We improve lives in Africa with evidence for sustainable impact

Literature review

1.1. The sub-Sahara African region has potential for, and depend on, a more rapid development progress

Africa is a continent with remarkable economic potential, yet the least developed (Mamman et al., 2018). The African continent produces only 3 percent of global GDP and accounts for less than 3 percent of international trade, and this trade is mainly composed of commodities and natural resources (Gurib-Fakim, 2022). Moreover, Africa contributes with just 2 percent of the world’s research output, accounts for only 1.3 percent of the research spending, and produces only 0.1 percent of all patents (Gurib-Fakim, 2022). While the poverty rate in the sub-Sahara African region has decreased from 56% in 1990 to 40% in 2018, the number of poor continues to rise (Schoch, 2020), in other words, the poverty rate has not fallen fast enough to keep up with population growth. Thus, the number of poor people continues to rise in the Sub-Sahara African region, and 433 million Africans were estimated to live in extreme poverty in 2018, rising from 284 in 1990 (Schoch, 2020). Beegle (2019) forecasts that 90% of the world’s poor live in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. Perhaps even more alarming than having 40% of the Sub-Saharan African population living in extreme poverty, below the US$1.90-a-day poverty line, is the limited progress from such high levels over the past three decades (Schoch, 2020). Without a more rapid progress in Africa, the 2030 goal of eradicating global poverty will not be reached (Schoch, 2020).

1.2. Key Challenges & proposed solutions

i)      The number of extremely poor people is increasing with 5 million every year, but an expansion in locally managed initiative can empower development.

Thus, according to Schoch (2020) number of extremely poor people in sub-Sahara African countries (SSA) is increasing with 5 million every year, but findings shows that an expansion of locally managed trade, business and scientific research has potential to empower sustainable sustainable development. Evidence shows that when African countries increase their intercontinentally trade, they exchange more manufactured and processed goods, have more knowledge transfer, and create more value (Songwe, 2019).  Besides trade, the contribution of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the socio-economic development in most developing economies cannot be underestimated (Amoah, 2021). Both developed and developing countries are living testimonies of the contributions of SMEs to their nation’s growth and development. Dassah and Ngatse-Ipangui (2019) argues that social enterprises – with a social purpose but operating on commercial principles – are well positioned to tackle socio-economic problems in deprived communities and that the impact of social entrepreneurs is important for addressing social challenges and generating innovative, sustainable and effective social solutions. Social enterprises solve pressing and insurmountable social problems, making an immense yet durable and irreversible social impact with minimal investments, having as assets their passion (Nowak et al., 2020), and social enterprises tend to aim to serve the poor with often innovative technical, organizational, and financial approaches (Navarrete Moreno, 2017). It is generally agreed that also scientific research is key to development, and Kasprowicz et al. (2020) argues that the recent shift to an African-led research approach is the most optimal and that African-led research has the potential to overcome the vicious cycle of brain-drain and may ultimately lead to improvement of health and science-led economic transformation of Africa into a prosperous continent.

ii) Sub-Sahara Africa lack management and tailor-made management strategies can empower technology, research, business and trade; increase transparency and reduce brain-drain

Tailor-made management strategies can empower development interventions and the human capital

Park (2019) claims that Africa’s development challenges are not due to a lack of resources but a lack of management. The ISO certification, for example, remain relatively underdeveloped in Africa with about 1% of the total number of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications worldwide (Tayo Tene et al., 2018). The authors argue that the challenges with the implementation of ISO management standards are related to the weak institutional framework, the ineffectiveness of donor-funded programs, the lack of human and financial resources, the low participation in the development of ISO management standards, and corruption.  Mungiu-Pippidi (2017b) has been studying corruption and recommends international donors to develop a common strategy together with domestic civil societies, to draw and support national long-term strategies aimed at building public integrity and ethical universalism. The author recommends sketching the basics for a diagnosis of the rule of the game in social allocation; recommends fact-based change indicators to set a target; and to outline a strategy in order to identify the human agency willing to change the situation. The author argues, that interventions have to be designed in order to empower such agency, on the basis of a joint strategy to reduce opportunities and increase constraints for corruption, and that all tools that do not fit the context should be entirely excluded.

Mamman et al. (2018) claim that the lack of development in Africa is largely due to its inadequate human capital to transform its potential into social and economic development. According to Anlesinya et al. (2019) effective talent management has significant transformative and growth power through its varied positive contributions, but that talent management in Africa is faced with numerous organisational as well as macro-level challenges and requires attention from relevant stakeholders, if African talents are to be harnessed to facilitate the development of the continent. Mamman et al. (2018) see an important role in this process within the workplace and argue that the role of human resource (HR) professionals in human capital development in Africa deserves serious attention. Many science graduates in Africa are unemployed and the situation is getting worse, which leads to that those who can successfully find science jobs overseas do so (Wild, 2018). The best-trained, most talented researchers gravitate to environments where their work is leveraged by modern equipment, reliable utilities, and sufficient funding for supplies—and, perhaps most critically, where they can benefit from the presence of other talented people (Gurib-Fakim, 2022). Thus, argues the author, the tide of Africa’s brain drain must be reversed by creating a world-class education and research infrastructure that will keep the best minds on the continent and attract new ones.

Tailor-made management strategies can empower technology, research, business & trade

In view of the centrality of technology diffusion in fostering local innovations and economic development in developing countries, it is surprising that our understanding of the challenges and opportunities in scaling-up technologies remains limited, argues Amankwah‐Amoah (2019), who identified challenging factors such as weak regulatory enforcement systems, lack of financial credit availability, and limited banking services. Gurib-Fakim (2022) argues that African governments must empower progress by creating an ecosystem that facilitates investment in science and technology in a way that will not just accelerate discovery but also allow innovations to enter the marketplace more quickly, also Wild (2018) agrees with that there is a need to provide infrastructure and to fund talented African scientists based in Africa to success. Moreover, many SMEs in developing countries are constrained by external forces; financial challenges, technology; market penetration & acceptability; research and development, which hinder the sustainability of these businesses (Amoah, 2021). Also, despite the crucial role social enterprises play in deprived communities, their impact is minimal owing to shortcomings such as non-involvement of local people, lack of sustainability of their activities’ outcomes, lack of plans to present to communities, poor implementation of activities and weak monitoring of outcomes (Dassah & Ngatse-Ipangui, 2019), therefore despite being effective in reaching the poor, social enterprises face significant obstacles in growing their activities to a scale where they can substantially contribute to the achievement of the SDGs (Navarrete Moreno, 2017). Amoah (2021) argues that entrepreneurial knowledge is a prerequisite for the survival of every business organization. When it comes to trade, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) has been touted as an economic and globalization game changer because it has the potential to transform African economies and significantly raise Africa’s share of global trade to position the region as an increasingly dynamic force in the international arena (Fofack, 2020). However, argues the author, to realize this potential, African countries must actively carry out complementary structural and policy reforms to foster long-term peace and security, address the supply-side constraints and mitigate the short-term fiscal adjustment costs of the trade agreement to set the continental trade-integration project on a successful implementation path for a win-win continental trade-integration outcome.

