Oct 20, 2010

A busy Monday in Dar es Salaam



Monday morning started at the Swedish Embassy together with Mr Samer Al Fayadh, working with Energy and appointed by SIDA, and mr Love Theodossiadis, Private Development and Trade.

They explained different types of funding and projects supported by the Swedish govenment. Love also described FSDT, Financial Sector Deepening Trust, a donor fund working with access to financial services. Some of the donors are SIDA, World Bank, IKN, CIDA, DFID, Dutch Embassy and we will meet with them on Wednesday.

Next stop: Ministry of Health and dr Gilbert Mliga, director for Human Resources Development and working with education of nurses and doctors.
- I agree it is very useful to have something like this. I am impressed and I would like have it myself. For the price, the value is definitely there!

We discussed the possibility to include HiLight in the midwife and nurses kit, which each student get after finishing their education. Annually, over 4.000 nurses finishes their education, and the content in their respective kit is decided by each school separately.
- But this is not only interesting for nurses; also for emergencies, the schools and so on.

The government meetings continued with mr Jeff Felten, representing Ministry of Energy, and Mr Andrew Mnzava, project leader for a solar lantern project which is just starting up.
It seems like we meet them just in the right time, as the project is currently seeking high-quality solar lanterns to include! The project will provide small start-up capital for a number of credit organisations supporting micro-entrepreneurs investing in small scale solar projects. To us, this could be a great way to be independently evaluated against some competing products and an opportunity to increase the knowledge of our product on the market!

Personally, I hope this project will prioritize selecting and promoting high-quality products to the users, since evaluation products and comparing technical specifications is not always straight forward!
During this trip, we've been presented with products without brands and company names or any contact details. In many cases, technical specifications are not included, in other cases, they do not make sense in terms of what the product can deliver!
How is a normal user supposed to be able to judge and compare products under these circumstances?

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