Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)

Programs

ColaLife

last updated Apr 22, 2013

Overview

Implementation Partner(s): 
Ministry of Health, UNICEF, Keepers Zambia Foundation, Medical Stores Limited, SAB Miller
Legal Status: 
Private (not-for-profit)
Year Launched: 
2008
Stage: 
Pilot/startup stage
Income Level of Target Population: 
Bottom 20%, 20-60% (lower to lower-middle)

Funding

Primary Source of Funding: 
Donor
Additional Source(s) of Funding: 
Out-of-pocket payments

Technology

Technology Used: 
Phones › SMS/MMS (Text Message)
Technology Purpose: 
Mitigating Fraud & Abuse

Scale

Number of Clients Served: 
30,000 mothers/carers and 40,000 children under 5, in 60 rural communities across 2 districts (As of 2011)
Summary: 

ColaLife is an independent non-profit organisation working with Coca-Cola to open their distribution channels in developing countries in order to supply their Kit Yamoyo which contains crucial ‘social products’ – such as oral rehydration salts, high-dose vitamin A, water purification tablets – to save children’s lives.

Program goals/rationale: 

Mothers can walk up to 30 km to their "local" Health Post, only to find essential medicines (EMs) out-of-stock. In order to increase accessibility, the WHO recommended the implementation of 'kits' in rural communities. Yet, distributors cannot afford to do this as transport alone is responsible for 40% of the price for these lifesaving packages.

Coca-Cola however, is accessible almost everywhere; in the same rural areas that are able to drink Coca-Cola, 1 in 5 children die every year from simple preventable illnesses such as dehydration from diarrhoea. ColaLife has formed partnership with Coca-Cola, designing an EMs container named 'AidPod' that is able to fit in the unused space of drink crates in order to reach these remote areas. AidPods are a purposefully adaptable design so a range of countries can adopt the model. The AidPod, plus the contents, forms the 'Kit Yamoyo'.

Key program components: 

Kit Yamoyos are introduced into crates directly at the Wholesaler and subsidies, determined by the community's willingness/ability to pay, are injected a the distributor level. The first operational trial started Autumn 2012 in Zambia where the value chain for a locally-determined ‘Anti-Diarrhoea Kit' (ADK) was tested. The scheme uses vouchers, to ensure affordability, and mobile phones for tracking and authentication.

Because the Kit Yamoyo is a commodity, just like Coca-Cola, wholesalers and retailers purchase it themselves. This means that extra care is taken to protect the product from damages and theft as a loss directly impacts the individual.

The design of ‘Kit Yamoyo’ is unique; five large or ten small kits fit in each crate. Each AidPod features:

  • A container for the anti-diarrhoea kit ('AidPod') which includes: eight 4g sachets of oral rehyrdation salts (ORS); one course of 10 Zinc tablets; a 20g bar of soap; an information and branding leaflet (note that the kit can also act as a cup for drinking the ORS)
  • A measure for the water you need to make up the ORS solution (200ml) which is useful in places where people do not have, or understand measures
  • A storage device for made-up ORS solution

What's more, AidPods can be waterproof, trackable and tamper-evident. ColaLife is exploring a variety of packaging options from re-usable to bio-degradable materials. The scheme is intended to be expanded to cross-subsidised parallel products sold in wealthier markets in order to reach the emerging African middle classes.

Program history: 

ColaLife started as an online ‘movement’ in April 2008, and became an independent UK charity in June 2011.

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