Description/achievement of initiative
TIE Global Artisans is social enterprise, founded in 2019 by African, Indian, and US partners, to create economic prosperity for millions of indigenous artisans around the world, beginning in Africa. TIE’s current activities center on handmade textile weavers in Ghana and Ethiopia but intends to scale throughout Africa and other regions of the world where artisans and other informal economy workers are marginalized. TIE’s programs engage artisans in a co-creative process to address key pain points and capture the unrealized economic value of their unique craftsmanship.
Implementation methodologies
Implemented by TIE's African-Based Officesn1. De-risk the supply chain by securing the highest quality available raw materials and providing them at no cost to artisans at their homes. TIE engages middlemen, rather than displacing them, by leveraging their expertise and offering a fair wage. Implemented by TIE's Weaving Cooperative Partners n2. Find, train, and employ decentralized artisans at a fair wage through local weaving enterprises that leverage “artisan leads” across the Volta and Northern regions of Ghana. Test artisan capacity [quality, quantity, timing] in order to meet international market standards.n Implemented by TIE's US-Based Personnel n3. Develop relationships with onshore, nearshore, and offshore buyers, designers, wholesalers, and retailers to consolidate consumer demand for authentic artisan products. Facilitate connections between artisans, buyers, and designers to develop modern practices, product designs, and product types. Create swatch books and host a virtual TIE Showcase to get in front of potential buyers and funders.nImplemented by TIE's Country Teams and Program Partners [Government and Industry Agencies] n4. Provide educative programs around business, digital, and financial literacy, as well as social programs around workplace safety, gender parity, food security, no child labor, and health and well-being.
Arrangements for Capacity-Building and Technology Transfer
TIE initially employs weavers in Ghana by partnering with two high potential weaving enterprises: T.Y. Kente Enterprises [Volta Region] and T. Fabulous Smock House [Northern Region]. These enterprises will recruit weavers and consolidate production of textiles while TIE ecosystem partners:
• Consolidate inputs by addressing supply chain challenges
• Consolidate demand for TIE textiles via market linkages
• Consolidate support for TIE via local government agencies
Specific Activities:
Engage middlemen to source highest quality inputs. TIE needs to test cost/logistics involved in de-risking supply chains and providing inputs at no cost to artisans at their homes.
Train and employ decentralized artisans at fair wage through weaving enterprises that leverage “artisan leads”. TIE will test quantity, quality, turn-around time of textile production.
Develop relationships with on/offshore manufacturers, wholesalers, buyers to test demand for authentic artisan textiles. Secure preliminary “test order” to assess/refine TIE’s production capacity/delivery logistics.
Create swatch books of sample textile colors/patterns for potential B2B/B2C manufacturing, fashion, home décor buyers. Test textiles re dye bleeding, fabric shrinkage, coating required, source of fibers and dyes, etc.
Create both fashion and home décor product prototypes and secure 1-2 pilot contracts. Include two bespoke outfits to attract celebrity TIE brand ambassadors. Build relationships with on/offshore designers/retailers to create market linkages.
Host XR-based TIE Virtual Showcase to get TIE artisans, weaving enterprises, leadership in front of funders, manufacturers, designers, embassies, festival organizers, media outlets, etc.
Build relationships with local government agencies via workshops to build awareness/support for TIE; facilitate registration/licensing permits; provide business mentorship; accrue import/export advantages.
Better understand/navigate complexities of One District One Factory [1D1F] and other incentive-based policies in effort to include disbursed artisans in definition of distributed factory to use benefits.
Examine issues/options around IP protection for TIE textile designs/heritage patterns; explore copyright protections for loom architecture innovations.
Develop blockchain supply chain provenance with Afrovalley, an Ethiopian technology company working with African cotton farmers. Develop real-time impact dashboards for progress transparency to help de-risk additional investment.
Coordination mechanisms/governance structure
TIE is officially a program of PYXERA Global, with a plan to spin it off into its own legal entity within the next 24 months. PYXERA Global is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation registered in the State of Delaware. PYXERA Global has invested extensive financial and human capital into TIE over the past year-plus in an effort to incubate a social enterprise that is aligned with PYXERA's mission and fits a niche need across the globe. PYXERA Global will continue to invest resources into TIE operations and fundraising until it is a legal entity in its own right; the nature of the ongoing relationship of the two entities will be determined prior to spin-off. This structure allowed several advantages:\n1. We secured US Government funds to conduct needs assessment, partner development and business planning. A new entity would not be eligible for an investment the size we received from USADF ($250,000). Aside from the USG track record requirements, PYXERA Global also provided an advantage due to its longstanding reputation with USADF which made receipt of this unusual type and size of grant possible.n2. PYXERA Global continues to bid for various philanthropic start-up funding, which might not be available to TIE as a new entity. We were able to garner extensive in-kind support from the Association of Ghanaian Industries due to PYXERA Global’s long-standing relationship there.n3. PYXERA Global and PYXERA Global Ghana have extensive government and private sector relationships in both Ghana and Ethiopia (programs in Ghana for 12 years and multiple programs in Ethiopia since 2005). These relationships were critical to a successful needs assessment and planning phase for TIE.\n4. The idea for TIE came from PYXERA Global and PYXERA Global Ghana leadership. PYXERA Global has an international team of 150+ community engagement and social impact specialists, which TIE can easily tap into/benefit from.
Partner(s)
PYXERA Global, PYXERA Global Offices in Ghana and Ethiopia
Progress reports
Goal 1
1.4 - By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance
1.5 - By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters
1.a - Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions
Goal 3
3.9 - By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination
Goal 4
4.4 - By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
4.5 - By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
4.6 - By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
4.7 - By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
Goal 5
5.1 - End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
5.5 - Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
5.a - Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws
5.b - Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
5.c - Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels
Goal 8
8.3 - Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services
8.5 - By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value
8.6 - By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training
8.7 - Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms
8.8 - Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment
8.9 - By 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products
Goal 9
9.3 - Increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises, in particular in developing countries, to financial services, including affordable credit, and their integration into value chains and markets
9.a - Facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in developing countries through enhanced financial, technological and technical support to African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States
Goal 10
10.1 - By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average
10.2 - By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
10.3 - Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard
10.b - Encourage official development assistance and financial flows, including foreign direct investment, to States where the need is greatest, in particular least developed countries, African countries, small island developing States and landlocked developing countries, in accordance with their national plans and programmes
Goal 11
11.4 - Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage
Goal 12
12.4 - By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment
12.5 - By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
12.a - Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production
12.b - Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products
Goal 16
16.2 - End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children
16.7 - Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels
Goal 17
Technology -
17.7 - Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed
Capacity-Building -
Trade -
17.11 - Significantly increase the exports of developing countries, in particular with a view to doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020
17.12 - Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least developed countries, consistent with World Trade Organization decisions, including by ensuring that preferential rules of origin applicable to imports from least developed countries are transparent and simple, and contribute to facilitating market access
17.14 - Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development
17.15 - Respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development
Multi-stakeholder partnerships
17.16 - Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries
17.17 - Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships
Data, monitoring and accountability
17.19 - By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries
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