●●○ medium
There is no confirmed −; independently verified + decide the position (A). No unreachable strike-through.= non-additive meter
Proximity Designs: Affordable farm equipment and finance for Myanmar's smallholders. Myanmar is a country of smallholders — about 70% of its 55 million people live off the land, but decades of isolation cut them off from resources farmers elsewhere take for granted: irrigation, agronomic advice, affordable finance. Drawing water from wells and carrying it to fields is heavy labor, and depending on rain is precarious. Proximity Designs (founded 2004 by Jim Taylor and Debbie Aung Din; a nonprofit social enterprise with a factory in Yangon, much of its leadership Burmese and two-thirds women) designs, makes, and sells affordable agricultural solutions — treadle pumps, drip irrigation, solar pumps, bio-fertilizer/pesticides — with agronomic advice and flexible crop loans (about 95% repayment). Since 2004 it has sold about 140,000 treadle pumps and about 10,000 drip-irrigation sets, reaching over 90,000 households, with over 100,000 borrowers. For many farmers, yields and incomes more than doubled. The letter is A; certainty is medium. Unconfirmed concerns are placed under “Watching.” (As of 2026-Q2; estimate based on public information.)
Main narrative
Myanmar is a country of smallholders — about 70% of its 55 million people live off the land, but decades of isolation cut them off from resources farmers elsewhere take for granted: irrigation, agronomic advice, affordable finance. Drawing water from wells and carrying it to fields is heavy labor, and depending on rain is precarious.
Proximity Designs (founded 2004 by Jim Taylor and Debbie Aung Din; a nonprofit social enterprise with a factory in Yangon, much of its leadership Burmese and two-thirds women) designs, makes, and sells affordable agricultural solutions — treadle pumps, drip irrigation, solar pumps, bio-fertilizer/pesticides — with agronomic advice and flexible crop loans (about 95% repayment). Since 2004 it has sold about 140,000 treadle pumps and about 10,000 drip-irrigation sets, reaching over 90,000 households, with over 100,000 borrowers. For many farmers, yields and incomes more than doubled.
One person’s story (N1)
+ before → after
A smallholder in the dry zone used to draw well water by bucket and carry it across the field on his back — back-breaking labor, and if the rains failed the harvest was at risk. With a treadle pump and drip irrigation, the toil of fetching water eases, and fields can be watered even in the dry season. Harvests grow, and in some homes take-home pay more than doubled. A short-term crop loan covers equipment, seed, and fertilizer, repaid at harvest.
Source nature: Ashden / P1 international award. Positive effects are not used to offset negatives.
Positive / negative effects
+ effects
- It won the international environmental Ashden Award (the “Green Oscar”), with doubled yields and incomes recognized. The Skoll Foundation invested in and featured it, and U.S. development finance (OPIC/DFC) contributed $8 million. The Dutch specialist consultancy MDF conducted an external impact evaluation of its agronomic advisory (about 1,400 households), among other third-party involvement.P1 international award / Ashden / Skoll Foundation / OPIC
− effects (confirmed)
- No confirmed −.
- Independent quantitative verification of yield/income effects; long-term uptime after installation; post-coup operating environment and funding
A second look
Figures like beneficiary households and doubled income come mainly from company/award tallies, and the external evaluation (Netherlands' MDF) was company-commissioned. RCT-type independent verification of yield/income effects is limited. Products depend on water source, operation, and terrain, and long-term uptime after installation, as well as the operating-environment risk of post-2021-coup Myanmar, are points.
Sources
How to read this assessment
- Reachable upper bound (ceiling): a confirmed − sets the ceiling, and independently verified + decide the position within it. + do not cancel out −.
- The weight of evidence is not symmetric: only confirmed − are counted; the volume of disputes or allegations goes under “Watching.” + are counted from independent evidence, while an organization’s own PR is treated as “reference.”
- Size is not value: scale is not used in the assessment. Matters that stay within money or competition—investors, shareholders, sanctions, trade secrets—are also excluded.
- The letter (assessment) and certainty (how reliable the information is) are separate axes.
This is a translation; the Japanese version is authoritative. The assessments here are generated automatically by AI based on published criteria. The operator does not alter individual results. Because they are AI-generated they may contain errors, and they are opinion and commentary, not statements of fact. Where evidence is insufficient, the entry is marked “On hold.” Requests for correction are accepted via the form.
Terms: Narrative Value = an assessment (A–G) of the distance between the story an organization tells and its reality / Ceiling meter = a visualization of the reachable upper bound / Watching = unconfirmed matters not counted / Protected stakeholders = people, animals, nature, and future generations. | Generated by: AI | As of: 2026-Q2 | Back to top