Today the SAIS Development Roundtable Series hosted a discussion with Technoserve Chairperson Paul Tierney. A few CIPE staff were in attendance to hear Tierney’s perspective on business solutions for tackling poverty, according to his own personal experiences at Technoserve and overall from his career in enterprise and development. Tierney also briefly touched on the notion of social enterprise:
After 40 years thinking about it, I don’t know what social enterprise is. I think enterprise is, by definition, social.
Technoserve primarily provides technical expertise to support entrepreneurs in Latin America, Africa, and South Asia, working in three main sectors – agriculture, alternative energy, and tourism. Tierney characterized their services as comparable to for-profit business consulting services, a sector from which Technoserve draws much of its volunteers and paid staff. Technoserve staff provide business skills training, facilitate business plan competitions, and they help build supply chains for entrepreneurs.
Tierney recalled the often-used (overused?) illustration that giving out fish may feed people for a day, but teaching people how to fish can feed them for a lifetime. It’s an illustration, Tierney said, that drives much of Technoserve’s work, as they help teach people “how to fish,” providing them skills training and other services to build their businesses. It is hard, rewarding, noble work. But how long does the impact last?
Tierney described coffee as one particular agriculture market where Technoserve has made a lot of important progress. They’ve helped farmers organize to improve quality, aggregate output to meet global market procurement needs, and even branding to differentiate specialty-traded coffee that commands a premium over typical commodity-traded coffee. For the current generation of farmers, these improvements will very likely have a huge positive impact on their income – driving it above the $2/day level, which is one of Technoserve’s primary objectives.
What I can’t help but wonder, is whether or not there are processes in place to help protect these business skills and networks beyond the current generation of farmers, traders, and NGO staffers. Teaching people how to fish is one thing, but there’s also the right to “fish” and the right to “keep what you catch.” These represent an institutional framework to enable entrepreneurs beyond just this lifetime.
While Technoserve has done much to help build supply chains, a system for enforcing business contracts could help make sure those relationships can last beyond the current generation of farmers. A intellectual property system for enforcing trademarks would prevent other coffee farmers from using brands without permission, which would undermine future generations of farmers.
It took a long time, too long, for international development to move from giving out fish to teaching how to fish. Even as entrepreneurs continue “fishing” on their own guidance or under the guidance of organizations like Technoserve, entrepreneurs are also organizing in associations to advocate for the right to “fish” and the right to “keep what you catch.” It’s those rights that feed people beyond a lifetime. They feed people for lifetimes to come.
Published Date: March 31, 2010