How local Afghan can sell their goods (& services) internationally and get paid in Afghanistan

Many people in Afghanistan understand the benefits of selling their goods & services to other countries, but often do not know how to sell and how to get paid. This article explains the challenges and offers different options to make it work.

Example: Selling Afghan goods through the Internet

A previous article already explained how to start and scale an online business. How YOU can market/sell quality hand-made products, enable ten thousands of poor Afghans, and build a multi-million-dollar business | LinkedIn

The problem is that ten thousands of Afghans produce goods, but then do not know how to sell their goods. Other middlemen then eagerly step in to buy the products of the local people for very little money and then sell those at astronomic profits.

This article helps people producing goods to sell their merchandise directly to the end customers. It eliminates the need for middlemen, helps to get paid well, and earn good profits. Over time the same people can accumulate wealth and build good lives for their families and their communities.

This section explains of how to make the logistics and financial payments work

Set up online shopping stores at e-commerce sites that promote their products & services to target customers in target companies. (see chart below).

The shopping stores display available products through pictures, videos, descriptions, price points, and more. Customers can view, select and place orders. Optional: The stores may offer customers a mechanism to modify existing designs (different colors, varied sizes, different patterns, etc.) or even submit their own designs for a quote. This may work very well for dresses and rugs. For example: Customers could put their own family names or symbols of significance on their carpets.

The Ecommerce sites collect all customers orders and forward those to the local Afghan people who then produce goods according to customer orders.

Realistically speaking, simple Afghan local people, especially working in the rural areas, may not have the sophistication to set up, coordinate, and work on all orders with full quality assurance.

Therefore, a central “Work assignment platform” can receive all orders and assign them to individual Afghan artisans who then commit to and carry out the work in an agreed time frame.

Once the Afghan local person has finished the work, designated people from the work assignment platform dispatch the product to the distribution network, which assures delivery to the end customers in the foreign countries.

Money is collected from the ecommerce sites and paid to the local Afghan people. (Explained in more detail in later section “Payment to individual workers”.

How NOT to do it: How a very large American NGO has been creating and operating a slavery model in Afghanistan for years...

Why does Afghanistan need a better model? Because current model, for example one model implemented by a very large American NGO, has created a very unjust system that continuous to abuse ten thousands of Afghan local people. What happened: This large American NGO only promoted capacity building. They offered training to many Afghans and taught them how to make carpets, dresses, etc. But they never properly thought-through how those same local people could later sell their work!

For years those local Afghans work for extremely little money (4000 to 8000 Afghanis per month) long hours and hardly can feed their families. Middlemen make all the profits. Worse: the salary of those poor local Afghan workers has been kept the same for many years. At the same time, middlemen earn up-to 2000 (!) percent profit. Worst: The pay of 4000 Afghanis per month is below the minimum monthly wage, which is defined as slavery!

Why has one of the largest US NGOs established and run a system of slavery in Afghanistan for years?

Perhaps it is not because of evil will or corruption. Maybe it is simply another display of an utter lack of NGO competence and abilities in Afghanistan...

Local Afghan employees of this large US NGO indeed confessed that the wage of those local Afghans has not been raised for many years. In response – after many years just observing this unfair situation that they created – this large US NGO recently tried to build e-commerce sites to promote the products of the poor people. But rather than giving those e-commerce sites into control of trusted representatives of those poor people, they gave the e-commerce sites to the middlemen who now sell more items with even more revenues & profits, while the poor Afghan people did not receive any benefits or salary increases! Interestingly enough, this large US NGO created all those e-commerce sites for free (misusing donation money?) to further enrich those already rich middlemen...

Furthermore, this large US NGO set up dealerships in Turkey and other foreign countries that again get rich while the Afghan people making the products continue to starve.

In their utter naivety and lack of any business sense, representatives of this large US NGO confessed that they simply hoped that the dealers and middlemen “out of good will” would “somehow by themselves” pay the poor Afghan artisans more money. Of course this did not happen… Read: The good and bad sides of NGOs in Afghanistan | LinkedIn

The new model eliminates the need for middlemen and curbs their chances to further unduly enrich themselves

This proposed model empowers the people that do the work. This model distributes payments fairly among those who contribute value. It helps build Afghanistan in a sustainable way!

There may be always opportunities for dealers, distributors, and other parties to add value and receive a fair share for facilitating marketing, sales, distribution, and payments. However, those people will be paid for their contribution to the overall efforts. And abuse will be eliminated.

How local Afghans can receive payment for their produced/ sold goods later in Afghanistan

There are three main payment options to transfer money generated from sales in foreign countries:

The most known option (C) is the informal Hawala system that uses private people networks to distribute funds worldwide. While this aligns well with Afghan culture, the Hawala system creates notable security, tax evation, and even criminal activity concerns. Money (and goods) from any origins (drug, arms & narcotic trade, money laundering, etc) is also exchanged through Hawala. This is not a sustainable approach to build legitimate Afghan businesses that want to gain the good will of customers around the world.

Another approach (A) is through BMCE, which has business relationships with most local Afghan banks abroad. BMCE Bank International?is a full service investment and wholesale bank, headquartered in London with an international network in Europe and Africa. Once BMCE transfers money to a local Afghan bank in a foreign country the money can be transferred to a local Afghan bank acount in Afghanistan. An Electronic Money Institution (EMI) can then distribute money to ten thousands of local Afghans according to their contribution.

Another alternative is to transfer generated money from sales to UAE bank accounts that Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) operate. From the UAE the money can be transferred to local Afghan bank accounts of the EMIs in Afghanistan. The EMIs will then distribute the money to ten thousands of local Afghan artisans according to their contribution.

Conclusion

This article provided a practical solution of how local Afghans can promote their locally made products and sell them in other countries worldwide. It provided a solution architecture to collect payments from customers abroad and transfer the money to Afghanistan. It explained how Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) help support this overall process. It explained how EMIs can securely transfer the money to ten thousands of Afghans according to their contribution.

This article explained the payment model how it works for local Afghan artisans (who are most often abused by middlemen and do not receive fair payment for their work. The same payment model also works for most other Afghan people who want to sell their products and services abroad. The author hopes that this article helps ten thousand of Afghans to earn a better living for their families & communities and overall to help build Afghanistan in a sustainable way.

Connect with/ contact Alex Steinberg directly at WhatsApp +966 531824178 to schedule a meeting for expert exchange & discussion. Note: Alex is in Kabul now (but keeps his foreign WhatsApp number)

About the author Alex Steinberg

Alex Steinberg has helped develop, lead, execute, and advise large programs & projects for many companies in highly industrialized and developing countries.

Alex has helped build organizations and countries by conceptualizing and delivering strategies, programs, initiatives, and solutions end-to-end across key industries.

Alex is currently in Kabul, identifying opportunities and developing solutions to help build Afghanistan. Alex is coming as an expert advisor to work alongside with government, businesspeople, NGOs, and other parties. Much of his time he invests into aspiring entrepreneurs and company leaders to build successful, profitable organizations that impact millions of people in Afghanistan. His key objective is to build a strong private sector that is able to serve the Afghan needs while creating jobs in a sustainable way.

Legal Disclaimer

This article reflects the opinion of Alex Steinberg only. It does not claim to represent the viewpoints of any present/ former client, employer, or partner. The author acknowledges that there are often different viewpoints on a topic, which are equally valid. Constructive discussion rather than criticism can lead to better ideas and positive outcome & value to business and society.

?

?