Our strategy for impact
ColaLife is not like most other organisations. We are working on a solvable problem and so we are planning… [more]
Help us help mothers help themselves
Please contribute to our Voucher Fund and introduce a mother to the life-saving Kit Yamoyo
A reminder of our open source approach – get free access to our trial results and associated learning
Request access to ColaLife's findings and learning
Kit Yamoyo packaging - looking to the future
ColaLife's Kit Yamoyo has really captured the world's imagination. Users in poor villages in Zambia,… [more]
Coca-Cola seems to get everywhere in developing countries, yet simple life-saving medicines don’t. Why?That conundrum, that affront to a fair chance at life for children, gave us our name. We don’t apologise for the difficult question it raises.
Because, over 3 decades since Oral Rehydration Salts were discovered, more than a decade since the protective effect of Zinc was proven, 99% of diarrhoea cases are not treated with ORS and Zinc and diarrhoea is still the world's second biggest killer of young children.
This tells us that current efforts to improve access are not sufficient and are working too slowly. ColaLife exists to transform access to diarrhoea treatment and is doing so with a sense of urgency.
ColaLife is about disruptive innovation - small changes that will make a big, self-sustaining improvement.
>>more
>>where we've got to
Dashboards as a motivational tool
We started using Android tablets during support visits to Kit Yamoyo retailers in mid-2014 (see Take a Tablet). This did two things. Firstly, it helped standardise these visits; to make sure that key things were checked and asked: Was the product displayed well? Did the retailer have a poster displayed? Secondly, it collected key information […]
Going off-piste!
The skiers amongst you will know that there are big risks when going off-piste but the rewards are usually wonderful unless something awful happens. This is the territory we are in right now with the trial, as we find out, from both customers and world experts, what they think would work best. In our original […]
Order confirmed for 452,000 ORS and Zinc co-pack kits
ORS and Zinc co-pack for distribution by the Ministry of Health, Zambia On 20-Mar-15 we made a significant step towards reaching our goal of improving access to, and use of, ORS and zinc for the treatment of diarrhoea. Our pharmaceutical partner in Zambia, Pharmanova, got its first public sector order to supply of 452,000 co-packs, […]
Supply chain theory in 140 characters
One of the good things about Twitter is that in concentrates the mind. Can you get your thought, your hypothesis, your joke or witticism down to just 140 characters? As we’ve got deeper and deeper into the ColaLife project a hypothesis has been developing about supply chains. I’ve been trying to get this hypothesis down to 140 […]
How is ColaLife’s approach transformational?
ColaLife is not the only organisation working to use the private sector to deliver health products and services. Others include PSI, DKT and donor-funded programmes like SHOPS Plus. So why is our approach seen as transformational? The transformational nature of our work is based on combining the following: Focussing on WANT not NEED. Combining product […]
Gladys Imasiku explains how the Kit Yamoyo has affected her work at Kalonda Rural Health Centre
I have reported before that staff at the rural health centres within the trial areas are saying that fewer mothers are reporting to them with children with diarrhoea. In short, diarrhoea cases have gone down leaving staff to deal with more complex issues. This is of course anecdotal at the moment but we hope to have […]
Getting the syphon going
We are at a very exciting – albeit nerve-wracking – place just now right at the start of the trial. The situation we were in a few weeks ago, after our visit to see Chief Siachitema, is a really good metaphor for the situation we find ourselves in right now. Let me explain. As we […]
Child survival – why innovation is needed
In 1990 the eight Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) were published and are the blueprint for development agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. MDG#4 relates to child mortality and the target is: TARGET Reduce by […]
Why branding is important for people living in poverty
Image credit: tweeted by Amy Nadine Dix @amyndix Thanks to our friends at Maternova (@maternova) for bringing this image to my attention just as I was thinking: “I must to a blog post about branding and poverty”. So, why is it that brands are so important to everyone, including those living in poverty? Why is […]
It’s the value chain stupid!
Private sector people with supply chain experience will chuckle when they read this. It will be so obvious to them. But it’s not obvious to the rest of us. This is just one example of how public private partnerships are so helpful. What’s obvious to someone from the private sector may not be obvious to […]
Demand-driven distribution chains – Step 1: Create a desirable product
I have written before about supply-led versus demand-driven distribution systems. ColaLife is seeking to demonstrate that you can establish a demand-driven system which will pull a public health commodity into remote rural communities in Zambia. The tweet-sized version of this hypothesis goes like this: “You can get a product or service to anywhere in the […]
Top 10 achievements in 2016
2009’s top 10 | 2010’s top 10 | 2011’s top 10 | 2012’s top 10 | 2013’s top 10 | 2014’s top 10 | 2015’s top 10 Kit Yamoyo wall painting in Chawama Compound, Lusaka. Image credit: Simon Berry We loved this image of a Kit Yamoyo sign next to Coca-Cola: it’s a reminder of where we started, mimicking Coca-Cola’s techniques to […]
Seven of the headline findings from the ColaLife trial in Zambia
colalife.org/openaccess The data contained in this blog post: Findings in this blog post are unpublished and based on initial analysis of data from the ColaLife Operational Trial in Zambia (COTZ). Final calculations may vary and will be published in peer reviewed literature in due course. In the interim, the following citation may be used: […]
How the ColaLife trial findings have influenced the design of Kit Yamoyo
The reasons for doing the ColaLife Operational Trial in Zambia (COTZ) were: to generate robust evidence of what works and what doesn’t; learn and improve. Following the trial, we did a root and branch review of the Kit Yamoyo design – looking again at each component including the packaging. Our key objective in this review was to […]
