Summer 2010 Internship Program

Indego Africa wants to wish a warm welcome to all of our Summer 2010 Interns!

Crissy Vicendese (Sales & Marketing), graduated from Penn State University where she received a BA in journalism, and a minor in English. At Penn State she worked as an account executive at the student newspaper The Daily Collegian, and developed her sales and marketing skills. Since graduating she has been working at her family business, and launching a small jewelry and accessories line. She is excited to be a part of Indego Africa so she can expand her knowledge about social entrepreneurship, and because she values the amazing skill and hard work that the women put into making every handicraft.

Catherine Howe (Fundraising & Development), is completing an MS in Global Affairs from NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Prior work includes economic development consulting throughout the United States with a private consulting firm. She looks forward to expanding her development experience through sustainable development projects with Indego Africa.

Amanda Alampi (Communications), is studying journalism and history in her undergrad at New York University and recently began an accelerated masters in public administration with a focus on international pubic policy at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service. She spent the last year working at the Islamic Center at NYU building up their social media and public relations. Amanda is excited to join the Indego Africa team to help spread the word about fair trade, social entrepreneurship and international development!

Nicholas Platt (IT), is a Software Engineering and Mathematics major at Indiana Wesleyan University. Over the summer he is working at the Boston Museum of Science, and also works for the university Web Team during the school year in order to build practical experience to set up a future career in computer software development. He is proud to be a part of Indego Africa because he greatly values the team's efforts to bring about positive change in developing countries.

Fatima Alloo (Legal) is a JD candidate at UC Davis School of Law. Prior to law school Fatima spent a year in India on a grassroots development fellowship. There, she worked with local communities in Bangalore, Karnataka to improve civic engagement among urban Indian citizens. Fatima’s family has roots in East Africa, so she was particularly excited to learn of Indego Africa’s work in Rwanda.

Additionally, we have two interns who will be splitting their time this summer between the US and Rwanda.

Rennie Taylor, MPA candidate at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Rennie recently left Google where she worked on internet advertising and marketing for six years. She is pursuing a master’s degree focused on women in developing countries. Rennie joined the Indego Africa team to develop her business and social entrepreneurship skills. As part of her summer internship, she plans to spend a month in Rwanda this summer working alongside the women at Indego Africa's partner coops.

David Talbot, who has already been introduced on our blog, here.

Please join us in welcoming this incredible team!

Interested in spending your fall as a Fall 2010 Indego Africa intern? This summer we will post our new Fall 2010 internship postings on our website. Make sure to stay tuned for more wonderful internship opportunities!

- Vicki

Social Enterprising Plastic

This is the kind of story that I love: clever entrepreneurs find a way to take someone else's trash and turn it into treasure.

In this case a company in Kenya called Global Bio Energy is using discarded plastic products (bags, bottles, etc.) to make building posts. Global Bio isn't the only group doing this. See this You Tube video which does a great job explaining the process.

This obviously this helps deal with a tough trash problem and it also reduces the need to use lumber or other substitutes for building. Collecting the trash and turning it into posts will also employ local people -- though if these posts require less maintenance over time or are replaced less frequently the employment issue is muddier.

It would be interesting to know how this conversion process compares -- in terms of ecological & economic benefits or harms -- to harvesting lumber or making concrete or metal posts. While that's not clear to me what is clear is the never-ending inspiring ingenuity that entrepreneurs marshal to help solve some of our most serious problems.

(photo is from Green Options Wiki under "Cutting Down Plastic Bags Going To The Dump.)

- Karol

Introducing Indego Africa Intern David Talbot

My name is David Talbot, and I’m pleased to introduce myself as the newest member of the Indego Africa team in Rwanda. Born and bred in Philadelphia, I graduated from Yale in December with a B.A. in Political Science. This October I’ll begin my graduate studies in the Department of International Development at Oxford. But in the meantime I'm here in Rwanda spearheading Indego Africa's supplemental income generation, heading up the IT training program, developing the Internet curriculum, and conducting the intern training sessions.

The supplemental income generation project entails researching and developing additional revenue streams for the cooperatives through coordination with microfinance banks, NGOs, local businesses, and/or other organizations. My role in the IT training program, on the other hand, is to oversee our truly impressive Orphans of Rwanda interns, who actually conduct the classes. It has been incredible to see the progress made by the women in our partner cooperatives, in large part due to the interns’ teaching prowess. The Internet curriculum, for example, currently being developed in coordination with our business planning and entrepreneurship programs, will allow the women to use email, browse web pages, and hopefully conduct their own market research.

Perhaps my favorite role thus far has been running the intern training sessions. Because the Rwandan education system stresses lecture and memorization, Indego conducts biweekly sessions on participatory teaching methods. After a long day of training this past Sunday, all of the interns stayed and Amity, our Rwanda Program Coordinator, cooked a delicious dinner. Our intern Darius is in fact a nationally recognized singer, and he arrived accompanied by a guitar-playing friend. Following dinner, the two of them broke into a few traditional Rwandan songs, which led to a spontaneous 15-person traditional Rwandan Intore dance party. Us muzungus tried our best to learn, but our attempts merely added to the hilarity of the situation.

Indego’s desire to harness local talent, create lasting community bonds, and help Rwandan women deliver themselves out of poverty is why I’m here and happy to be a part of the team.

- David

Africa's Missing Middle

What is Africa's missing middle? There are two, related answers: the missing middle class and the missing mid-sized firm. Both are important to promote economic development. A missing middle class also demands, and can help strengthen, political, civil, and economic rights. Here's a post from the Pew Global Attitudes Project on this point.

Why is the middle so much smaller in Africa than elsewhere? Lots of interrelated factors: poorer institutional environment, trade barriers that create disincentives to expand businesses, insecurity of various sorts, and (among other things) limited financing/insurance options for businesses that wish to grow and take risks.

There's no shortage of entrepreneurs in Africa -- just visit a local market and you'll see that. But the constraints these entrepreneurs face are like walls that keep most small and micro-scale entrepreneurs trapped in informality, generating little income, and employing few people. Only a small (though expanding) percentage of these business people have access to microcredit. Very few use commercial credit. Most are unbanked (though cellphone technology is helping to change this) and rely on friends and family to meet their needs for credit. Insurance is largely unavailable.

There are large business in Africa and they (along with government) generate most of the formal sector jobs. These business have access to commercial credit and insurance (or government subsidized financing) and so can undertake risky ventures. But in a difficult institutional environment (i.e., a risky, costly environment or an environment with a small domestic market and high costs to access other markets) these firms are relatively rare.

How might Africa's missing middle leap over the walls of institutional dysfunction so that more "early stage" investment takes place? Here's one take on an answer. The author, Brett Shere, offers three suggestions: 1) government incentives to entice venture capital; 2) recognize the social value inherent in many African business deals and add this value into the calculation of risk return; and 3) more financial intermediaries are needed to broker deals.

Here's a different post on the challenges venture capitalists face in Africa (dated but still useful). While private equity markets in Africa are relatively small, this article points out that they've been growing over the past several years. Nonetheless, real concerns remain and these are largely tied to the institutional and regulatory environment.

So how best to help develop Africa's missing middle? These posts do a nice job of capturing the divided sentiment in the development literature: it's the institutions stupid vs. it's the policies.

- Karol

Photo: Downtown Nairobi by Ben Stone