We are very pleased to announce that Rohit Ramchandani’s DrPH thesis (Jan-16) has finally been published on the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries website. It’s entitled: EMULATING COMMERCIAL, PRIVATE-SECTOR VALUE-CHAINS TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO ORS AND ZINC IN RURAL ZAMBIA: EVALUATION OF THE COLALIFE TRIAL. The abstract can be read directly from the website here (and […]
ColaLife’s work features strongly in Global ORS/Zinc Policy Paper
4 July 2016 by
Open-source sharing of ColaLife’s lessons, designs and data has been our aspiration since we began in 2008. We’ve made a start on this (see our Open Access Initiative) but during 2016, we want to move this to the next level, even though work in Zambia to establish Kit Yamoyo in the market is still rolling […]
Costing and pricing in the real world: the VAT issue, inflation and affordability
21 May 2016 by
For the moment we’ve lost the battle with the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) to have Kit Yamoyo zero rated for VAT purposes. The ZRA pointed out that Kit Yamoyo contains soap which is VAT-able and so VAT should be charged on the kit at 16%. We responded saying that Kit Yamoyo has been approved by […]
Moving from development to sales – from trial to scale-up
31 March 2016 by
We were warned. People said to us: “Scale-up is completely different to running a trial. You’ve run a successful trial, do you really want to get involved in the scale-up?” The truth is that we had no burning desire to get involved in scale-up. In fact our original strategy was to generate the evidence that […]
The Zambia Report – Nov-14
27 November 2014 by
We are now back in the UK after a great 3 weeks in Zambia. So much happened, it felt we were there for 3 months. This blog post contains the details – the good things and the bad: The not so good (bad) Assembly of Kit Yamoyo by Pharmanova stopped in Oct-14 due to a […]
Take a tablet
17 November 2014 by
From the very beginning of the ColaLife Operational Trial in Zambia (COTZ), field staff of Keepers Zambia Foundation (KZF) have been visiting the retailers they’ve trained to provide them with post-training support. If they can’t visit them, they follow-up by phone. All retailers have a phone and most (but not all) will be in areas with […]
Gearing up for the scale-up with revised training materials
24 November 2013 by
I spent a large part of Friday (22-Nov-13) doing what I like best – making things. Based on our experience with the trial Jane has been re-thinking our training materials for the scale-up (KYTS). We envisaged that the training materials developed for COTZ would be used for retailer and promoter training and then cascaded down […]
Just back from Katete
10 May 2013 by
I’m just back from my latest field trip to Katete. On these trips, I’m always aware that, as a 6’2″ white observer with weird hair, my mere presence has an impact on what I’m observing. This was really brought home to me on this trip when I was accompanied by three other white faces. Things got very […]
Phase 2 Community-based marketing gets underway
28 April 2013 by
Seven months ago, when we started the ColaLife trial, nobody knew what a Kit Yamoyo anti-diarrhoea kit was. So the first 6 months of the community-based marking activity has been about awareness raising and the launch of a completely new product (Kit Yamoyo) into remote rural areas of Kalomo and Katete. A key tool to […]
It’s the value chain stupid!
3 March 2013 by
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 […]
