Remote (Dis)engagement: Shifting Corporate Risk to the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’

TL;DR

The article examines Project Insansa, a bottom-of-the-pyramid “route to market” programme run by a global food manufacturer in Kibera, Nairobi, showing how the firm uses NGOs, wholesalers and sellers’ social networks to enter an “institutional void” while shifting physical, financial and social risks onto informal sellers. It argues that this strategy of “remote (dis)engagement” produces adverse incorporation and low-tech gig work rather than formal employment or meaningful market inclusion.

Key findings

• Food Co. did not build formal distribution infrastructure or upgrade informal markets; it leveraged existing informal systems, initially through an NGO partner and later through wholesalers and field officers. After the NGO was dropped, recruitment shifted toward men with established distribution businesses, and the programme, which began with a focus on female empowerment, no longer focuses on gender.
• Sellers are framed as independent “entrepreneurs” or “micro-entrepreneurs,” lack contracts and employee status, are paid on commission, and are excluded from formal benefits and protections. They assume risks for security and access, income and credit, and social protection. The programme has over 700 sellers and accounts for approximately one-tenth of Food Co.’s regional sales; sellers earn approximately US$0.15 per sale, and in 2015–17 earned on average US$55 per month or US$1.90 per day, compared with the lowest urban national minimum wage of 13,572.90 Kenyan shillings or US$126.40 per month.
• The programme became more formalized and professionalized, with “super sellers” making up 25 per cent of participants but generating 66 per cent of sales. The authors conclude that the BoP business model depends on “gig practices” of flexibility, irregular work and insecurity, and that “there is no Project Insansa without precarity.”
• Rather than inclusion on secure terms, the paper characterizes sellers’ incorporation as “adverse incorporation”: they are included in the market on disadvantageous terms, with possibilities for security and accumulation circumscribed by the programme’s design.

Methods

• The authors conducted a three-year interdisciplinary case study of Project Insansa, including seven site visits, participant observation of the selling process, and briefings by local managers.
• Phase I consisted of semi-structured interviews with 73 sellers (42 male and 31 female), field officers, programme managers in Kenya, NGO partners, and Food Co. members involved in the programme’s inception. Phase II, in April 2015, involved 16 photo elicitation interviews, with respondents evenly distributed by gender and between rural and urban sites.
• Additional interviews were carried out with key managers at a sister BoP programme established by Food Co. in a different country. Interviews with micro-entrepreneurs were conducted in Kiswahili or a local language, while interviews with employees and associates at Insansa and Food Co. were conducted in English.

Limitations

• The paper does not include a dedicated limitations section.
• Limitations evident from the text include the single-case design focused on one MNC’s BoP programme in Kibera, which limits generalizability.
• The study relies on interviews, participant observation and company/NGO/manager accounts; the paper also notes that Food Co. does not collect data on security incidents experienced by sellers, viewing security as something workers manage as independent contractors.