On water hyacinths, chai boys and progress…
Commerce has the dubious distinction of being both glorified and vilified in the modern west. In countries like India where I grew up, trade can be a life line for a family. A poor vendor selling tea to office workers, a “Chai Boy”, can easily raise a family with no particular skills, education, connections or caste. On the other hand, regulations that restrict such trade can kill all hopes of survival for that same chai boy. Certainly, there are no chai boys in the office where I used to work not long ago in the United States. Fortunately, in countries like the United States, the need for marginal existence such as that of a chai boy is also non existent.
When we in the west think of uplifting the somewhat tough lives of the likes of a chai boy, we think grand charitable or government ventures. Where in, in reality, the lives of the American pioneer who existed on the margins not much better than the chai boys of India is based not on handouts, but on local, home grown innovations that created, not donated or granted values. The value created by chai delivered to your desk, and the value of growing crops by working virgin lands. Trade, for me is not about mere exchange, but about creating value. In a trade, there are no losers. Both parties gain something. The luxury of an invigorating drink just as you need it, and the ability to earn a living despite humble circumstance is a win win scenario. Trade is a win-win scenario.
I encountered one such story from Lagos recently on TED. While visiting her home town in Lagos, Achenyo Idachaba saw lakes and waterways stifled by water hyacinth, an invasive species of aquatic plant from South America. Fish were dying as was local modes of transportation and commerce. Ms. Idachaba, being the entrepreneur she is, came up with a way of creating value from the very thing that was killing the waterways.
Do watch the following TED talk by Achenyo Idachaba, who turned an adversity into commercial opportunity:
All progress depends on creating value. Not redistributing value, not granting value. Creating value — where there was none.
