Companies creating job opportunities in world’s poorest nations
Over the years, job creation has proven to be the key solution leading to downsizing poverty. With unemployment ranging as high as over 20% in some of the low-income and developing countries — particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest unemployment recorded — companies and businesses around the world have been striving to increase human capital through working locally and providing employment opportunities onsite. Here is a list of four brilliant businesses with undergoing initiatives creating jobs in the world’s poorest nations.
Because International
With its commitment to use production as a means of breaking “the negative cycle of poverty by creating opportunity for real, measurable, long-term economic growth”, Because International’s business model is centered around the idea of creating pursuit through production. Its main product — The Shoe That Grows, a long-lasting, expandable shoe destined for children in low-income countries — is in fact manufactured locally in the areas where it is needed most. Local production as such ensures utmost sustainability of the system and brings various benefits on all business levels, from reduced carbon footprint and lower shipping costs, to jobs created onsite.
The company has thus far created jobs on two of their production sites — the Umoja Company in Kenya that works on The Shoe That Grows and the Anbessa Shoe Share Company in Ethiopia supplying shoes for multiple international brands such as J.Crew and DSW. Additionally, Because International runs the Pursuit Incubator, an online support program where entrepreneurs living in poverty can gain relevant training and coaching, as well as get funding and develop their network. The incubator has so far helped start-ups such as Reform Africa making bags from recycled plastic, Our Roots Africa producing plant-based and biodegradable straws, and SoaPen providing hand soap pens for kids in low-hygiene areas.
Wonderbag
Woderbag is a non-electric slow cooker that allows the food to cook for up to 12 hours without any additional heating through a foam insulated bag used to wrap around the cooking pan. This way of slow-cooking not only makes it possible to minimize health issues from indoor air pollution through reducing the amount of wood, charcoal and burning fuels produced while cooking on open fire by 70%, but also saves 13,000 hours per year, during which girls and women can develop productive skills, increase their potential and autonomy, rather than spend this time in the kitchen.
As Kirsten Fenton, Wonderbag’s representative, told The Borgen Project: “Communities and their people lie at the heart of Wonderbag’s purpose” — thus the company has been working tirelessly with its partnering factories and sewing collectives on providing local women with paid employment opportunities. Through organized training, teaching and guidance, Wonderbag has so far created community employment in the areas of manufacturing, resale, and entrepreneurship in Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and soon Brazil. “These employment projects have been run with the support of co-operatives, as well as single mothers manufacturing Wonderbas from their home, whilst others have created their own start-up mini CMT operations, offering employment in otherwise unemployable mothers.”
MakaPads
With their motto being “Let’s ensure every girl has access to and can afford to buy sanitary pads”, MakaPads is a Uganda-based business producing naturally absorbent and biodegradable sanitary pads from locally-found papyrus and paper waste, all in order to reduce period poverty and make sanitary products widely available for women and girls in developing countries. The company currently operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda and Sierra Leone, where the average income comes down to less than $1.25 a month, yet a packet of period pads costs twice as much, pushing women to use cloth rags, waste paper or banana leaves instead.
“The MakaPads are a Menstrual Hygiene Management product that is proudly made by over 90% women using resources from within the communities.”, Nnassuuna Mirembe, the CEO of MakaPads, told The Borgen Project. Hence, MakaPads provides training to those who wish to produce the pads themselves — and has so far taught and employed over 200 women and men. “Maka also means home, which means several girls and women can stay at home, take care of the house chores but also make portions of the sanitary pads which they sell to the company and are paid a unit rate for each product.”, explains Mirembe. This is possible due to the use of materials that grow locally and are easily and widely available, allowing the trained manufacturers to work from their own home and not have to bear any additional import income.
One Dollar Glasses
One Dollar Glasses is a pioneering organization producing optical glasses for those poorest in need. Due to a revolutionary design — the glasses are made solely from a flexible spring steel wire — the manufacturing process does not require any electricity, involves only one bending machine and costs as little as $1 per pair. Considering how easy and accessible the production process is, the organization has managed to create more than 200 jobs in eight operating countries — Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malawi, Myanmar, and Peru — through financing relevant training and bending machines to those seeking employment onsite. One Dollar Glasses also organizes its Best Spherical Correction Training through which trainees learn how to conduct eye tests and adjust glasses on patients.