Ethical

Step 1:

I have received a grant to establish a women’s cooperative in East Africa. The donor’s intention is to improve the nutritional status of children in the region as well as to improve the livelihood of rural households. In this region, the growth of 35% of the children is stunted and there is also a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The disease is commonly spread through breastfeeding and in this region, women tend to breastfeed their children until around two years of age. The longer a mother breastfeeds her child, the more likely they are to contract the disease.

Traditionally, a gruel made of maize and bananas is used as a supplement to breastfeeding beginning around two months of age. The perception of the gruel is that it helps the children’s nutrition when in reality it does not. The grant will provide enough capital to begin producing a nutritious, shelf-stable porridge. 500 women from contiguous locations have indicated interest in joining the cooperative but are skeptical of the porridge’s use as an early weaning food. Pesticides are used on the crops that will be used in the making of the porridge that could have adverse health effects of the children.

The ethical question in this case is multifaceted. It is essentially whether it is ethical to introduce the new supplement meant to reduce childhood malnourishment and the spread of HIV/AIDS even though it may risk other health issues. Implementing the solution in a culturally effective and sensitive way is vital as well.

 

Steps 2 and 3:

Stakeholders:

• Me: Want to develop a well-functioning cooperative that will aid the rural African community it is based in and make a lasting positive impact
• Children: Want good tasting foods and to be breastfed
• Mothers: Want to raise healthy children and have social acceptance
• Women in the cooperative: A desire to supplement their household incomes and use that money to improve the lives of their children
• Local Farmers: Want to sell their crops for a profit
• Donor: Wants money to be utilized properly in a manner that creates an impact and builds reputation for themselves

Step 4:

Potential Solution 1:

• Found the women’s cooperative, and implement an education program consisting of workshops, informative advertising and developing other programs such as support groups for mothers detailing the recommended child nourishment methods, their effectiveness levels and comparing and contrasting the benefits of the porridge with other available means.
• Pros: This method would have the potential to generate positive behavioral change in the mothers as well as generate create positive press within the communities for the cooperative
• Cons: This solution would be costly to implement and hard to gauge its effectiveness
• Ethical Principle: Duty-based, as educating the community about the product and its potential effects are imperative to treat the community with respect

Potential Solution 2:

• Recruit elders in the community to extoll the benefits of the porridge to the other mothers within the community while explaining the potential negative effects
• Pros: Elders are more respected and will be in touch with the community, it could lead to a palpable change in the community’s behavior, this approach doesn’t involve any direct intervention on our parts within the communities
• Cons: Still have to convince the elders which will take time and money and will be difficult to replicate on a community to community basis
• Ethical Principle: Consequence-based thinking, as utilizing elders to convince the community the pros of the porridge outweigh any potential cons is realizing a well-nourished child with a slight potential for health issues from pesticides is far better than a malnourished one with the potential to contract AIDS/HIV

Potential Solution 3:

• Attempt to grow organic vegetables via the cooperative to use for the porridge.
• Pros: The porridge would not be made with pesticide laced crops
• Cons: Prohibitively expensive, will anger local farmers, increases difficulty of running the cooperative, crops may be destroyed without the fertilizer
• Ethical Principle: Virtue-based thinking, providing ingredients with no risk of harm would be the right thing to do morally.

 

Step 5:

Through my experience in the Philippines, I’ve come to learn that it’s important to get ventures off the ground in an economically sustainable way. It isn’t possible to make everyone happy 100% of the time, especially when enterprises are first launching. Even if a solution appears rose colored as it is the morally correct choice, it often isn’t economically or culturally feasible.

 

Step 6:

The best solution is solution number 2. Both solutions 1 and 2 are not feasible. Implementing a widescale education program would stretch out the cooperative too far and likely not reach as many people as desired. Meanwhile, the cooperative growing their own vegetables is not economically feasible, it would anger the local farmers, and has the potential to fail outright through crop failure. Solution 2 utilizes the East African cultural norm of respecting your elders for the advantage of the cooperative. This will cause the mothers to adopt the porridge as a nutritional supplement that could potentially cause health issues for their children but will be saving a far greater amount from the plights of malnourishment and HIV/AIDS.

