For me being in Nicaragua - especially in the northern area of Jinotega where I am now puts things in perspective.  Many solar lighting and solar lamp projects already exist around the world, some of which are agressively commercial and point to a book by C. K. Prahalad called “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” (which came out in 2005) as inspiration.  While our organization is legally organized as a non-profit, we do indeed aim to sell the lamps on a commercial basis.  Of course our core vision is that this activity will provide for increased education and health benefits for people here in Jinotega.  But since we are a commercial operation, I think it’s important to take a critical look at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) theory since in essence the people we are trying to reach have no protection. 

One example of how the BOP theory is a lot more complex than just a worldwide $5 trillion market comes from reports from the Internationa Finance Corporation (IFC) a year ago broke up this concept into different regions.  What does it say about Latin America?  Well it says that…

“In Latin America the BOP market of $509 billion includes 360 million people, representing 70% of the region’s population but only 28% of aggregate purchasing power, a smaller share than in other developing regions.”

That means selling solar lamps (and indeed other BOP goods) in Latin America would theoretically be more difficult compared to Asia or Eastern Europe because the poor people have less money compared to the rich people.

Finally, there have been a number of critical analysis of the BOP theory including this one in recent times, which point to it as being largely untried and untested and therefore unreliable in terms of helping people.  That being said as well as being here talking to people who want to buy the lamps, yet live in shacks with so little resources and yet are so kind and generous to me when I arrive gives me (as well as Mario, with whom I have had a lot of chats with on this subject) a strong inclination to provide a lot of high-cost quality and customer service, warranties and accessories while not worrying so much about the bottom line.