Loyola Joseph Director,FOOD, Chennai,India

What we learnt from our experience is that while the rich have financial capital for promoting their enterprise, the poor need to promote social solidarity and social capital so that they can raise their economic condition.

‘The Foundation of Occupational Development (FOOD), based in Chennai, India, began the Inter-City Marketing Network project in April 2001 to help poor women in urban areas increase their incomes. FOOD worked initially with some 100 existing women’s selfhelp groups representing between 1,000–2,000 women and their families. An initial survey of these groups indicated that while many women derived a small income from producing goods at home (food products, soap, repackaged food items), they were generally weak at marketing their products and finding customers. Typically, they sold their products to visiting middlemen and made little profit from their work. FOOD provided training in marketing and the use of “social capital,” encouraging these groups to focus on production, marketing, or both. It also provided each group with a cell phone to facilitate contact between production and marketing groups, and between groups and customers. This is a simple way of applying widely available telecommunication technologies to a traditional micro-enterprise sector with a very high proportion of women’s participation. While the cell phones were initially provided by the project, today all groups buy their own phones and pay for all calling charges. The target groups comprise of the local female artisans and semi-skilled workers who are currently living below the poverty line in and near Chennai.

Context
During field visits to various cities of Tamil Nadu conducted by FOOD staff, we observed that each city has its own set of products that are manufactured using indigenous skills. Most of these products are made with locally available materials and the skills available in production, are seldom found in other cities.

Although, the majority of the community is a part of CBO, due to lack of communication link between CBOs, we observed that the producers are dependent on middlemen for marketing their produce outside their local area. This reduces the community’s earnings even though their products are of very good quality.

The other major set back in the cultural system in this part of the country is that women are seldom allowed to go out of the house to sell their products to the public. Due to this, the skilled women workers are discouraged from making use of their creative and entrepreneurial skills.

What we set out to do…
The goals of the network are to link women micro-entrepreneurs from different urban areas in order to exchange goods and develop new markets for their products. The groups trade in over 100 basic products, including soap, cooking oil, washing powder. Communication between the groups is maintained through mobile phones which are used to receive and place orders for goods with other groups in the network, and to compare prices across the region. This would lead in utilisation of ICT as a tool for social and economic development of the poor especially women. This would not only improve the cash flow within the community increasing the income of women thus reducing poverty, but also create direct market for the products made by women groups. It would further build the capacity of women entrepreneurs.

The evaluation process
The evaluation process was primarily in the form of collection of stories from the community before the project starts (i.e. their practical problems, needs etc) utilising Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and then interpreting them into specific issues faced by the community. Then during and after the projects regular interviews were conducted to collect more stories (i.e. accounts from the community detailing whether the marketing network has made a difference to their day to day life) and then interpret them to enable the project to determine the success or failure rates.

Results
Marketing in the network is based on the concept of social capital. Individual women are encouraged to foster good relationships with the family and friends to build a strong network of customers. The producer groups distribute their products to marketing groups via small and large trading meetings along with mobile communication. This has resulted in enabling the women to increase the profit margins, increase their volume of sales, and extend their marketing reach into new urban areas. Active network members started earning a profit of between US $ 10- 40 per month from their part time job. This income represents 10-15 percent of total family income and enables many members to pay school fees. More than 300 groups are now involved in the network.

Lessons learnt
What we learnt from our experience is that while the rich have financial capital for promoting their enterprise, the poor need to promote social solidarity and social capital so that they can improve their economic conditions and standards of living. One of the best ways to build social solidarity is through community networking. Since the cell phone does not require much of functional literacy to operate and maintain, the community need not undergo extensive training or learn an unknown language in order to network.

The use of cell phones has allowed the women groups to expand their reach and extend their activities to areas where they did not have a presence earlier. Before the start of this project, most of the production groups were restricting themselves to marketing their products either in their neighborhood or selling it to middlemen for a low price. Using cell phones the production groups are now able to conduct business with groups in other cities or areas, which was hitherto inaccessible to them.

By building a good communication
network using cell phones, the inter-city marketing network has helped women who are culturally bonded to social barriers such as resistance to movement outside their neighbourhood, to utilise their free time to market products and hence raise the economic condition of their family.

While discussing with the community during the course of this project we found that most of the women were previously doing nothing. They were of the opinion that they need capital to enter into any trade and it also involves commuting which means sacrificing their contribution to the family and not providing for the emotional needs of the family especially their children.

One of the major breakthroughs in this project is that it establishes, one can earn as much as required if one can build social capital and this can be achieved by using communication links and supplemented by meeting face-to-face once in way in public places. The communication links have helped the women groups in this project to find livelihood leading to improved income and economic empowerment of women.

