The document discusses WILMA's program to alleviate poverty in Africa through joint venture commercial estates (JVCEs). It summarizes the experiences and lessons learned from two initial businesses - a mushroom farm and water distribution company. It then proposes expanding these models by clustering complementary businesses and social services into larger JVCEs. Finally, it outlines WILMA's SEED program to train future leaders to launch their own JVCEs through a hands-on training course involving business planning, field work, and establishing a self-sustaining venture.

1. ▪ Lack of local business planning and
management capacities
▪ Lack of local ownership and
control, and therefore lack of
community support
▪ Little access to mainstream
Alleviating Poverty With finance
Joint Venture Commercial Our confidence in the JVCE
program is based on our experience
Estates with two independent businesses that
WILMA has embarked upon a WILMA helped plan and finance. The
program to improve living standards first was Dar CDA Mushroom,
in some of Africa’s poorest commonly known as DarMush in its Members of the Dar es Salaam Community
communities through the formation of home location of Mbweni, just north Development Association meet in a local
classroom.
businesses structured as joint of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. WILMA
ventures. These businesses will be hired mushroom experts from China
This mushroom business still
partly owned by African nonprofit to train local workers to raise
depends on aid: the building of new
organizations, which will provide the mushrooms in the hot and humid
mushroom barns and other costs
land, the initial planning, the labor, coastal environment. These experts
sometimes exceeds monthly
and services to the local community have returned to their homes, and the
revenues, and DarMush cannot afford
such as health and education. company continues to produce
to borrow. WILMA suggested that a
Commercial firms from industrialized mushrooms and expand its
cluster of companies including
countries will also be part owners, operations in the care of the Dar es
construction and materials production
and they will provide the business Salaam Community Development
could make DarMush self-sustaining.
expertise, technology, and capital to Association.
The availability of a school for
make the joint venture a success. To
workers’ children and a clinic would
increase efficiency and sustainability,
also help in the hiring and retention of
our business model clusters small
a labor force. Working with our
business start-ups to take advantage
commercial partner, Tucson
of technical linkages, supply-demand
relationships, and common land-use
needs. The result is the Joint Venture
Commercial Estate (JVCE), a
community center for business and
social services that relies on its own
profits for sustainability.
This business model addresses
the problems that curb the growth of
small business in Africa:
▪ Vast distances, poor transport
infrastructure, and high fuel costs Innocent L. Bash, WILMA’s program manager
for Tanzania, inspects a new mushroom variety Ahakishaka villagers construct the storage tank
▪ Poor health, education, and social
being introduced to east Africa by DarMush, and pumping station for their water-distribution
services near production sites coprinus comatus. system.

2. Transatlantic Trade, which specializes meager. Villagers are willing to pay
in low-cost construction and has its for the water, but what they can
own program for developing joint afford will barely cover the cost of
ventures in foreign countries, we maintaining the current equipment. In
have planned a JVCE in Mbweni order to expand and raise the living
including both commercial
enterprises and social services.
standard of the village, the company
plans to begin selling bottled spring
GETTING AFRICA OUT OF
The second business around
water outside of the village. There’s THE POVERTY BUSINESS
plenty of demand for this product, but
which we are planning a JVCE is
although WILMA has paid for a
Ahakishaka Waterworks. Ahakishaka
specialist to certify the quality of the
is a village composed of five hamlets
water and has completed
in northwestern Tanzania near the
negotiations with the government for
Rwanda border. In the middle of the
rights to bottle and sell it, the
hamlets is a spring where traditionally
capacity to build the bottling plant
remains out of reach. WILMA
proposes a JVCE including a
construction company and other
complementary businesses. In both
Mbweni and Ahakishaka the demand
for improved housing is high. The
former is dotted with tin-roof shacks;
the latter is a region of mud huts. In
either location a company specializing The World Institute for
in sturdy low-cost construction should Leadership and Management in
find continuing demand for both Africa (WILMA), a nonprofit
residential and commercial buildings. organization dedicated to
WILMA’s network of partners combating poverty in Africa
and colleagues includes an ever- through the support of indigenous
WILMA staff and local leaders inspect one of
the new faucets installed in a hamlet center. expanding roster of professionals leaders and managers, has
who stand ready to provide valuable experimented with alternatives to
children have spent much of each day services to support the formation of traditional development methods
fetching water for their families. JVCEs. Some of them are in mid-
WILMA provided some initial capital
since 1999. Success with two
career, others retired; while they will community-based small
for the residents of Ahakishaka to donate their time, their travel and
build a storage and pumping system businesses has led us to design a
other expenses must be covered,
to distribute water to hamlet centers. and it’s often necessary to hire local
new way of promoting and
Freed from the task of fetching water, professionals at standard rates for expanding such businesses. If our
the village children are now able to short-term specialized assignments. objectives can be fully realized,
attend the local elementary school, we may be able to reduce or
which is being expanded by the local eliminate the need for donations in
government to accommodate the the communities where we are
influx of new students.
pursuing this effort, and we hope
As with the mushroom company, to expand to many more
profits from the water company are communities. WILMA’s strategy
for Getting Africa Out of the

3. The Way Forward:
WILMA’s SEED
WILMA with its commercial
partner, TTT, are combining their
experience on the ground in Africa
with their network of senior
professionals in Africa and around the
world to launch a course of training
and mentoring for the future leaders
of JVCEs. We call this course
WILMA’s SEED. SEED stands for
Social Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship for Development. Another faucet located on vacant land makes
the construction of a new girl’s school and
In SEED, WILMA Senior Mentors other long-needed facilities feasible.
lend their time and talents to groups
of students at the world’s leading
liberal arts colleges and universities.
After extensive preparatory study, the
course starts formally with a two-
week seminar at the students’
school, conducted by the Senior
Mentor during or after their junior
year. The seminar starts the process
of creating a business plan. The
course formally ends with the
successful launching of a JVCE that
serves a particular community and
that is planned with its leaders and
local investors. The capitalization of
the JVCE repays student loans
contracted to pay for the course. The
loans are guaranteed by the
students’ sponsors, by their Senior
Mentors, and by other interested
investors and donors.