Tailor-made management strategies can increase transparency

Concerning transparency it has been found that the few workable tools targeting anti-corruption are functioning only in contexts where domestic agency exists and Mungiu-Pippidi (2017b) proposes a full-fledged roadmap to evidence-based anti-corruption. Business ethics in Africa, as a field of research, practice, and teaching, has grown rapidly over the last two decades or so, covering a wide variety of topical issues, including corporate social responsibility, governance, and social entrepreneurship (Adeleye et al., 2020). The authors point at four areas that cover important, under-researched or newly emerging phenomena in Africa: culture, ethics and leadership; business, society and institutions; corruption, anti-corruption and governance; as well as, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and impact investing. Adeleye et al. (2020) also argues that it is important to pay attention to indigenous African theories, models and firms. (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2017b) claims that when we target change, then we must understand why the status quo would change and who would bring the desired evolution, we thus need to do a careful stakeholder analysis and coalition building. It is essential to understand who has the interest to challenge the rules of the game and who is prone to defend them, in other words – to identify the institutional status quo losers and winners. Who would remain a winner even if they open the door to the more merit-based competition? Who, among today’s losers, would gain something essential? These groups need to come together to make change happen (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2017b).

iii) The demand for good governance is increasing and changing governance across borders can be achieved through international collaboration ensuring evidence of sustainable impact

Empowering good governance across borders through partnership between groups benefitting from a positive change

Demand for good governance is increasing all over the world (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2017b), but  the changing of governance across borders is a difficult task. Mungiu-Pippidi (2017b) encourages international partners to socialize with enlightened elites, and identify the opportunities to help the civil society and a developing enlightened citizens’ community in actual practice, despite it being difficult. Mungiu-Pippidi (2017b) argues for coalition building and that the groups benefiting from the positive change need to come together to make change happen and to reflect over whom, when and how international partners can assist along the road to a virtuous circle. Public corruption is, according to Mungiu-Pippidi (2017a) best conceived as part of a broader social order context and not at individual level. Presuming corruption to be the exception and public integrity the norm in every society does not reflect the reality and can lead to erroneous development strategies, as norm building and norm enforcement require two very different approaches. The author argues that corruption is hardly a social ‘malady’ to be eradicated, but rather a default governance order, people tend to favour their own, be it family, clan, race or ethnic group: treating the rest of the world fairly seems to be a matter of extensive social evolution and sufficient resources.

The effectiveness of traditional development aid is questioned and improved development partnership requires evidence-based impact assessments

Without the economic and scientific infrastructure necessary for innovation, Africa has continued to rely on the colonial development model of resource extraction, which is both unsustainable and largely responsible for its debilitating poverty and aid dependency (Gurib-Fakim, 2022). Scientists from Africa collaborate with international partners and access donor funding, but this comes with the tether of donor obligations and the danger of foreign-set science agendas (Wild, 2018), and when the public sector struggles to meet service demand in low-income communities in terms of delivery and quality, then Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) try to fill these gaps instead, but the NGOs can only reach as far as grant funding and sponsorships allow, which limits the scale of services (Navarrete Moreno, 2017). In terms of anti-corruption efforts, corrupt governments are often entrusted the ownership of anti-corruption programmes that will never take off – not only because they often are the wrong programmes, but because they really should be implemented against the main interests (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2017b).

Effectiveness of foreign aid in stimulating economic development is a topic of intense debate in the scientific community and among policy analysts (Asatullaeva, 2021). In the mid-1990s, a vision of aid effectiveness began to evolve under the leadership of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and, in particular, its Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC), the main club of traditional Western donors (Brown, 2020a). The result of this process, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness quickly constituted the overarching norm for 21st-century development cooperation (Brown, 2020a). The aid effectiveness norm reached its apogee in 2008, but the norm was only feebly internalized and Brown (2020a) argues that, although donors and recipients theoretically endorsed the Paris principles, they were unwilling to overcome their reluctance to substantially change their practices on the ground. The norm’s failure was, according to the author, due to, in large part, a lack of political will and significant incentives of various types on all sides to maintain the status quo, including donors’ desires to achieve self-interested goals and recipients’ desire to maximize financial inflows and maintain policy space while manifesting agreement with the principles and performing compliance. Starting in 2011, the aid effectiveness norm was redefined, which caused it to decay and, as a result, be extinguished (Brown, 2020a). What remains of the aid effectiveness nor is a loose grouping of various types of actors within the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC), who hold periodic meetings, but whose main task appears to be monitoring a broad list of too-numerous and frequently vague indicators and sharing best practices (Brown, 2020a). According to Palagashvili and Williamson (2021), despite the rapid growth of non–Development Assistance Committee (DAC) emerging donors, these non-traditional donors are historically left out of the discussion on aid effectiveness (Palagashvili & Williamson, 2021), but the authors also found that non-DAC donors rank similarly to DAC donors: both groups are equally poor performers concerning transparency, overhead costs, aid specialization, selective allocation, and effective delivery channels. Palagashvili and Williamson (2021) found that multilateral agencies and UN donors outperform both DAC and non-DAC bilateral agencies, but in total the authors concluded that most aid donors do not meet their own standards for best practices. This has resulted in that  at the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)s are seriously off track (Sachs, 2023).

Faced with often disappointing results from foreign aid, scholars, policy makers and practitioners have been trying for decades to determine what makes aid more effective (Brown, 2020a), and numerous empirical studies have been devoted to investigating the impact of foreign aid on the economic growth/development of recipient countries (Asatullaeva, 2021), but no single method has been agreed on.  According to Metzger and Guenther (2015) most studies on project-based aid effectiveness rely on subjective evaluation ratings when measuring projects’ performance. The authors concluded that evaluation ratings put weight on project management and implementation and that these were only weakly correlated with objective and quantitative project results. Moreover, Metzger and Guenther (2015) found that most cross-country studies on project-based aid use ex-post evaluation ratings or economic rates of return to measure project performance. An ex-post evaluation refers to an evaluation that is carried out after the programme has been completed and is a method used throughout the European Commission to assess whether a specific intervention was justified and whether it worked (or is working) as expected in achieving its objectives and why (Metzger & Guenther, 2015). The authors claim that ex-post evaluation ratings are subjective assessments of the extent to which aid projects achieved their targeted development goals and that because evaluation ratings are subjective, their interpretability and comparability is limited. First, they are not standardized across donor organizations. Second, they may not even be comparable within an organization: evaluators follow common rules and guidelines, but are given flexibility in their rating decisions. The authors continue that by aggregating projects from heterogeneous sectors, many studies further reduce the comparability and interpretability of the ratings and that because of the heterogeneity of different aid sectors, analyses on the drivers of project aid effectiveness can only include sector-unspecific project management variables.  (Metzger & Guenther, 2015) concludes that the ex-post evaluation ratings are subjective assessments and that their interpretability and comparability therefore is limited; they are not standardized across donor organizations and may not even be comparable within an organization as evaluators follow common rules and guidelines, but are given flexibility in their rating decisions. Sachs (2023) also argues that there remains a great deal of work to be done to improve the data and methods underlying the SDG indicator framework and that in an information-rich and post-truth environment, citizens and decision-makers need knowledge and tools to transform data and science into evidence, actions, and long-term policies.

References

Our Observations & reactions

Justification & mission

It has been concluded from the literature that the number of extremely poor people in sub-Sahara African countries (SSA) is increasing with 5 million every year, and that the traditional development aid sector lack evidence for sustainable impact. HR&S has taken on as our mission to reduce extreme poverty. Research has also found that that poverty is not primarily related to lack of resources, but rather to lack of management, why HR&S has developed a management strategy for international equal development partnership. Our mission is to improve lives in sub-Sahara African countries and to ensure sustainable impact.

The weaknesses with donations

Can we help empower extremely poor person in SSA through donations? If we think about it. A donations would solve an immediate urgent need. But later, we will most likely experience that same need again. Then a demand for a new donation. And a new, and a new, and a new… Is it not so that donations creates dependency? A dependency by the receiver towards a donor. It seems unavoidable. And it seems to never end. Is it not also so that donations to both the people in a country and its government breaks the “social contract” between the two, so that the people do not need the government and the government do not depend on the people. Research has found that the traditional development aid sector lack evidence based strategies to achieve sustainable impact.
So, if no donations, then what?

Access to income

Is their a difference between people? Do people in different parts of the world need different things? Or do we need the same thing? If we are the same, then I can ask myself  “What do I need”? What do you need? What do people need in general. To manage everyday life. To manage to take care of our families. The answer is – we all need an income. We need a source of money.  On a regular basis. We need a salary trough an employment, or a business that generates profit.  And how can we ensure that? We need to ensure a strong enough Business sector. As a result of this logic, has HR&S decided to empower entrepreneurs in SSA. No donations, but business loans. To be paid back with a reasonable level of interest. 

The challenges with loans & the solution

So good. With this approach. Is the problem solved?  Is it easy like that? It is not. Because… If it was me. If I live in an underserved community with my three children. Who I love, more than anything. If I have little.  And my beloved children need something…, hospital, education… If I have access to this money. And this money is from rich people in a rich country. I will take this money and plan to pay back later.  I would take care of my family first and see how I can manage with the rich people after. I would. And if I didn’t. I would not be a good mother. The problem is. This is a one time solution. Now the money is gone.  My business is in no position to generate income any-longer. I have used the loan as a donation and will need new support again. I therefore do not only need the loan per see. But I need someone at my side to support and guide me. Someone who can ensure my families basic need are met, and that I can scale my business, in parallel. Not one or the other, both, at the same time. Therefore, HR&S does not only offer a business loan.  But in addition. We offer a management strategy, that we guide on in parallel with providing a business loan.

