Answer: Of course not. But it might be the best answer in many more
cases than we think.
***
Take any given activity deemed socially worthy -- an educational radio
boradcast, for example. If it is socially worthy, then by definition it
**should** happen. How, then, shall the costs of making it happen be
afforded?
There are likely many possibilities, each likely to succeed to some
extent. Sustainability is presumably part of the definition of success.
Of course profitability is not essential for sustainability. Kassides
at the Bank is an economist who argues essentially that there will
always be some services ripe for public-sector management. That's
perhaps another way of saying that some population broader than the
immediate consumers of a good should pay for its production, if only
because the benefits of the good flow beyond the immediate consumers to
that broader population. So, if profitability is not essential for
sustainability, there are of course successes out there that do not rely
on profitability.
Nonetheless, I do think that in some circumstances a solution based on
profitability can be the optimal one. In those circumstances, the
challenge seems to be finding an innovative business model that targets
the poor as consumers. The emphasis is on **innovative**.
While I do not know what form that kind of profitability answer would
take, in the case of the program Michael Bosse describes (below) in
Nepal, which has to do with education carried out by broadcast radio for
a large number of very poor people, I have heard (through Digital
Dividend and elsewhere) that there are interesting ideas worth
exploring. Many of these move beyond the conventional advertising
models perfected in the West for wealthier audiences.
The innovators will essentially ask, If the traditional advertisers see
no market through our radio programs sufficient for them to pay a lot of
money for 30-second spots, then is there some other group out there
willing to buy time on our show in order to meet some other market
demand for their products?
Or perhaps more cleverly they might ask, Is there some entirely new way
of using broadcast radio that can generate revenues sufficient to cover
costs in a way we've never even thought of before? In Mali, I hear
birth, death, and wedding announcements generate the big bucks. In the
USA I see we get the consumers themselves to pay for some programming.
I'm sure none of these are the right answer for Nepal, the point merely
being that the key can be finding the right business model.
Or stepping out into the bold new frontiers of innovative questioning,
Is there some way to tap the collective wealth of the very poor in
order to provide our educational product while covering costs, whether
with broadcast radio or without?
And then there's the supply-side question: Are we truly selling a
worthwhile product? Was our determination of social worthiness for
our educational program properly done at the outset? That's all part
of the business model, yes?
Thus the crux of the matter for me boils down to this:
How do we set about the task of first unearthing, and then exploring,
those innovative business models that can make profitability work for
the poor, not necessarily in every case, but at least in more cases than
we're seeing now?
My personal sense is that standard approaches to program development
cannot cope.
Cheers!
Jeff
Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade
Office for Energy and Information Technology RRB 4.06-066
1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20523-3800
Tel +1 (202) 712-1956, Cell +1 (301) 728-2160
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.usaid.gov Keyword:InfoTech
On Tuesday, November 16, 2004, Michael Bosse wrote:
I'd like to share a wonderful story about the concept of sustainability
and profitability in the area my organization www.equalaccess.org
works, providing information and education to rural and under-served
communities by broadcast technologies. It's also an idea and short-cut
for measuring sustainability where there is large reach. Equal Access
uses audio programs (radio) but the central challenge presented applies
to anyone who measures impact and profit beyond the direct price paid
for services delivered (as Lee Thorn and others have suggested, profit
can be much more than monetary).
..snip...
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