and international corporations. If the government can freely cash in by the millions from the World Bank, where’s the incentive to be cost-effective, prudent and accountable to Indian taxpayers? Where’s the incentive to search for the grassroots innovations within its own country? Where’s the incentive to pay attention to Dr. Jeganathan’s invention and purchase it instead for the hundreds of millions of Indians living in rural villages, and bring it to scale? Here, it’s the entrenched interests of the World Bank against a dilapidated but brilliant neonatal clinic.

My ride back to Chennai was definitely marked by a deep, burning enmity for certain development institutions. In spite of the Bank, though, and in spite of the still rivers of open sewage and roadside shantytowns, I’m still hit by a tremendous sense of what’s possible. Coincidently, I stared out the window while listening to a podcast lecture by Geoff Mulgan who had this to say: “If the great exploratory challenges of the past generation were ones like putting a man on the moon, perhaps those of this generation are ones like eliminating child malnutrition, or stopping human trafficking.” No disrespect to astronauts, but I’m absolutely convinced that these social innovators are the new frontier.

Grant is a senior majoring in International Affairs concentrating in International Development and International Economics and minoring in Political Science. He’s studied in both Argentina and Kenya and works passionately in the field of social entrepreneurship.

I’m a rising Elliott School senior who has spent the majority of his time (and money) on international affairs-y things like war, peace, war, and some anthropology. For those of us interested in development, we study things like aid policy and political economy, ready for World Bank recruitment come May. So naturally I was surprised a few months back when I found myself in cramped Nairobi offices gathering data on vitamin A, iron and iodine intake figures, and in Africa’s largest slum mapping maize distribution channels and pricing patterns.

I didn’t come to Kenya planning to research nutrition and business strategies in slums. But after a series of events and small epiphanies, I realized that to make the biggest impact on our world maybe the World Bank, UN and USAID aren’t the only post-graduation paths out there. So here’s my quick story of going from a World Bank-bound Elliott kid to an entrepreneurship-and-public-health-strategy enthusiast.

I came across figures last February that caught my attention. For example, Kenya is losing 2-3% of its GDP per year because most people don’t consume food like fortified flour – flour with micronutrients like iron and folic acid. That’s the equivalent of the financial crisis’s impact on Europe. When Kenyans lack nutrients, their IQs suffer, they drop out of school, they can’t work as productively, they’re more susceptible to other illnesses like HIV, and women take the brunt of it. This lesser-discussed health catastrophe called micronutrient deficiency is outdoing AIG.

I also found out a few other things that our neighborhood development ‘experts’ don’t talk about very often: in 1990, the UN pledged to eliminate most micronutrient deficiencies by 1995. It is 2009, and 1 of every 3 people still suffers from deficiencies. Basically, the plague of micronutrient deficiencies is as rampant as ever, with little thanks to the UN. Agencies like UNICEF and the World Food Programme often give out aid-financed nutritional supplements (handouts) to a few at-risk populations such as refugees and then call it a day.

I talked to a woman named Lucy at the Micronutrient Initiative in Nairobi, who summed it up like this: “UNICEF doesn’t produce flour, business does.” So if international aid agencies aren’t up to the task, and if the Kenyan government is failing miserably (which it is), then maybe the private sector could help solve this development disaster – and make some money at the same time. After some number crunching, I estimated aggregate food market expenditures in Kibera – Africa’s largest slum – to be around US $18.75 million per month just for the poorest half of its residents. That seemed like a pretty big number to garner business attention.

I later discovered Insta Products, a Kenyan company that produces fortified flour. With a recent investment by the Acumen Fund – a social venture capital group – they’re poised to tackle the issue in a whole new way: by selling micronutrient-rich flour sachets for USD 25 cents that feed a family of four through informal distribution networks. This entrepreneurial innovation will dramatically enhance Kenyan’s nutritional status while simultaneously turning a profit – a far cry from UNICEF handouts.

Most of us – probably including myself – won’t end up innovating business strategies to combat micronutrient deficiencies in severely low-income markets. We don’t learn about vitamin A at the Elliott School, and we certainly don’t concern ourselves with business. But I think there’s a good lesson learned for soon-to-be-graduates-and-job-hunters: in a complex world where the UN and World Bank don’t have the answers to everything (or much), we shouldn’t forget to take a look at what’s out there beyond the Foggy Bottom big-names. So to all other rising seniors, keep your eyes open, and maybe we’ll catch each other designing flour sachets in Africa.

Grant is a senior majoring in International Affairs concentrating in International Development and International Economics and minoring in Political Science. He’s studied in both Argentina and Kenya and works passionately in the field of social entrepreneurship.

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