Meeting Pakistan’s labour challenge
Musstanser Tinauli has an interesting background for a ‘social innovationist’. After finishing his Bachelors in Computer Science from Mohammed Ali Jinnah University in Pakistan, he went on to do a Research Masters at Malaysia’s Multimedia University (MMU) and then, to do his PhD, ended up at Politecnico di Milano – one of the leading Design Schools in Italy which itself is a leading Design Nation. In the meantime, he also held an IBM PhD Fellowship and Progetto Rocca Fellowship to conduct research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) , Boston, USA.
At MIT, Musstanser worked at the Sustainable Cities Lab where he worked on a project aimed at creating Trash Track — a tracking system for recycled waste. It was here, and through his subsequent work, that he became interested in solving the problems of the poor. It was then that this researcher-to-be began to look at challenges at home – in South Asia.
Over the last few months, Musstanser has come a long way in activating his vision of creating this platform for organising and credentialing labour. Some of his most valuable lessons have come from actually hitting the ground early with his concept.
Musstanser sees a swell opportunity in South Asia. The numbers, he thinks, are simply staggering. From Afghanistan to Bhutan and Nepal, there are more than 1.5 billion people living in South Asia and a labour force of over 700 million. A vast majority of these are poor. More than 75 per cent of the populations in India, Bangadesh, and Pakistan live under $2 a day — an international poverty line standard. Most of this population goes by taking on unskilled jobs on a temporary basis. Over the years, there has also been a massive shift from rural to urban life bringing forth further dislocation and disruption to lives and livelihoods.
Wanting to do something about this, Musstanser came across at an Innovation Camp on the idea of setting a digital clearing house to facilitate the poor — many of whom serve a day-labourers and more – and to bring additional benefits of verifiability, networking, and reviews. Fori Mazdoor (‘Instant Labor’) was born. During this timeframe, Musstanser also came across the National Innovation Grand Challenge (NIGC) — a flagship initiative of Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF) — that seeks to inspire and incentivise innovators like him to take a stab at Pakistan’s various Development Challenges. The Agriculture and Rural Development Challenge funded by Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) seemed like the kind of initiative that could jumpstart a platform like Fori Mazdoori.
Over the last few months, Musstanser has come a long way in activating his vision of creating this platform for organising and credentialing labour. Some of his most valuable lessons have come from actually hitting the ground early with his concept. Musstanser raves about the enthusiastic response he and his all-volunteer team has received from people on the ground.
“Whenever we’ve gone to places labour tends to agglomerate and look for work,” says Musstanser, “We’ve been amazed at how eager and welcome they are to get registered. Once we’ve explained to them what we’re there for, they would almost encircle our team, urging us to put them on our system. We then have to teach them how to make lines and wait for their turn to be registered. We’ll do a few hours of membership drive and then move on to the next place,” he adds.
Musstanser’s team already has several thousand labourers — plumbers, masons, electricians, carpenters, etc — on his database. His carefully verifies them through their CNICs and logs their address and skills, etc. While this on-the-ground testing is happening, Musstanser’s programmers are busy building a social network — almost a facebook of labour — and a mobile app that could used to sift through those available. The next challenge is to work on those who may require the services of this labour.
“The challenging part about this project is that it requires working on both the supply and demand side of the equation,” notes Musstanser. “Not only do we have to organise labour such that it could be verified but also effectively create a critical mass of users. Pure network effects, I would say,” he adds.
The users of the Fori Mazdoori service would be able to not only access registered help online through the (soon to be launched) website and mobile app with the peace of mind that someone on the list has been credentialed through cross-referencing the CNIC of the person (i.e., he/she is who he/she claims to be) but also check references from others who have used an individual’s help. Suddenly you have a market for unskilled labour that is beginning to look a bit more organised and safe.
Musstanser believes that ultimately the labour will also benefit not only from getting jobs through referrals also for getting higher compensation for higher quality work. By creating a history of work, the marketplace shall also create an incentive for the labour to ultimately acquire certifications which, if it happens, would be a fantastic unintended consequence of the system.
Many challenges remain, though, as this clearly not the easiest problem to solve. But Musstanser in passionate and adamant that he will make this platform work. Soon, Musstanser plans to launch this service in Lahore because of accessibility to his own homebase (Islamabad) and the large labour market there. A successful pilot in Lahore will go a long way in bringing partners, investors, and users to his network.
Musstanser’s team already has several thousand labourers — plumbers, masons, electricians, carpenters, etc — on his database. His carefully verifies them through their CNICs and logs their address and skills, etc.
Then there are technical challenges such as deciding when to stop (coding) and launch the service. Musstanser understands that he must not let perfect be the enemy of good enough and that moment may be just around the corner.
The million rupee question for Musstanser is whether the service will deliver as much benefit to rural labour as it promises to urban labour and whether this system can be made to work in rural areas — with its distances and other challenges, etc — at all? Under the terms of the challenge, he must demonstrate that his system actually works in the field — ie a complete proof of commercial concept, so to speak. The coming weeks — not months — shall determine whether he has put enough in his idea to claim the PPAF Rural and Agriculture Prize or not?
Musstanser’s idea can go a long way to help solve Pakistan’s labour challenge by adding more formalism to the labour markets at the bottom of the pyramid, and with ambition as big as his, perhaps to South Asia as a whole.