Scientific research, innovation & enterprising for social good

Besides employment shall a wealthy nation provide social security, for this we need scientific research, innovation and enterprising for social good, as well as tax payment.
 

Management strategy review based on cross-cultural understanding

What does such a management strategy look like? And how do we provide this guidance in actual practice? And how do we ensure sustainable impact. To do this. We need to have a deep serious cross-cultural awareness. To be able to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else, of our partners in SSA. In order to understand perfectly. Which management strategy and how to inform about it. HR&S has done our homework and offer the HR&S management strategy ROPE (Real-time Outcome Planning and Evaluation). The founder CEO drafted a management strategy in 2009 by compiling findings from the scientific literature and our own experiences from working in SSA. We have together with our local partners  implemented, learned lessons, taken informed decision and continuously improved the method. The HR&S management strategy ROPE targets evidence based sustainable impact.

Our Innovation
The HR&S Strategy for Change

The HR&S management strategy ROPE is a Strategy for Change. It is an innovation, it is straight forward, and it takes us step by step through a process of change.  It is based on just common sense, but it is ambitious and it requires effort and attention. The purpose with the HR&S management strategy ROPE is social good with sustainable impact in sub-Sahara African countries (SSA).
ROPE has been developed to achieve this goal and is unique in that it:

  1. Addresses the ambitions of the local partner and solves their challenges.
  2. Assigns a self-sustained local stakeholder committee for each partner.
  3. Implements procedures to strengthen transparency, accountability, truth and trust.
  4. Measures progress or not progress, real-time.
  5. Performs annual survey where evidence for sustainable impact is tested.
  6. Implements procedures ensuring sustainable institutional capacities.
  7. Builds financial viability through business approaches.
  8. Implements tailor-made ROPE versions empowering scientific research, laboratory management, entrepreneurship, reaching under-served communities and international equal partnerships for development.
  9. Reaches underserved communities through local sequences of procedures.
  10. Involves resilience as in processes of change as stakeholders need time to reflect, make decisions and arrange.

 

We are scaling & We are reaching out to new partners – Partnerships for Development

Our results shows that our value proposition delivers evidence based sustainable impact. Our procedures are firm, our team is dedicated and capable, we manage our challenges and we are scaling. HR&S is well prepared to become a large-scale international development partner. Our achievements can easily be amplified and copied to also other locations. HR&S offers our services to institutions and companies operating in sub-Sahara African countries, local and international. We have significant experience from supporting local scientific institutions with empowering the scientific infrastructure, laboratories with ensuring functioning advanced scientific equipment, entrepreneurs to scale their businesses, and international development institutions to reach sustainable impact.

Testimony

” In my experience, the majority of Western projects to improve the living conditions of vulnerable populations in Africa never last. Either it is the African representatives who divert funds to buy goods to the detriment of the real targets. or it is people from the West who provide insufficient funds but expect miracle results.” The HR&S reflection: in countries with fragile social security corruption can be expected and any development stakeholder must understand how to handle this fact. Also, “People from the West” can only donate as much as they have.   The donations comes from money that people from the West earn from working and that they agree to sacrifice, and the fact is, this amount of money will never be enough to cover the costs to improve livelihood on Africa, as these costs are very high and, as it builds aid dependency,  will never end. Thus, we depend of a strategy for change.  HR&S offers and opportunity for equal partnership built on scientific research, innovation and enterprising, and claims that this is what is required to eradicate extreme poverty. Aid dependency increases poverty rather than reducing poverty.

The HR&S Strategy for Change

Introduction

Africa is a continent with remarkable economic potential, yet the least developed (Mamman et al., 2018). The African continent produces only 3 percent of global GDP, accounts for less than 3 percent of international trade, contributes with just 2 percent of the world’s research output, accounts for only 1.3 percent of the research spending, and produces only 0.1 percent of all patents (Gurib-Fakim, 2022). The number of poor people continues to rise in the Sub-Sahara African region. 433 million Africans were estimated to live in extreme poverty in 2018, rising from 284 in 1990 (Schoch, 2020). Beegle (2019) forecasts that 90% of the world’s poor live in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. 40% of the Sub-Saharan African population is living in extreme poverty, below the US$1.90-a-day poverty line, but perhaps even more alarming is the limited progress from such high levels over the past three decades (Schoch, 2020).

Research has concluded that that poverty is not primarily related to lack of resources, but rather to lack of management (Park, 2019). Management is related to every aspect of a society. The ISO certification, for example, remain relatively underdeveloped in Africa with about 1% of the total number of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications worldwide (Tayo Tene et al., 2018). Also talent management in Africa is faced with numerous  challenges, despite that effective talent management has significant transformative and growth power through its varied positive contributions (Anlesinya et al., 2019). Wild (2018)  points at that many science graduates in Africa are unemployed, and Gurib-Fakim (2022) argues that the best-trained and most talented researchers gravitate to more resourceful environments, and Amankwah‐Amoah (2019) argues for an increased understanding of the challenges and opportunities with scaling-up technologies. Moreover, many SMEs in developing countries are constrained by external forces, which hinder the sustainability of these businesses (Amoah, 2021), and despite the crucial role social enterprises play in deprived communities their impact is minimal (Dassah & Ngatse-Ipangui, 2019), as social enterprises face obstacles in growing their activities to a scale where they can substantially contribute to the achievement of the SDGs (Navarrete Moreno, 2017). Also, to realize the potential of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) to transform African economies, the African countries must actively carry out complementary structural and policy reforms (Fofack, 2020).

 

Partnerships for Development (22RISE)

Many development institutions, such as international emergency aid institutions, development banks, private companies with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes, and philanthropists, have a well-established development strengthening programme that is much appreciated world-wide. They also tend to benefit from a large networks. Development funds are available through the development sector, but the traditional development aid operations have been challenged, one reason being that the number of extremely poor people in sub-Sahara African countries is increasing with five million every year. Thus, the development sector is engaged in finding development programmes to support that ensures evidence based sustainable impact. HR&S is dedicated towards offering all the support we have to ensure that development institutions shall survive and prosper.

The HR&S management strategy ROPE

HR&S has developed a management strategy that empowers local initiatives through international equal partnership while testing the evidence for sustainable impact, ROPE, Real-time Outcome Planning and Evaluation, (Illustration 1). ROPE is a Strategy for Change that enables local stakeholders to find solutions to local problems with support from, and in equal partnership with, international development institutions. The management strategy targets; financial viability, institutional capacity, the delivery of products and services requested for locally, and evidence based sustainable impact. HR&S offers training and coaching to local scientific institutions, advanced laboratories, enterprises, under-served communities as well as to international development stakeholders.

We have experience since 2009 from operations in sub-Sahara African countries (SSA), we have branches in eight SSA, we have incorporated a volunteer driven association with 20 volunteer staff, and we have head-quarters in Stockholm. We manage 20 parallel programmes with a wide spectrum of activities. We are proud of being flexible and any collaboration proposal shall be adjusted according to the potential partner’s preferences.

Social security, research, innovation & partnerships for development

It is generally agreed that development is dependent on scientific research and HR&S has developed tailor-made versions of ROPE that empowers both scientific capacity strengthening (ROPE-REACH), and the access to functioning advanced scientific equipment (ROPE-FAST). Equally important for development is enterprising and innovation, and HR&S has also developed tailor-made versions targeting the scaling of local enterprises (ROPE-SCALE), and the supporting of under-served communities through local institutions (ROPE-SERV). To help build a wealthy society we also need hospitals, education, rule-of-law, system of justice, national bank, pension, and more…a social security system, why the business sector we empower must pay tax. Tax will enable an income to the government different from aid. Moreover, if the people pay tax, the government will depend on the people, and in elections the people will vote for the government that supports them best. Key to progress is also international equal partnerships for development and we have developed (ROPE-22RISE) for this purpose (RISE stands for Research, Innovation & Social Enterprising).

