Elizabeth Scharpf

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2008

Elizabeth Scharpf

Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE)

New York, New York, United States

Community Improvement & Economic Development, Health

The Bold Idea:

Amplifying girls' and women's economic potential by launching female-run franchises that manufacture and distribute low priced, high-quality, environmentally-friendly sanitary pads.

Females are the most disempowered economic actors in the formal global economy, especially in the higher-return segments of the economic value chain in developing countries. Many development practitioners point to girls’ educational inequities as the main reason women do not lead economic endeavors. A simple, common, and yet largely ignored explanation of girls’ educational inequities in developing nations is that they lack sustained access to affordable, high-quality sanitary pads for menstruation, causing them to frequently be absent from school. According to UNICEF (2005), it is estimated that one to five million girls in Africa (10 percent of school-aged girls) alone miss school each year because of this reason.

Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) will fulfill girls’ unmet need by developing a market-based solution in the form of a franchise model, led by young women, to manufacture and distribute affordable, high-quality, and environmentally-friendly sanitary pads for domestic and international markets. SHE will ensure the development and uptake of a reliable product by sourcing local, inexpensive raw materials, leveraging existing networks, and facilitating a sustainable business model operated and owned by women in the community.

Elizabeth Scharpf pitching at Echoing Green Selection Weekend (May 2, 2008)

Biography:

Elizabeth, a Harvard MBA and MPA-International Development graduate, is an entrepreneur who spent most of her professional career starting up ventures or advising businesses on growth strategies in the health-care industry. Previously, she worked for a boutique management consulting firm, the Clinton Foundation, and the World Bank in South America, Asia, and East Africa, respectively.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
I started SHE because of my shock and outrage at the incredible scale and effect of the problem: of girls and women lacking access to affordable, quality, sanitary pads. Currently, girls and women in this setting—if they have an option at all—turn to either premium priced international brands, which are too costly for widespread and sustainable use, or to alternative methods such as rags, which, in combination with a lack of a clean and accessible water supply, are potentially harmful and do not effectively contain blood flow. Poor girls and women in rural settings may even use dried mud, or even bark. As a result of girls’ unmet need for affordable, high-quality sanitary pads, they are often absent from school—missing up to fifty days of school per year—thereby, thwarting their educational and professional potential.

To me, this problem should not exist and can be addressed successfully if we make it a top priority and approach it with interventions proven in other arenas. While menstrual management comes up on many stakeholders’ radar screens, no one has established it as a top priority. As a result, I created SHE, and we aim to take the lead in initiating collaboration among multi-sector stakeholders to address this problem.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
Many people have commented on how risky I was in starting up SHE while foregoing other potential jobs. But this isn’t risky at all to me. I’m doing something that I’m passionate about. In fact, not taking on a big problem with a big solution would be the riskiest move I could ever make.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
My idea is innovative because it couples a sound business model with female-led operations in the menstrual management space. According to many experts, only interventions with a sound business model, rather than donations, are sustainable in the long-term. At the same time, women-led franchising provides steady jobs and income directly to the women themselves and indirectly to their communities. It is critical to have females lead endeavors as women invest 90 percent of their income back into families, compared to 35 percent for men. Given these unique aspects, SHE’s franchises will effectively deliver a product that amplifies the potential educational and economic achievement of all girls and women in the community and beyond.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?

• Obsession with solving the target problem and focusing on your constituents.
• Persistence to fill the gap between the skills and talents you bring and your organization’s needs overall.
• Humility to recognize mistakes and change course.
• Endurance to function with bouts of insomnia!

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
An artist who never forgets where he’s from and the people he sings to and about—Bruce Springsteen (especially Born to Run). Others are Malaika, Mingas, and who can go without a little Earth, Wind, and Fire?

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen; Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by Rao Prahalad; the dictionary.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?

• kayak.com
• wsj.com (The Wall Street Journal)
• mum.org (Home of the Menstrual Museum!)

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
"Never get used to the status quo." - said by my mom Patricia Murtagh
Scharpf when visiting me in Mozambique.