How many sachets of ORS should an ORS/Zinc co-pack contain and what size should they be?

This discussion is based on ColaLife’s field experience in Zambia during the Kit Yamoyo trial (2012-13) and subsequent scale-up (2014-2018) as well as informal discussions with colleagues working in this area and common sense. There is a dearth of research on this specific topic, although it is possible to extrapolate from the scant literature that […]

ColaLife is a catalyst – that’s all

As we all learn to live with COVID, ColaLife is working to re-start its ORS/Zinc co-packaging advocacy work, which stopped as COVID emerged, overwhelming many of the partners we need to make this happen. We will have exciting announcements to make about this re-start in the next couple of weeks – but here’s a preview: […]

Top 5 Achievements in 2020

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 | 2016’s top 10 | 2017’s top 10 | 2018’s top 10 2019’s top 5   The COVID pandemic has made 2020 a difficult year for us all. We have not made as […]

What is a ‘smart’ partnership?

We define a ‘smart’ partnership as one that is built around a vision not around a partnership member or leader. Why is that important? The concept came out of our work with Ashoka on our globalisation plan where we were introduced to the concept of  ‘smart’ networks. These, again, are built around a vision not […]

Emulating Value Chains of Consumer Goods to Save Lives

Just before Christmas this independent academic analysis of our work was published by the prestigious IBM Center for The Business of Government. The work that went into this report was led by Paulo Savaget, a Gates Scholar completing his PhD at Cambridge University, who is now Assistant Professor at the University of Durham and a […]

Kit Yamoyo accessioned into the permanent collection of the V&A

We are very proud to announce that all three formats of Kit Yamoyo have been accessioned into the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A) is the world’s leading museum of art and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects that span over 5,000 years […]

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 […]

Scaling up is tough – beware the funding gap

Running a successful trial is one thing, scaling up is quite another. So we have been told by several commentators. So, we’ve made sure we are ready for the key issues people pointed out that we would face. These include: Getting a manufacturer on board, to make the product their own. Creating a new design, […]