Our challenges & how we address those

Our main challenge is the competition against the traditional aid sector which offers large volumes of donations, free products and free services, but does not provide evidence for sustainable impact. We manage this challenge by creating awareness around the limitations that comes with being donor-driven and aid dependent, and the strengths that comes with being self-sustained, having a sustainable income, and promoting self-driven local scientific research, innovations, and social security.

HR&S has found that the aid era has caused what we call an “aid-mindset”. From the receivers angel the point of view can be that little is required to get a donation, a free service or a free product, and that what needs to be done is to serve the donor with whatever they ask for; sit in meetings or workshops (but not necessarily being active), fill in applications (whether the topic of the application is a priority for the applicant or not) and report beck success stories (whether they are true or not).  Professional bookkeeping or auditing is not always required. From the donors angel the point of view can be that the receivers of aid is unable to deliver quality results. HR&S has found indications of that the donors may not always distinguish very well between a fragile infrastructure and lack of capacity of the people.

About HR&S

What we do

The Human Rights & Science (HR&S) has been in operation through Action10 since 2009 and as a company since 2016. Our Headquarters is located at Jakobsbergsgatan 22 in Stockholm (Hötorget), Sweden. We have developed ROPE and we offer training and coaching on the same.

Our team

  • Our headquarters i located at Jakobsbergsgatan 22, in Stockholm city, Sweden. We are a private company with social good as value proposition.
  • We have HR&S Country branches in eight sub-Sahara African countries; Burkina Faso, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia with 50 team members that empower partners locally. These are private companies with social good as value propositions and limited by guarantee that are paying tax, with professional financial auditing. This necessary for any partner to want to take the risk to collaborate.
  • We have a volunteer driven organisation in Sweden with 20 volunteer staff and 100 supporters, Action10, addressing cross-cultural awareness as well as fundraising for the capital from which we give out business-loans to local entrepreneurs.
  • We run four formal networks with researchers, technicians, entrepreneurs and development partners, with 100 members.
  • And we have a network of 500 loan-takers and their associates.

Our impact

We are running 20 parallel programmes. We have reached 1,500 persons directly and we have affected the lives of 10,000 persons. We have improved the scientific infrastructure for researchers at scientific institutions, increased the access to advanced scientific equipment, empowered local entrepreneurs through business loans and guidance, generated employments, paid tax to governments, provided access to products and services in under-served communities, and empowered networking and partnerships between development stakeholders.

Company data

Full name:  Human Rights & Science
Short name:  HR&S
Registration name: Human Rights and Science by Cecilia Öman
Type of institution:  For profit social enterprise
Legal status: Private limited company registered under the Swedish law (“privat aktiebolag”).
Registration number: 559014-6568
Registration date: 22 May 2015
Registration Country: Sweden
CEO: Assoc. Prof. Cecilia ÖMAN
Address: Impact Hub, Jakobsbergsgatan 22, 111 44 Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail: info@humanrightsandscience.se, Phone No: +46 707 148 150
Website for partners: www.humanrightsandscience.se
Website for the public: www.humanrightsandscience.com
Website Action10: www.action10.org
www.linkedin.com/in/cecilia-oman/
www.linkedin.com/company/human-rights-and-science
https://www.linkedin.com/company/action10
www.facebook.com/humanrightsandscience
https://twitter.com/ceciliaoman
Instagram Shop: african.shop.in.sweden

Bank name: SEB
Bank address: SEB 5273, 10640 Stockholm, Sweden
SWIFT/BIC: ESSESESS,
IBAN: SE9350000000052731032863
“Bankgiro” No: 896-6608,
Bank account No: 5273-1032863
Account holder name: Human Rights And Science AB C/O Cecilia Öman
Moms nummer / VAT. No: SE559014656801

 

More about ROPE

 

Illustration 1. The management strategy Real-time Outcome Planning and Evaluation (ROPE).

1.     Ambition

The first step is to capture ideas from local researchers, technicians, entrepreneurs, and other development stakeholders. These Ambitions are defined exactly as they are expressed by the targeted stakeholders. The ambition is the answers to the questions “What do you want to do and how do you want to do it?”.

2.     Outcome Challenge

The second step is to identify the Outcome Challenges. Outcome Challenges are here defined as the challenges hindering the targeted stakeholder from reaching her/his ambitions, and are captured exactly as presented.  The Outcome Challenges are the answers to the questions “why did you not reach your ambition already, did you experience challenges that are hindering you, if so, which were those challenges?”.

3.     Activity Plan

The next step is to compile an Activity Plan. Activities are here defined as actions taken in order to overcome the Outcome Challenges and thereby enable the local stakeholder to reach her/his/its ambition.
Milestones Activities are broken down to Milestones; who is doing what, how and when.
Stakeholder committee A Stakeholder Committee is established that implements the Milestones in actual practice.
RISEagency is a set of procedures that are required to ensure the capacity of the stakeholder committee.
DEq is the HR&S Development equation and reviews the investment/reward/risk ratios for all stakeholders. DEq are used for awareness raising and are included in the RISEtalks (see below).

4.     Input

Then the next step is to secure Input. Input is here defined as available resources required for the implementation of the Activities. Resources required that are not available are classified as Outcome Challenges.

5.     Output

The Output is quantified results of the Activities and are measured real-time per Milestone. Thus, the Stakeholder Committee is in control of the Output.  Low scoring of Milestones calls for a review of the Stakeholder Committee capacity.

6.     Outcome

The Outcome are actions taken by the local stakeholder to reach the desired Ambitions as a result of the Activities. The Stakeholder Committee is not in control of the Outcome.  
Progress Markers Outcome is assessed real-time by scoring quantitative indicators, here named Progress Markers. Low Progress Marker scoring calls for Outcome Challenge reviews. The Progress Markers are defined in parallel with the compilation of Outcome Challenges.
RISEtalks are continuous team-building, awareness raising and training sessions with all local stakeholders together, and are managed by the Stakeholder Committee.

7.    Sustainable impact

Sustainable impact is achieved by developing and implementing procedures originating from successful outcome, thus high scoring Progress Markers.
SOP Successful Outcome is translated into written procedures, here defined as Standard Operational Procedures (SOP).
GMP The implementation of the SOPs is structured according to the Good Management Practice (GMP), which includes institutional capacity, financial viability and the delivery of social good.

8.     Testing the evidence for sustainable impact (TestE)

The evidence for the sustainability of impact is tested real-time with scientific methods.
Macro surveys review how well the initiative contributes to the local development plans.
Micro survey assessments are based on statistical methods, selection of study and control groups through randomization, questionnaires and interviews with open-ended questions for individuals and discussion groups, videos, photos, testimonies and comments.
Contribution tracing formulates and validates a “contribution claim” about the role played by our intervention in achieving a particular impact.

In short

Ambitions capture ideas from local stakeholders and Outcome Challenges are the challenges hindering the local stakeholder from reaching her/his ambitions. The Activity Plan compiles actions taken in order to overcome the Outcome Challenges. A Stakeholder Committee is established that shall implement the Activities. Input represents available resources required for the implementation of the Activities, and resources required but not available are Outcome Challenges. Output are quantified results of the Activities and are measured real-time. Low scoring on Output calls for a review. Outcome are actions taken by the local stakeholder to reach the desired Ambitions as a result of the Activities. Progress Markers are Outcome assessed real-time by scoring quantitative indicators. Low Progress Marker scoring calls for Outcome Challenge reviews. Sustainable impact is achieved by developing procedures originating from successful outcome. Outcome with high scoring Progress Markers is translated into written procedures, Standard Operational Procedures (SOP), and the implementation of the SOP is structured according to Good Management Practice (GMP). The management around Testing the strength of evidence for sustainable impact (TestE), includes macro and micro surveys, base-line, randomization, control, statistics, questionnaires, interviews, testimonies, videos and photos, as well as contribution tracing.

 

We offer our services to new partners

Our results shows that our value proposition delivers financial viability and evidence based sustainable impact. Our procedures are firm, our team is dedicated and capable, we manage our challenges and we are scaling.
We start a new partnership with a free presentation/seminar, then we send a proposal that is not more costly than they can easily manage to pay/risk to loose, and then we meet again to scale. HR&S is available to support:

Local institutions 

with whatever need they need within the frame of our previous experience, such as financial viability, strengthening of the scientific infrastructure at scientific institutions to increase the number research grants and publications, empowering laboratory management to enable functioning advanced scientific equipment, supporting entrepreneurs to scale their businesses and generate profit , and helping development institution to create sustainable development impact.

