CREATING OPPORTUNITIES

FARIEL SALAHUDDIN

UPTRADE, PAKISTAN

In rural communities in Pakistan, women can spend up to four hours a day fetching water from distant wells. Lack of access to electricity and equipment, such as water pumps, contributes to this situation. Fariel Salahuddin, a former World Bank consultant and energy specialist, realised that many small farmers were low on cash but owned a lot of livestock, primarily goats. However, selling their livestock was typically insufficient to buy a solar water pump.

In 2017, she founded UpTrade to enable villages to effectively barter their livestock for solar devices including water pumps, lights, and devices for communication and cooling. It establishes an agreement between communities and an energy partner that supplies, installs and maintains solar water pumps. Using its livestock-market digital platform, UpTrade's retail brand, Goats for Water Meat, is sold to customers, meat companies, restaurants, and large stores.