We create markets.
Markets create jobs.
IGI’s goal for 2026–2031 is lasting jobs — created by building new markets. Using disruptive, market-creating innovation, IGI builds simple, affordable products, services and local businesses for people who have nothing affordable to buy today. Those new markets need workers, suppliers and repair people, so jobs follow.
Our current pilots stay at the heart of the plan: the maternity-ward equipment project at Ghor Provincial Hospital and the completed water pipeline each become a launchpad for new local businesses and the jobs they bring. Afghanistan is IGI’s flagship country and the proving ground for a model we can carry to other fragile-state contexts.
Create markets, and jobs follow
Aid can fill a gap once; a market keeps filling it and keeps people employed while it does. Four principles guide every decision.
Find the people no market serves
Look for a real need with nothing affordable to buy. Serving non-consumers creates customers, workers and local businesses at once.
Make it simple & affordable
Build the simplest, lowest-cost version people will pay for — then improve it as the market grows.
Hire and buy locally
Judge every venture first by the paid jobs it creates and the local suppliers it buys from.
Design for the day IGI steps back
Every venture has a local owner from day one, and is finished only when it runs without IGI’s money or management.
Four launchpads open new markets
IGI isn’t starting over. Each current project becomes the launchpad for new local businesses — and the jobs they bring.
Repair, parts & supply business
An affordable repair, parts and supply service for hospitals and clinics that have none today, plus locally made nutrition products.
Businesses that run on reliable water
Vegetable growing, dairy and food processing, and water run as a local service business — water points, connections, repair.
Training built from venture job needs
Training designed backward from the jobs IGI’s ventures create, with apprenticeships inside working ventures.
Women-led firms that supply the ventures
Women-led businesses that supply the health and water ventures and sell to new customers, with savings groups that finance growth.
The roadmap: four phases, three gates
IGI won’t grow any venture until it has proven it creates jobs and can pay for itself. Between phases sit gates — the Board reviews the evidence, and a venture moves forward only when it meets the gate’s test.
Set the base
- Set up the IGI Market Lab
- Study the pilot-community markets
- Record today’s jobs baseline
- Recruit an independent Board
Start the first ventures
- Repair & supply business at Ghor
- First water-based businesses
- First women-led firms & savings groups
- Apprentices placed into paid roles
Extend what works
- Repair service to more clinics
- New pipeline towns, firms planned first
- Supplier networks for women-led firms
- Repeat a venture in a second community
Hand over & replicate
- Local owners run every enterprise
- IGI steps back to advise and invest
- Publish the model and results
- Assess a second fragile-state country
Five-year goals
By 2031, IGI commits to one primary goal and five supporting goals. The Board sets numeric targets once Phase 1 records today’s jobs and incomes, so targets rest on evidence.
- ★Create lasting jobsPrimary goalEvery venture creates paid local jobs still filled a year later — measured by jobs created, jobs retained at 12 months, and the share held by women and young people.
- 2Create new marketsLaunch local ventures that serve people who had no affordable option before.
- 3Turn every pilot into a launchpadThe Ghor maternity-ward project and the water pipeline each give rise to at least one local business.
- 4Build women’s economic powerWomen own, lead and earn from ventures, within what is safe and possible in each context.
- 5Prove and replicate the modelTake a proven venture to a second community, and then to a second country.
- 6Build an institution that lastsA diversified funding base, an independent Board and strong local leadership.
Read the full strategy
The complete roadmap covers the IGI Market Lab, the seven-question entrepreneurial review, governance, the funding model, how we measure what matters, and the risks we plan for.
Download the strategic roadmap (PDF)