  • Setting up a Stakeholder Committee that includes persons who are willing to contribute to a capacity strengthening programme.
    • The REACH and FAST committees includes representatives from the institution management, researchers, technicians, and suppliers.
    • The committee will be coached by HR&S on the ROPE management strategy through bi-monthly on-line workshops combined with annual workshops as well as one workshop during the starting of the programme, and one when the programme is being closed and reported on.
    • The stakeholder committee will also include own institution ambassadors, these are persons who has a significant network and whose main contribution is to introduce contact persons within important potential partner institutions.
    • The committee must be financially viable.
  • Addressing locally identified challenges
    Each stakeholder in the stakeholder committee identifies their outcome challenges according to the ROPE management strategy and during a coaching session these challenges are addressed and translated into “Standard Operational Procedures” and “Good Management Practices”.
  • Scientific institutions – REACH

Key is to strengthen an enabling scientific environment at home institutions. Key components include:

    1. A deep understanding of the scientific method and thereby the need for literature review and research ethics.
    2. Access to products such as computers, internet, advanced equipment, and access to field sites.
    3. Access to services such as supervision and training on scientific matters.
    4. Economic sustainability.
  • Enterpreneurs – SCALE
    • We offer soft loans combined with strategy management coaching.
  • Partnerships for development, 22RISE
    The “Standard Operational Procedures” and “Good Management Practices” that we develop during ROPE coaching sessions, do we also use in our “Pitch”.
    • We start from a list with 300 development institutions and private companies, benefit from CRM software and make priorities per university.  We lean on the universities’ own contacts when we seek funds. Our partner universities are the ones who stand as applicants, because it increases their own capacity, and we include HR&S and continued “training and coaching” in the budget.
    • Furthermore, we do we point out that we work with “transparency and accountability”, something that many potential partner institutions and private companies prioritizes. This is included as a natural part when we follow up investments and quantitatively measure results. Also, professional auditing is included in the ROPE Management work.
    • Individual coaching participants use the same CRM to identify institutions that offer individual opportunities such as research grants, training, mentorship and fellowship programmes.

International development institutions

with whatever need they need within the frame of our previous experience, such as financial viability and evidence for sustainable development impact, including:

    1. Setting up a Stakeholder Committee that includes persons who are willing to contribute to the programme.
      • The committee will be coached by HR&S on the ROPE management strategy through bi-monthly on-line workshops combined with annual workshops as well as one workshop during the starting of the programme, and one when the programme is being closed and reported on.
      • The stakeholder committee will also include own institution ambassadors, these are persons who has a significant network and whose main contribution is to introduce contact persons within important potential partner institutions.
      • The committee must be financially viable and the members must be ready to invest the necessary amount of time and effort.
    2. Reaching out to new potential partners
      • We will examine a list of 400 potential development partners that we have prepared and select the 10-20 most relevant opportunities, based on the below.  The information is compiled from websites, LinkedIn channels and direct communication.
        • Their capacity to provide financial support.
        • The strength of over lapping missions between the home institution and the potential partner.
        • The strength of a potential win-win collaboration, thus can the home institution support the potential partner in areas that will be useful for them, and at the same time useful for the home institution.
        • The expected chance that we will have attention, thus does the potential partner have a suitable open call or do we have access to contact persons with authority to have impact on the decision making of the institution.
      • We then develop a targeted pitch for the selected institutions that meets the needs of the potential partner as well as of the home  institution, ensuring it is with the home institution’s mandate and thus a win-win proposal.
      • We reach out to the call or the carefully selected contact persons, in a manner that is preferred by the contact person (e-mail, social media, in-person meeting), to present the proposal.
      • Then we follow-up on the response from the potential partner.
    3.  We offer the tailor-made HR&S management strategy workshops and coaching when it is suitable. The tailor-made versions addresses research, laboratory management, entrepreneurship, serving under-served communities and partnerships for development.
      • We may want to present this opportunity as part of the pitch mentioned above, in addition to the present own institution’s offer.
        If this is accepted by a partner then these workshops / coaching shall generate a profit that can support the on-going operations.
      • If the implementation of a coaching initiative is accepted by a partner then the generated Good Management Practice is also very useful for future pitches from our own institution.
    4. We also offer to develop a survey manual for the testing of the strength of sustainable impact based on ROPE (TestE).
      • If the implementation of such a survey as a component of a new programme is accepted by a partner then the results from the survey is also very useful for future pitches from our own institution.
    5. The HR&S approach shall be in parallel with the on-going programme and and can be integrated slowly as we develop and the staff feels comfortable with new initiatives.

Private companies

targeting social good in SSA with whatever need they need within the frame of our previous experience, such as CSR events.

22RISE
Arranging Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Events.

    • The events can be arranged at our venue in Stockholm city, at your venue in Stockholm or on-line.
    • Employees are given the opportunity to share from their expert knowledge with stakeholders in SSA and thereby help them solve their challenges.
    • Donations are given out as scale-up loans to carefully selected local entrepreneurs who are also carefully monitored and provided guidance by local experts.

Suppliers of scientific equipment

with managing the negotiation and after-sales communication with local laboratories in SSA.

FAST
Empowering laboratories when procuring pieces of advanced scientific equipment by bridging between buyers of advanced scientific equipment and international suppliers.

    • When a procurement of advanced pieces of equipment is being planned, HR&S is available to join the tender together with an internationally supported supplier.
    • HR&S offers to coach from the selection of the most suitable pieces of equipment, through lab preparation, transportation, installation, training, servicing,  maintenance, use, lab safety and decommissioning. 
    • We build a sustainable service and maintenance package ensuring the piece of equipment is functioning through out its expected life-time.
 
 

We offer to support by benefitting from ROPE

and the tailor-made ROPE versions: REACH, FAST, SCALE, SERV, 22RISE

  1. The implementation of management strengthening workshops targeting tailor-made ROPE versions for scientific research, advanced laboratories, entrepreneurship locally, and partnerships for development internationally.
    • Workshop participants are offered to take and examination at the end of the workshops. Successful participants are rewarded with a certificate and are invited to the HR&S formal networks.
      • Participants pay a small fee of EUR 10 per person, or EUR 1000 per institution.
        This is to avoid the traditional development aid mindset of free services, but the cost is kept low enough not to exclude anyone, and can therefore not carry the full cost of the event. 
  2. Coaching on ROPE for the implementation of management strategies to scientific institutions, advanced laboratories, entrepreneurs locally, and international partnerships for development.
    • The coaching may be implemented during a period of one year and may be extended, one year at the time.
    • The coaching period starts and concludes with an on-site/on-line workshop.
    • The coaching benefits from monthly on-line meetings and on-line project management software.
  3. Management of GMP and TestE
    Good Management Practice  and TestE surveys tend to depend on an on-line collaboration platform and we support with setting up and benefitting from “Notion”. The free version is good enough to start with.
    Other collaboration platforms are targeted when preferred by the partners.
    (We are also developing and app to support on this matter)
  4. Networking 
    • Collaborating partners have access to the local and researchers, technicians and entrepreneurs within the HR&S Networks.
  5. Locally implemented initiatives
    • Collaborating partners have access to the on-going local HR&S initiatives.
  6. Empowering and coordinating Partnerships for Development
    We reach out to development institutions, development banks and private companies to identify overlaps between our mission and their missions. Then create win-win pitches and approach the potential partners, we follow-up and we ensure good partner care.
      1. Create a list of possible partner institutions and prioritise among them. The key is to have a “door-opener”. So who is friends with your team, who do you and your team know, that can introduce you and/or the project to an important financial partner?
      2. If using HubSpot as CRM (only paid for versions allow team views) to prioritise among potential partners.
        • Upload institutions that may be interesting to partner with.
        • Structure the company section with extra columns
          • Average scores (the average score of the other three scores); Investment capacity (does the other institution have capacity to invest financially?); Mission overlap (How well does our mission overlap with the other institution’s mission?); We have a suitable proposal (do we have a proposal suitable for addressing the other institution’s challenges?). The strength of the door opener (What level of authority does our door-opener have to influence the decisions of the institution). Then score all these from 1-10.
          • Door-opener (the person(s) who can introduce us and our pitch to the institution). Door-opening partners (a partner who knows a door-opener at the targeted institution) This gives direction to partners’ door-openers, thus name of person who knows who to contact or even better can introduce us and/or our pitch. Benefit from LinkedIn).
          • Opportunities for individuals such as research grants, travel grants, mentorship, visit programmes etc. Score and mention which opportunity.
        • Each stakeholder committee member selects 5-10 institutions to compile data for;
          • Fill in the five scores per company/institution,
          • Compile important information about the institution and
          • Compile important information about the door-opener from the company/institution website and LinkedIn.
          • Develop a ROPE review per institution that can easily be incorporated into a win-win pitch together with our home institutions.
      3. Develop a Pitch
        • We make this process efficient by combining ROPE review for each potential partner, including our own. We thereby identify common ambitions, common outcome challenges and we can notice if our own input can be expected to be useful for a potential partner, ad if their input is useful for us.
          • The development institutions input is often financial support, expert knowledge, products and services, while the
          • input from institutions with fragile infrastructure is the SOPs and GMPs developed  during ROPE coaching, as well as “door-openers”.
          • The pitch shall also compile previous achievements.
      4. Reach out & follow-up.
        • It can be noted that as administration costs is often calculated as a percentage of the total, it is usually more favourable for a financial partner to engage in larger programmes.
        • Follow-up until deal has been made or not made. If not compile lessons learned and take informed decisions.

