ColaLife principle: be the glue
June 29, 2010 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment
etc etc etc
We believe that there are already enough organisations, both locally and internationally to implement a trial of the Colalife concept. We also believe that if a trial were successful that their are enough organisations to implement ColaLife on an on-going, sustainable basis. ColaLife has no aspiration to become another player in the frontline of the delivery of public health services. We just want to be the glue that brings unlikely alliances together to trial something quite extraordinary.
ColaLife principle: openness
February 10, 2010 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment
I first had the ColaLife idea in 1988 when I was working for the British Aid programme in NE Zambia. However, I was unable to share it other than by word of mouth and I got nowhere.
In May 2008 I shared the idea on Facebook and look what’s happened. Thousands of people have convened around the idea and discussed it and challenged it and the idea has got better and better. We have gone from this:
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Removing one bottle from every 10 crates and replacing it with a cylinder full of Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) to this:
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A wedge-shaped container that uses the un-used space in a crate and carries whatever ’social products’ are needed in a local area, as determined by the local public health experts.
So openness has convened thousands of people around the idea. This has improved the idea, given us more and more confidence in the idea and got Coca-Cola’s attention. We just need some action now!
ColaLife principle: promoting micro-enterprise
February 3, 2010 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment
Image credit: Tielman Nieuwoudt
A key reason why Coca-Cola’s distribution network is so good in Africa is that there is money to be made by everyone involved in it. And those that make money from taking the bottles that ‘last mile’ are some of the poorest people on the continent. So giving a financial reward for the successful delivery of an AidPod will:
- Put money in the pockets of some of the poorest people in Africa;
- Help ensure that the ColaLife system is sustainable;
- Help deter corruption and mis-use of the distribution mechanism.
For these reasons we will develop systems to give a financial reward to those who deliver AidPods and those who act as receiving agents. We think that mobile phone based systems will provide the mechanism to support the confirmation of delivery and the payments this would trigger.
ColaLife principle: local determination
January 31, 2010 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment
A key principle of ColaLife is local determination of how the ColaLife opportunity is used in each location. I believe that this will be key to the sustainability of ColaLife. ColaLife must strengthen the existing public health infrastructure, not undermine it. This is a slide I use to explain this during the presentations I am giving at the moment.
The ColaLife model can be split into three elements. At the core we have a distribution mechanism - AidPods in Coca-Cola crates - which would be replicable across the whole of Africa. 80% of all the Coca-Cola produced in Africa is sold from bottles and crates of this size. In July 2008 The Economist reported that Africans buy 36 billion bottles of Coke a year. That’s an average of more than 30 bottles per person! So this is a formidable distribution channel and an incredible offer if Coca-Cola were to support it.
The plan is that this distribution mechanism would be offered across the whole of Africa to those with the long term responsibility, in each locality, for public health. This would normally be a range of partnerships between NGOs and the Government of the country. It would be up the Goverment/NGOs in each locality to decide whether they want to make use of this opportunity and if so, how to use it. Coca-Cola would be likely to put certain conditions on the use of this channel eg maximum weight per AidPod; maximum number of AidPods per crate; and content would be restricted to ’social products’.
On the input side, the local public health infrastructure (Goverment/NGOs) would decide what should go into the AidPods. This will vary from place to place and from season to season. Crucially, it is not up to Coca-Cola or ColaLife to say what goes in the AidPods. This needs to be determined by those with the long term responsibility for public health in a particular area.
It would also be the local public health infrastructure (Goverment/NGOs) who decide what happens to the AidPods when they reach their destination. The contents might be put on the shelves of the Coca-Cola retailer and sold. This would obviously depend on the nature of the social products involved. They may be collected by a community health worker and used to support a community health programme. The AidPods might contain diarrhoea treatment kits for new mothers and be collected by traditional village midwives or the local clinic. I am sure that there are many other options but the local health experts will be the best people to decide.
So, the roll-out of ColaLife, following successful trials, will empower the public health infrastructure in any particular locality. Not undermine it. And in remote areas it will provide a distribution mechanism that would be uneconomic to provide in any other way.
Fortunately, this principle is compatible with the position Coca-Cola would want to take. They would not want to put themselves in a position where they could be accused of meddling in areas beyond their areas of expertise or of undermining local, often fragile, public health infrastructure.
What others are saying about ColaLife- ColaLife on Flickr
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