We are investing approximately $34,000 in a commercial fresh water fisheries project in partnership with an individual, Ali Ahmed Ziauddin (Zia), who has been working on various poverty alleviation programs with the help of UNDP and other organizations. Zia was introduced to me by Sally Bachman and has extensive fisheries experience. It is expected that once it gets going, the project will generate employment for approximately 16 individuals directly on a full time basis and another 100 or so seasonal agricultural workers. Equally importantly, during its start up phase, the project is expected to employ approximately 175 individuals, albeit for short periods of time (up to two months) for excavation and related activities. While I am unable to estimate the indirect employment or multiplier effects of the project, capital projects of this nature always have a significant multiplier effect (food vendors, supplies, etc.) In addition to employment generation, the project is expected to yield approximately $5-7,000 in annual returns which will be reinvested in other poverty alleviation projects.
While this is the largest and most unusual project that we have undertaken, this is the project that excites me most. The principal reason is that scale is important with respect to impact and in order to have real impact, we need to think big. If we are going to have an impact on 100,000 lives (my initial goal) we have to graduate to large projects sooner or later. And we are going to need to involve more capable people.
After doing some due diligence, I felt that this particular project, because of the individual involved, would be a reasonable pilot for the larger projects. Additional details about this project are available on our website.
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