—

      1. Our approach
        • Four formal HR&S networks
          We are running four self-driven networks; researchers, technicians, entrepreneurs, and development stakeholders.
          • We seek partnership and arrange workshops, conferences and visits.
          • We aim for the networks to have a sustainable economy and institutional capacity.
        • Between our partners and other institutions
        • Between our stakeholders’ individual needs (research grants, travel grants, exchange visits and more) and other institutions.
      2. Partner care stewardship
        • Communication
        • Transparency and accountability
        • Information  about progress
      3. Measure impact real-time
      4. Financial viability / value proposition
        • Conferences
        • Workshops
        • Visits
      5. Visibility
        • Attend meetings and conference and share about the mission
        • Social media

Modes of payment

  • Prices are set per workshop, per coaching period and CSR event.
  • Empowering laboratories when procuring pieces of equipment can be paid for as a percentage of the procurement cost as agreed on during the tender.
  • Institutions in SSA may want to engage in reaching out to development institutions, development banks and the private sector for cost sharing.
    • We benefit from CRM software to review  and prioritise among potential partners and identify door-openers, reach out, follow-up, and ensure customer care.
  • Development institutions and networks as well as companies with a development agenda may want find new  partners to share costs, logistics, knowledge and experiences with.
    • We benefit from CRM software to review and prioritise among potential partners and identify door-openers, reach out, follow-up, and ensure partner care. Please see Partnerships for development above.

The programme addresses:

§  financial viability,

§  the strengthening of the scientific infrastructure at scientific institutions to increase the number research grants and publications,

§  the empowerment of laboratory management to enable access to functioning advanced scientific equipment,

§  support to entrepreneurs to scale their businesses and generate profit, and

§  helping development institution to create sustainable development impact.

=> Pricelist

Lessons learned & informed decisions during 2023

We have put extra effort into the requirements of the Stakeholder Committees to score high on Progress Markers and ensure Good Management Practice (GMP) during 2023. Its members are carefully selected in order to have enough; i) intrinsic motivation , ii) skills and experience, iii) network, time and opportunity to contribute including excellent internet access, and iv) agency and authority to implement change. The stakeholder committee is self-sustained and shall ensure team-spirit, institutional capacity and financial viability for their operations. These procedures have been compiled under RISEagency: i) The selection of committee members is made carefully. Positions are announced, applicants carefully interviewed, and approved applicants often have a probation time of six months. ii) The team-spirit, called ActionGlue, is built on scientific findings ensuring an enabling work-force environment and a sense of social togetherness. iii) The institutional capacity is empowered by the ROPE management strategy and includes frequent, well-prepared meetings, and on-line project management software. iv) The financial viability includes generating income to cover costs and benefits from the lean start-up business model. The start-up phase of new Stakeholder committees is characterised by volunteer work and boot-strapping, until income and costs balances. Our service ActionInvest builds on that financial supporters and Action10 volunteer staff engage in generating a capital that is used to give out loans to local entrepreneurs and the local management costs are covered by the interest generated and fees related to ActionInvest training and coaching. Our service 22RISE targets Partnership for Development and we invite development institutions, development banks, equipment suppliers and private sector with links to SSA to benefit from ROPE training, ROPE coaching and CSR events.  Equally important has the work with the Development Equation (DEq) been. The understanding of, and respect for, the situation of every stakeholders is necessary for efficient and effective development partnership but the work has pointed at a lack of  such awareness. Key to a successful collaboration includes an awareness of the own, as well as the other stakeholder’s, willingness to invest (funds, time, skills, capacity), their reward expectations and the risk they are willing to take. Key stakeholders here are; the financial supporters, the volunteer staff at Action10, the HR&S Country Branches’ teams, RISEmembers and the Target partners in sub-Sahara African countries. Everyone is equally crucial for the generation of impact, but the stakeholders operates under very different circumstances. For development collaboration to be successful we must be able to “walk in each other’s shoes”, which requires quite some effort, learning, awareness and respect. We call this equation the Development Equation (DEq). Thus, DEq reviews the he investment/reward/risk ratios for all stakeholders. The DEq is used for awareness raising and is included in the RISEtalks. We use an exercise when we imagine ourselves to “walk in our partners’ shoes”. The effort must target each of other partner one at a time and shall generate an increased understanding and thereby respect and harmony combined with an ability and motivation to support partners in a way that is actually suitable for the partner. The development equation also points us towards potential new partnerships, as it is a method to identify where missions overlap. The forth aspect that has received special attention during 2023 is the Good Management Practice (GMP). Progress markers that scores high are translated into Standard Operational Procedures (SOP). The SOPs are compile, often with in a programme management software, and are put into operations through GMP procedures. Testing the evidence for sustainable impact resulted from the MGP is performed through scientific surveys, benefitting from the Testing the Strength for Sustainable Impact (TestE) protocol. TestE surveys shall be performed annually or more often, and be reported on in the annual reports. Social good is measured as increased scientific capacity, increased access to functioning advanced scientific equipment, scaled businesses, and evidence based sustainable development. The TestE is still fragile and will be enforced during 2024, by training and coaching of the Stakeholder Committee.

New year’s greeting to Action10

We wish everyone a Happy New Year.
We appreciate everything good that came out of 2023, and we look forward to achieve even more in 2024.
Please let us join forces and write down our experiences from 2023 in our Annual report.

The Action10 goals from 2024 include:

  1. Increase funds raised,  five times – from SEK 100,000 to SEK 500,000.
  2. Improve our RISEagency and Good Management Practices (GMP), so that we are as efficient and effective as possible.
  3. Increase ActionGlue, the togetherness within the Action10 family.
  4. Empower our awareness of the Development Equation (DEq), so that we increase our understanding of all the other stakeholders that are involved in our network; our supporters, Branch team members, local entrepreneurs and the served communities.

Do we see expressions that we do not fully know the meaning of?
Good, be cautious with attending our meetings, in person, and come well prepared.
Then everything will be crystal clear, but only if everyone actively attends meetings and is eager to learn 🙂
And only if we deliver timely on assignments we have agree on.
Action10 is ambitious and rewarding, very!

We are looking forward to 2024, to all the good time we will spend together.
Lessons we will learn and informed decision we will take.

With much care, affection, love and power,
Yours Sincerely,
Cecilia

New year’s greeting to HR&S

We wish everyone a Happy New Year 2024.
We appreciate everything good that came out of 2023, and we look forward to achieve even more in 2024.
Please let us join forces and write down our experiences from 2023 in our Annual reports. The HR&S goals from 2024 include:

  1. Increase Progress marker’s high scores and generate SOPs.
  2. Improve our RISEagency and Good Management Practices (GMP), so that we are as efficient and effective as possible.
  3. Increase ActionGlue, the togetherness within the HR&S family.
  4. Empower our awareness of the Development Equation (DEq), so that we increase our understanding of all the other stakeholders that are involved in our network; our supporters,  Action10, other Branches, our local entrepreneurs and the served communities.
  5. Empower TestE surveys.