The other lesson learnt is that building social solidarity and social capital eliminates cash credit requirement for doing business. In many groups it is found that the transactions are streamlined wherein the fund revolves within the community. For instance, the marketing groups have established good rapport with the production groups wherein the products are made available to the marketing group on 15 days deferred payment thus eliminating outside lending to the women groups. Cell phone also helps to monitor the functioning of the entire network wherein each groups’ credit rating is transparent.

The challenges
While we are planning to create and organise the sector and promote economic activity by substituting financial capital with social capital, the growth of the network is being viewed by many financing institutions as a gateway for micro-lending and corrupting the women groups with finance. Few groups who have been provided finance have ventured into doing big business. Due to lack of knowledge in financial management they have fallen sick within 3 months of borrowing. We have now sent circulars to

The social impact Padma Sivalingapuram, Tamil Nadu Padma’s husband had deserted her and she was struggling to earn a livelihood to support her 2 children and herself. After she attended one of the meetings organised by FOOD in her area, Padma was enthusiastic started marketing rice and phenol. In the first month itself she was able to earn Rs 500 by marketing product in her neighborhood, supplied by a remote women group. On getting a cell phone from FOOD, within a period of 3 or 4 months Padma’s confidence has increased he income by ten fold and she has even remarried. Her husband is now assisting her in the marketing activity. Ramani Mangalapuram, Tamil Nadu Ramani lives in Mangalapuram with her 3 children. She was motivated to join the inter-city network after attending one of the regional workshops. She is now marketing shampoo, soap, washing powder and cleaning powder not only in her neighbourhood but also to other nearby areas by using her cell phone to keep in touch. She earns an average of US $ 33 to 44 per month. She has decided to now specialise in marketing detergent cakes since she sees a good market for it in her area.

the financial institutions not to lend money to the inter-city network groups stating that this project is an attempt to find out how one can be economically empowered without borrowing money from outside source and that the bank’s intervention will only mar the basic concept of the program because on one side we see economic empowerment, the other side we see they are getting bonded to the lending agencies. Since micro-credit has set a wrong trend in the minds of many women groups we wanted to prove that building social capital is a better and sustainable option for micro-enterprise development. This we see as an alternative for micro credit. The members have learnt that it is possible to start and run a small business without depending on banks or money lenders for loans if, you have social capital. Providing cell phone for the sake of it had failed at the initial stages wherein the cell phone were taken by the women groups but they could not meet the telephone charges. Further some also started treating it as a toy and making calls erratically, leading to huge phone bills. On an average, we found that about 3% of the women groups dropped out from the project due to such reasons. Hence, based on the experience at

Some quantitative outputs Average monthly income per group On an average, each woman in the project earns approximately US $39 per month. Compared to this, the average monthly income of the households in the affected communities is approximately $56 per month. Hence the average income of each woman in the project is almost equal to the average income of the entire household in the communities where the project has been undertaken. Average cell phone usage by women groups On an average, the women groups make about 20 to 30 calls every day. Since cell-to-cell incoming calls are free, the women pay only a minimum charge of US $ 7-11 per month depending on the usage.

present, the cell phones are provided only once the group has reached a comfortable income level wherein they will be able to pay the telephone bills.

It is interesting to note that while initially the women groups were using the cell phones for personal calls also when they saw the telephone bills they have decided to compartmentalise usage of the cell phone and use it only for business calls so that they can justify the money spent on maintaining the cell phones. Their reasoning is that while the cell phone can be maintained comfortably out of their business revenue, it will become difficult if they start using it for personal calls since this cost will then need to be subsidised out of their business revenue – which they feel is not a good business practice. In fact many women are now in a position to even suggest to FOOD’s team how we can make best use of the cell phone so that the call costs are less based on the various packages offered by competing cell phone companies!

One issue that was raised when we introduced the project to outside agencies is why the women groups are given a cell phone and not a fixed line phone. The advantage we found in providing a cell phone is that a cell phone is ideal for communication access in remote areas and moreover the women are always mobile while doing their domestic work, e.g. traveling long distances to fetch water, washing cloths, defecation, to procure their daily rations from Government fair price shops, leaving their children in schools etc. Further, since their houses are typically small, the women, when they get free time, prefer to get together at a common place and chat. Since they are mobile almost all the time they see the cell phone is the ideal option since they will not miss business contacts.

Concluding observations
It is observed that women who joined the inter-city marketing network have been able to not only raise income for their family but also have become more self-confident and motivated. With high enthusiasm women have also learnt to cooperate with each other for mutual benefit.

The awareness created and economic empowerment that this project has offered to the women who have all along been stuck to domestic work has brought them to the front line. Through this program, community solidarity has been established and the women groups have become well known in their community. The community organisation skills of the women involved in this project have empowered them to leap forward to a level wherein three women from the inter-city group stood and won the local body elections.

We also learnt that when a woman makes money she tends to spend the entire income for the welfare of the family compared to men who provide only a part of their income to the family and retain the rest for their personal expenses.

This project was selected as a finalist for the Stockholm Challenge Awards 2002. $1 = Rs. 45