 

Step 7:

The venture will continue to utilize locally sourced crops using potentially harmful pesticides, and the technology to process this will remain unchanged. Economically, more porridge will be sold, and women will be employed by the cooperative based on the greater amount of porridge. Socially, overall health of the community’s children will improve, with the potential for a few health issues due to the pesticides utilized in the crops. Environmentally, there will be little to no change in the venture

 

Grassroots

 

Facts:

Part 1:

6 months after launching, the cooperative is very successful and the women are overwhelmingly satisfied. The women make a satisfactory wage of $3 a day for 9 hours of work. The women are forced to provide their wages to their husbands, which they are not necessarily opposed to, however the husbands waste the money on frivolous things instead of supplementing the household’s income. We are still a board member on the cooperative for the next 6 months and we are loved and respected by the community. The other 6 members of the board are local women who want things to change. The porridge isn’t sold to anyone in the community, but rather is sold to grocery stores and bought in cities.

The ethical issue at play is that the twin social objectives of improving families’ livelihoods and providing nutritious foods aren’t being met. Determining how to implement a strategy to ensure these two objectives are met is the problem at hand.

 

Parts 2 and 3:

• Me: Desire for the community to improve their overall health and leave a sustainable cooperative in the community that maintains my own reputation
• Board members of cooperative: Want to avoid angering husbands of workers, but still generate positive change
• Women working in the cooperative: want to supplement their households’ livelihoods to improve their children’s’ nutrition
• Children and families of workers: desire good health
• Husbands of women working in co-op: want to feel powerful and purchase frivolous things
• Families in cities: desire good health

 

Part 4:

 

Potential solution 1:

• Rather than paying the women entirely in cash, 50% of their paycheck is presented to them in porridge at a value slightly below market rate.
• Pros: Provides both twin outcomes of improving families’ livelihoods and providing them with nutritious foods.
• Cons: Men can waste the rest of the money still, provides a potential for a black market to spring up where the families sell the porridge to make more cash

 

Potential solution 2:

• Provide a program where workers can opt in to having a portion of their salary taken to finance the operation of programs such as a food bank and medical programs.
• Pros: The workers would have the option of whether they wanted to set a portion of their salaries aside for this purpose, it would create a tangible benefit
• Cons: It would take many years of accumulating capital before any tangible program could come to fruition, husbands could refuse to allow wives to opt into program

 

Potential solution 3:

• Stamp pacifiers on the cash provided to the women to ensure that if the men spend the money on frivolous things, they will be embarrassed by spending money their wives made
• Pros: Men likely will be more reluctant to spend the money provided to the women and will allow the money to be spent on other things such as nutritious food for children
• Cons: This is extremely likely to anger the husbands and may lead to them refusing to allow their wives to work and even potential abuse of the women

 

Part 5:

I have little personal experience or reference for this decision. However, many students in the group I had the opportunity to discuss this case with had recently come back from Sierra Leone and were kind enough to provide me with some context on African familial relationships.

 

Part 6:

Potential solution 3 can be thrown out immediately. It is foolish to consider a path that would involve direct physical harm to come to anyone, especially your own workers. Potential solution number 2 meanwhile has the potential to help the community in the long run, but the time frame is too far out and the women would get disenchanted with the process far before enough capital was accumulated to implement anything of value. The proper choice is potential solution 1. It addresses the twin social impacts desired from the co-op in an immediate fashion and ensures no one is harmed as a result of our decision. There may unfortunately be some who choose to sell the porridge for more cash on the black market, but this potential con is outweighed by providing a greater amount of the women with a truly nutritious food for their children. All parties are happy as they all receive what they desire.

 

Part 7:

I will go to the board and suggest this change in policy. If the policy is passed, all women will be notified two weeks in advance of the shift in policy. As the policy takes effect, a certain amount of the porridge the women create will be set aside for them to take home to their families later. This solution is extremely simple to implement, which can often be a symbol of a strong idea.

 

• Co-op is very successful and the women are overwhelmingly satisfied

• • Livelihood improvement was not attained

• • • It’s going to the husbands instead of the women or children
  • Empowerment was attained by the co-op
  • Men take all the money from the women
  • The money goes to alcohol and “frivolous things” instead of supporting their children
• We are still a board member for 6 months and we are loved and respected by the community
• Other 6 board members are local women who also want things to change but they are not necessarily for or against taking away the money from the men
• Not achieving strategic social outcomes of improving the nutritional status of children and the livelihoods of rural households