Maybe there are expressions that we do feel fully aware of?
Please, we may want to give as a new year promise to attending every HR&S meeting, and to come well prepared and be eager to learn.
So that everything will become crystal clear 🙂 Only then can we reach the impact levels we are targeting.

HR&S is build on plain common sense, and our approach represents the only way forward – towards development, independence and wealth.
HR&S is now. The opportunity is not open forever.

We are looking forward to 2024, to all the good time we will spend together.
Lessons we will learn and informed decision we will take.
Lives we will improve and development we will generate.

With much care, affection, love and power,
Yours Sincerely,
Cecilia

We offer Our unique management strategy

1. Training & coaching
2. co-support in Africa

Our management strategy ROPE (Real-time Outcome Planning & Evaluation) has been developed to handle the circumstances in lower income countries and is specifically targetting the sub-Sahara African region. Versions of ROPE have been tailor-made to address the five specific areas mentioned below.  We offer training and we offer coaching.

1. Scientific capacity strengthening

2. Advanced laboratory management

3. Innovation & Business growth

4. Serving the under-served

5. Equal partnerships for development

 

We look forward to a long, deep, and ambitious collaboration with all our partners where we aim to address their needs, make them content and deliver above expectations. We have a unique understanding about the services that we offer, about the challenges experienced by our partners, and about how to implement our support system in actual practice. We have seen programmes that we support excel.

Across all, we seek innovation. We target a change of paradigm, where aid dependency is replaced by international equal partnership for sustainable international development and where extreme poverty is eradicated. We seek to empower partners to be independent stakeholders with professional operations and sustainable economies.

We offer four types of services. First, we have developed management strategies that we offer to our four sets of stakeholders; scientific researchers, laboratory staff, entrepreneurs, under-served communities and international developers. The management strategies combines our formal expertise with our understanding about the realities on the ground, targeting a change to firm procedures that captures the goals identified by our partners, as well as measuring evidence based impact or no impact. Secondly, we offer tailor-made support to social entrepreneurs where we provide business loans, training, coaching, expert advise, infrastructure and networking. Thirdly, we measure the impact that our social enterprises have on the local community to ensure that we serve the under-served in a manner that is profitable and sustainable for them. Fourthly, we coordinate among development actors in Sub-Sahara African countries (SSA); the local authorities, the development institutions, private sector with CSR programmes, suppliers from Europe, and donors.

Human Rights & Science (HR&S) aims to provide local change-makers in Sub-Sahara African countries with the opportunities that enable them to implement their ideas and thus creating positive change.

We have 20 years of experience working closely together with local stakeholders in Sub-Sahara African countries.

 We acknowledge the challenges, address them and do not judge. It is what it is.

Our method is based on partnering with agencies for change; researchers, innovators, social entrepreneurs and global developers who are driven by intrinsic motivation for social good and positive development.

We deeply and honestly strive to meet our partners’ needs and to support what our partners seek to accomplish.

Our values are honesty, trustworthiness, transparency, accountability, professionalism, and respectfulness.

Cecilia Öman
Founder and CEO, HR&S

IMG_4663

Four services

HR&S is uniquely positioned to serve institution managements, staff, and partners in Sub-Sahara African countries. We solve the challenges that our partners and clients present to us by using our unique and innovative management strategies and support packages while guiding through the whole process for our partners to reach their goals.

We reach out to academic institutions, advanced laboratories and
institutions empowering social entrepreneurs in Sub Sahara African
countries, as well as international development institutions, the
private sector SCR programmes, suppliers from Europe, philanthropists and givers. We address the outcome challenges that our partners identify and create institutional and individual roadmaps for our partners to reach their goals, benefiting from the unique and innovative HR&S Tools. We also empower researchers, technicians, innovators and social entrepreneurs to serve the under-served.

 
 

Our Services are:

  1. Coaching on the HR&S management strategy for change.
    We target Institution managements in SSA and their affiliated  researchers, technicians, and social entrepreneurs and offer training and coaching on management strategies.
  2. Empowering social entrepreneurs
    We offer training, coaching, expert advice, networks, physical infrastructure and business loans.
  3. Livelihood improvement in under-served communities
    through the HR&S empowered social entrepreneurs.
  4. International development coordination
    Tailor-made opportunities for external partners to benefit  from the
    HR&S programme. We welcome local policy-makers, aid institutions, private sector CSR programmes, suppliers from Europe, and the civil society.

Management Strategies for Change

We have developed a unique and innovative set of management strategies that empowers institutions to implement capacity strengthening structures while testing the evidence for impact and ensuring a sustainable economy. We address scientific institutions, advanced laboratories, social enterprises, and development institutions.

Our management strategies are built on real-time evaluation planning, evidence-based impact, transparency and accountability, cross-cultural respect, and ethical principles. We have 15 years of experience from working in Sub-Sahara African countries in close collaboration with local stakeholders and have a firm strategy to ensure that we carefully learn our lessons and take informed decisions real-time. Funds and effort invested shall increase the success and the revenue of the institution.

Our value proposition is to understand our partner’s ambitions, identify their challenges and to invest our wide variety of resources to solve our partners challenges. We develop a joint roadmap carefully explaining how to reach the goals of our partners, and we offer to coach every step on the way. Our proposed solutions are developed to results in strengthened capacity and solid management procedures while ensuring a sustainable economy, which also enable the institution to scale.

Our mission is social good and sustainable economy. We argue for a shift of paradigm where international collaboration builds on equal partnership rather than aid dependency. We have, since 2009, served 10,000 persons in Sub-Sahara Africa to reach their goals through improved capacity and strengthened economy. Our team is composed of professionals with unyielding ethics covering a broad range of experiences. Our team at HR&S Sweden, advisory board, expert advisers, local team of operations at our HR&S branches in eight Sub-Sahara African countries, and volunteer staff at Action10, all work together to serve our clients.

We offer to arrange a seminar where we explain our proposal, provide examples on previous achievements, and give room for questions and suggestions. Then, through a sequence of meetings and workshops, we want to learn about your ambitions and together we identify the outcome challenges. Thereafter HR&S develops a support package where these challenges are addressed.

Regional networks

We offer participants who has attended a 12 hour training and have passed the exam are welcome to join one or more of the the four HR&S SSA networks targeting our key stakeholders; researchers, technicians, social entrepreneurs and international developers. The networks are member driven; the members do not pay membership fee but invests work effort to run the networks.

Social enterprise support

We empower social entrepreneurs in Sub-Sahara African countries to scale their businesses. We offering local and international training, coaching, expert advice, local and international networks, business loans, physical infrastructure, and supplies. We reach out to social entrepreneurs with intrinsic motivation and agency for change concerning aid dependence.

RISE Support Centre memberships

We offer social entrepreneurs to become members of our RISE Centres. We establish HR&S Research Innovations & Social Enterprising (RISE) Support Centres in Sub-Sahara Africa countries, that support social entrepreneurs. The
RISE centres are operated by our local HR&S branches. We offer annual training on the SfC by HR&S Sweden with an examination opportunity. Those who manage the exam and have a registered social enterprise become eligible for RISE Centre.
membership. 

Membership leve ONE:  EUR 50 per year

  • RISE members are offered a business loan with 10 % interest. Business starts small and scales firmly. A secure accountability management programme is required. 
  • They become members of the the RISE member network of the country they operate in, and the RISE members cross-reference and support each other on the pay back achievements.
  • Members also benefit from local training and review on their Strategy for Change tool.
  • Members benefit from local training on accounting.
  • The benefit from local training in the lean start-up and scale up business- model.
  • The Centre arranges meetings and events for their network for team-building purposes.
  • They are welcome to join the regional HR&S SSA network for social entrepreneurs.
  • They have access to the HR&S network of expert advisers and agreed suppliers.

Membership level TWO:  EUR 200 per year.
A second level of membership at EUR 200 per year includes the above and also

  • Co-working space.
  • Access to internet and electricity.
  • Access to computers for sale.
  • Training on setting up websites and LinkedIn profiles.
  • Training on social media marketing.

