The Franchise as a Development Tool

The slidecast reviews the Franchise model, its phasing its advantages & shortcomings and its application to: 

• Social Franchises to deliver Social Services
• Social Franchise Enterprises for the achievement of the Development Goals

The slidecast is divided in three parts:

• The General Franchise model : Slides 1 to 8 (11minutes).
• Social Franchises: Slides 9-14 ( 5 Min) 
• Social Franchise Enterprise Slides 16 - 20: (5 Min)

Social Franchise Entreprise

The franchising model is frequently mentioned as an alternative to be considered in development projects. It is indeed a versatile development tool that can be used through Private Initiative and Public actions leading to self sustaining economic activities and Social services. Its configuration enables the integration of Capacity Building processes, implementation of Access to Market, Access to Banking and Access to Information strategies whilst prompting individual and communal/collective initiatives, fostering financial responsibility, enabling multiple financing/funding schemes and creating incentives for growth.

Yet, franchising as a development tool has been secluded to limited sectors (Health, Telecoms) and its business cycle based on successive stages –each of them requiring differentiated business & management strategies- has been considered as a pitfall instead of an opportunity.

Developing countries have a demand for utilities, services and local goods, which can and should be met by local production. The Social Franchise Enterprise model is a powerful tool to meet this growing demand and contribute to development goals.

 See full document at SocialFranchiseEntreprise.pdf


Franchise as a Development tool by Alvaro Hidalgo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.wattjet.com.

Rural Electrification

Rural electrification remains a major obstacle in underdeveloped countries.  

The tremendous impact of the introduction of reliable power supply in rural areas is nowadays well studied. It allows the use of appliances, pumps, tools and machines which altogether significantly increase the productivity; it enables further use of night hours to carry certain activities and it enhances the population awareness to their political and economic environment.

However, we are now seeing also the formidable impact generated by a regular access & transfer of information provided by mobile communication in those same environments   and the best proof is the speed of the penetration of mobile communications in underdeveloped countries and the many original uses and applications that are being developed for them.

By reducing the level of infrastructure needed, a cost effective autonomous power supply unit to feed mobile communication towers proves to be therefore a powerful instrument for development in remote areas.

WattJet is studying alternative reliable supply units to mobile communication towers.

See http://www.wattjet.com