Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Green energy for rural enterprise and food security
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
BIG BET
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is on increasing the efficiency of food management and supply chain with appropriate know-how and technologies in our long-term goal of improving food security and livelihood opportunities with rural communities in Sabah.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
In response to COVID-19 pandemic, Accelerator Lab Malaysia worked closely with TONIBUNG and Moyog Innovation House (MIH) to map out new market value chain to connect rural produces to consumers in the urban areas. The food supply chain was severely disrupted during movement control orders as all travels were restricted and local markets were prohibited from operating. This threatened the food security for both rural and urban communities as they were unable to access essential items from each other eg. oil and salt for rural communities, and fresh produces eg. vegetables, rice, meat for urban folks. Many of the fresh produces and raw meats that was meant to be sold to urban markets ended up as food waste as rural communities have limited facilities and infrastructure such as refrigeration to store and preserve foods. The rural community also lacks consistent electricity. Long traveling time and poor road conditions to rural farms also poses as a challenge in maintaining quality of delivered goods. Thus, capacity building for food processing and quality enhancement of produces were conducted in the current project. Necessary technology and equipment eg. vacuum packing machine, oven for food drying, and chest freezers were supplied for rural farmer and entrepreneurs.
Building on the Rural Economy Inclusion portfolio for the Sabah Rural e-commerce project, we continue to experiment on greener and more economic method in processing and storing to improve product shelf life and reduce wastages from unsold goods and long last mile delivery. The team started using solar dryer in partnership with University Malaysia Sabah (UMS). However, the solar dryer prototype from UMS had issue of rust and fungus growth, and is commercially too expensive for communities to own in the long run. After being awarded with the Japanese Innovation Challenge Fund, we worked with TONIBUNG to prototype 2 solar drier in 2022 to dry vegetable and fruit produces for the e-Commerce enterprise - Koondos. In the phase 2 of Japanese Innovation Fund 2023, the team will prototype solar dryer 2.0 with ore affordable materials to mobilise it to more villages. They will also prototype a solar chambers to dry high moisture products such as fish, anchovies and seaweed for coastal communities in Sabah. Technical expertise from Japan AGC Green Tech and EbF from Germany is required in improving drying and preservation methods for different fresh produces in rural setting.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
https://www.kearney.com/why-us/social-impact-and-sustainability/article/-/insights/a-road-map-to-energy-access-for-all-in-sabah-malaysia#:~:text=Rural%20electrification%20levels%20in%20Sabah,electricity%20can%20be%20considered%20renewable. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2022/03/782692/grid-rural-communities-sabah-paying-more-electricity https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2022/12/02/lighting-up-villages-in-sabah-with-micro-hydro-system
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Focus group discussions were done in 2020 for UK Pact Proposal submission with stakeholders from the government, energy companies, CSOs, and academia. The results showed the various challenges for rural electrification and its effect on community livelihood and food security. We also conducted FGD and interviews with the entrepreneurs, mostly women, in over 20 villages over the past 3 years to gather constant feedback from the community on their needs to recover from the pandemic.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
Accelerator Lab is able to solve this challenge by leveraging on innovation methods that garnered confidence in donor countries eg. Japan Innovation Fund, Social Impact Grant from government that enabled testing of green technology and energy alternatives for rural communities. Our methods of sensemaking and participatory design also helps to bring the different stakeholders from government to grassrooot CSOs in tackling a systemic challenge. Green energy/ technology is a growing portfolio in our CO. Due to our initial experimentation on rural e-Commerce and solar dryer, Ministry of Finance have taken interest in expanding the success to other rural areas with customised intervention. We were awarded with 2 projects worth up to 25million MYR over the past 2 years for green and resilient recovery. UNDP is tasked to design grant and programmes with social enterprises in improving economic outcome in a sustainable and affordable way for rural communities. This phase 2 experimentation will help to provide further proof of concept for appropriate technology for communities in remote and coastal areas. Food security is also new frontier challenge that have not directly been explored in the current project and programmes of CO. It is however intricately linked to the climate change and biodiversity conservation as well as poverty eradication portfolios in our CO.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Prototyping green energy for improvement of food security and livelihood opportunities with portable solar dryers and solar chambers for sustainable and resilient rural development.
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Japan Innovation Network and private sector
What sector does our partner belong to?
Private Sector
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The private sector- AGC Green Tech will be working closely with UNDP CO and Japanese Innovation Network to prototype a solar dryer using EFTE films for better energy efficiency in food processing. They also provided expertise from their partner EbF Germany and will support phase 2 of solar chambers prototyping.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
TONIBUNG- Social enterprise
What sector does our partner belong to?
Civil Society
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
TONIBUNG will be prototyping the solar dryer and solar chambers with AGC Green Tech, using the lessons learnt from current prototypes and experiment with local vegetable, fruit and sea produces to be sold at Koondos platform.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
Our lab is trying to answer the question of “How food production methods can be enhanced with green and appropriate technology to support rural community in tackling food security and improve livelihood resilience”
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore, Test, Grow
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Co-creation and participatory design with the users, mainly women from the rural communities will ensure a fit for purpose solar dryer and solar chamber. Using design thinking for iterative prototyping, the lessons learnt and improved final products will act as proof of concept to scale in other regions of Malaysia.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
There are currently no open data on how solar dryer prototypes works eventhough there are a number of prototypes done by academia. A manual will be shared for grassroot innovators to learn and improve the prototype based on their needs. Focus group discussions, direct interviews and continuous feedback are also conducted to ensure user- friendly and fit for purpose technology for rural communities.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
Rural farmers, producers and entrepreneurs in Sabah will benefit from this work with the potential of scaling to other regions in Malaysia and South East Asia (SEA) rural communities with similar challenges and produces. Currently TONIBUNG, a grassroot innovator who have design and build various agricultural and energy machineries eg. micro-hydro electric, etc are our champion to inspire other local communities and grassroot social enterprises in building similar capacity. This will also attract sovereign funds and private sectors to invest in future projects.
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7
8Decent work and economic growth
11Sustainable cities and communities
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