Shabda Gyawali's Blog

I personally feel bit frustrated when Nepal is not mentioned or considered as a potential market for Impact Investing activities in glossy impact investing reports .....................For CRYING out load, Nepal is if not the poorest, one of the poorest countries in ASIA........ Our people also have strong entrepreneurial spirit and YES we also believe that it is entrepreneurship and investments not AID that leads to Economic Development ............ Asian Development Bank came out with a report called " Impact Investors in Asia Characteristics and Preferences for Investing in Social Enterprises in Asia and the Pacific" Yes What Nepal is not even mentioned ............................................... Some time it makes me wonder if impact investment is also about " Trophy Investments" and they don't want to take risk ??

" Less than half of Nepal's arable land is irrigated, the rest depends on erratic rains. Lack of investment in irrigation and the shortage of water in the dry season have hindered the spread of irrigation schemes in districts like Bhojpur and the arid areas of western Nepal." " Madan Gopali invested Rs 25,000 to get the drip system in his field and is waiting for the next harvest to see the results. Says Gopali: "Water is scarce here. With this system I can irrigate the field year round. If I get three yields a year, I will r ecover my investment in two years ." (Source: Nepali times) Click here to read more Drip water successful business model - Click here to read

" Growth in the population and number of households is the foremost factor affecting solid waste and its management. Cities are growing at a rate ranging between five percent and 12 percent—much higher than the overall growth rate of Nepal (2.24 percent). Major cities like Kathmandu and Pokhara are estimated to double their population within the next ten years. With rapid urbanisation and changing consumption patterns, solid waste management has become a major challenge in most of the nation’s urban centres, particularly the larger ones. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, only 17 percent of urban households have their waste collected by waste collectors. Furthermore, in low-income households (indicated by houses having no toilets) only two percent have their waste collected. " (Source:Kathmandu Post) Click here to read more

A Pay-Per-Use approach in which consumers pay lower costs for each use of a group-owned facility, product, or service. This limits the impact on their cash flow while the sheer numbers of consumers makes the proposition sufficiently attractive for thirdparty providers. A pared-down, No Frills service that meets the basic needs of the poor at ultra-low prices and still generates positive cash flow and profits through high volume, high asset utilization, and service specialization. Paraskilling , which combines No Frills services with a reengineering of complex services and processes into a set of disaggregated simple standardized tasks that can be undertaken by workers without specialized qualification. Distribution networks that reach into remote markets via Shared Channels , piggybacking products and services through existing customer supply chains, thus enabling poor people to afford and gain access to socially beneficial goods A system of Contract Production that directly involves small...