Training & Knowledge sharing

Strategy for Change (SfC). We offer annual training on the SfC by HR&S Sweden. 
Lean start- and scale- up business model. We offer bi-annual training by the local Branches.
Finance administration & Accounting. We offer bi-annual training by the local Branches.
Knowledge sharing sessions. We offer a platform for knowledge sharing and cross-cultural respect awareness, our monthly ActionTalks. Each session is introduced by a presented and thereafter the floor is open for everyone to share.

International resource Centres

We also partner with international resources centre  with the purpose of sharing about the opportunities as well as, when possible, offer good deals for our clients.

Serving the under-served

We empower local social entrepreneurs to scale and thereby provide employment opportunities as well as locally adapted products and services to under-served communities. The overall aim is livelihood-improvement and we use evidence based methods to measurement if we have achieved a sustainable impact or not.

We have empowered more than five hundred local businesses to start or scale-up. Many have started in vulnerable settlements, generating an income, products and services to people who were previously without.  The products and services are: teaching, training in a profession, training in farming, coffee grower empowerment, electricity through solar panels, milling, health services, tailoring, sanitary pads, medicine, value-added crop, clothes, food, drinks, drinking water and more. Through this operation we also generate tax income to the government.

Evidence based measurement of impact

HR&S has developed a practical strategy for assessing if outcome and impact have been reached. The strategy is based on evidence and is called; TestE (Testing the strength of Evidence). We aim for scientifically sound evidence and to benefit from a control, randomization, quantitative statistics, qualitative probability assessment, and contribution tracing. We compile evidence for each expected outcome and each expected impact. The strongest cases use multiple forms of evidence, some addressing the weaknesses of others. Reported effects should be plausible as outcomes of the programme activities and consistent with the strategy for change and the observations compiled as evidence should be easier to reconcile with the programme’s claims than with other possible explanations. Lessons learned on lack of outcome is key and renders a informed decision of strategy adaptation.

Examples of impact

Small scale businesses in rural Togo. Through small business loans, training and coaching to women in rural areas of  Togo do we reduce extreme poverty and increase community development. Our partners have reached 500 business women. Sustainable impact reached.
Integration of former child soldiers in Liberia. Former child soldiers attended our partner’s survey about their ambitions for the future, which resulted in the creation of a botanical reintegration village in a fishing village outside Monrovia. Sustainable impact not yet reached.
Tailoring business in under-served area in Kenya. By supporting a local tailoring business do we decrease poverty in the Nairobi Kibera slum through empowering the entrepreneur, increase employment opportunities and providing beautiful clothes at an affordable price. Sustainable impact not yet reached.

international development COLLABORATION

We target international sustainable development as well as international development coordination and collaboration. We aim for equal partnership and synergies among the different development stakeholders and reach out to local authorities, local development institutions, aid institutions, private sector CSR programmes, suppliers from Europe, the civil society and supporters. We coach on the creation and implementation of practical road maps for development stakeholders to reach their development goals while testing the evidence of impact and our partners benefit from the HR&S innovative and unique management strategies, our local branches, network, our ongoing programmes, and our other resources.

Local authorities & local development institutions
HR&S addresses the outcome challenges presented by local authorities, local development institutions and other local development stakeholders in SSA, offering our own management strategies, local branches, network, on-going programmes and our other resources, to seek solutions to the challenges and thus facilitating for local stakeholder to achieve their own development goals. We also respond to local tenders where where we can support local authorities and institutions on matters identified by them.

Aid institutions
It can be concluded from 60 years of aid that “Help” as a mode of operation is inefficient; the number of extremely poor people in Africa is increasing every year. The Aid sector is rich with money but the support is is biased and volatile. HR&S  proposes an alternative to business as usual; i) we seek solutions to the challenges identified by local development stakeholder, ii) we empower local social enterprises rather than aid dependent NGOs, iii) we address accounting and accountability is an successful manner, and iv) we work with evidence based sustainable impact and sustainable economy. We offer seminars to explain our alternative approach to traditional Aid and we seek aid grants and respond to aid tenders to implement our alternative way of operations.

Private sector with corporate social responsibility  programmes (CSR)
We reach out to the companies with CSR programmes with the purpose of ensuring social impact in SSA while generating benefits for the CSR company. We tailor-make CSR support packages that are directly related to the company’s mission, benefiting from the HR&S expertise and services, where we engage the partner company´s employees, customers, suppliers, and shareholders. Companies shall be promoted in a way that directly or indirectly increases their sales. We offer a series of workshops where we discuss a win-win collaboration and we offer coaching during the implementation. We also offer knowledge sharing sessions between the company staff and the HR&S SSA partners  and the topic is usually “Help entrepreneurs in Sub-Sahara African countries to overcome challenges in growing their businesses.”

Agreed suppliers
We offer tailor-made programmes to facilitate sales in SSA for European Suppliers. Especially do we target manufacturers of advanced scientific equipment and their local suppliers.
Advanced laboratories: We have the capacity to coach the establishment of functioning and accredited laboratories with advanced equipment and a sustainable economy. We offer a series of meetings where we discuss a win-win collaboration and we offer coaching during the implementation. Suppliers and manufacturers from Europe, and suppliers in Africa representing manufacturers in Europe, referred to as Agreed Suppliers as well as potential buyers of equipment are invited to the meetings. Procurement as well as service and maintenance procedures are discussed benefiting from the HR&S innovative FAST programme (Functioning Advances Scientific Equipment). If procurement occurs then HR&S takes on a coaching role and facilitates the communication and collaboration between the buyer and the seller. We target sustainable and safe deals for all parties.
 
Civil society
We reach out to organisations and individuals with interest in international development and offer seminars, workshops, and webinars where we share from our 15 years of lessons learned. We also offer cross-cultural awareness raising activities.

Supporters: Many want to be involved and to contribute, in their own small capacity, maybe by donating or by doing volunteer work. HR&S claims that the mode of operation must be based on intrinsic motivation, it must be efficient, effective, respectful, transparent and accountable to all stakeholders; the receivers, the partners and the givers. Moreover the support must generate evidence based impact and the administration cost outside the target country must be low; below 5%. HR&S offers a volunteer driven crowd-funding platform Action10, that is linked to the HR&S professional operations in the under-served communities in Sub-Sahara African countries.  Action10 offers a cross-cultural learning platform as well as raises funds to generate a capital that enables business loans to local entrepreneurs. Action10 is based in Sweden and the administration cost in Sweden is 3 %.

Action-Areas

HR&S targets Sub-Sahara African countries and aim to empower researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and developers to excel and scale according to their own ambitions. We addressing the outcome challenges that our partners identify and create institutional and individual road maps. We also aim to empower the customers of the social enterprises that we collaborate with. We argue for a shift of paradigm, a transition from aid dependency to international equal partnership and sustainable economy.

Our services benefit from 20  years of experience from operating in Sub-Sahara African countries in close collaboration with local stakeholders. We have developed a unique and innovative ToolKit with ActionAreas from lessons learned and informed decisions. The HR&S ActionAreas includes:

  • ActionPrinciples (10).
  • Real-time outcome planning & evaluation.
  • Testing evidence based progress.
  • Truth & Trust.
  • Accountability management.
  • Stake-holder analysis, seeking agency for change and intrinsic motivation.
  • Cross-cultural respect including  ActionTalks & ActionEvents.
  • Local support centres (8).
  • Business loans (ActionInvest).
  • Thematic networks (4).
  • Access to expert advisers (30).
  • Sales of products by our local partners.
SfC

We reach out to academic institutions, advanced laboratories and institutions empowering entrepreneurs in Sub Sahara African countries, as well as international development institutions, the private sector SCR programmes and suppliers of scientific equipment.

 

Vision

Researchers, innovators, and social entrepreneurs in Sub-Sahara African countries who present amazing social business ideas are recognised and supported. Locally developed and locally adapted solutions are implemented and local enterprises that address the needs of the local people, are started, scaled-up and maintained. All countries can offer enough employment opportunities, and access to the products and services the community desires at the price they can afford. Governments build education system including the judiciary, national banks, higher education, health sector and other vital institutions.

Extreme poverty is eradicated and aid dependancy is replaced by equal partnership.

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