Prioritising Last Mile Distribution
One billion people lack access to electricity, 663 million people lack access to clean water, 815 million people are chronically undernourished, and 3 billion people lack access to clean cooking facilities.
Existing products such as solar lights, water filters, and clean cookstoves are transformative for poor families. However, these products are still often not available to many remote, poor or vulnerable communities, because distributing them is expensive and difficult.
Header photo: Credit GDC; participants of the GDC Last Mile Distribution Forum 2026
Network of last mile distributors members
Operating in countries
people reached by GDC
Last mile distribution companies (LMDs) are critical to reaching last mile populations with products that help to improve people’s health, wellbeing and livelihoods. LMDs’ have strong local networks, an important role in market creation and a comprehensive value proposition focused on quality, sales service and consumer financing.
However, they face a range of challenges. Often operating in isolation within high-risk/low-infrastructure markets, they work with customers who have very little income and limited knowledge of the benefits that simple products can bring.
Distributors struggle to recruit, train and retain sales staff. They have limited access to working capital, and face policy barriers such as high taxation on imported products. They have no collective voice, and no access to best practices.
Without additional support for these businesses, hundreds of millions of people across Africa, Asia and Latin America will miss out on life-changing products and services.
There remain urgent gaps in recognizing and addressing the challenges faced by distributors who ultimately deliver life-changing products to communities that are remote, poor, and/or marginalised.
Neha Misra, Co-Founder & Chief Collaboration Officer, Solar Sister
The Global Distributors Collective (GDC) adopts a systems approach to solving the last mile distribution problem.
The GDC is hosted by Practical Action, alongside strategic and implementing partner Bopinc.
It is a collective of over 300 last mile distribution companies around the world. Our purpose is to make last mile distribution the first priority, so life-changing products can be affordable & available to all.
The GDC is the world’s only entity dedicated to supporting and representing last mile distributors across sectors and geographies. We exist to provide services that help distributors improve business performance and grow.
The GDC provides a collective voice for distributors to ensure their voice is heard; drives research and innovation across the sector; facilitates the exchange of information, insight and expertise; and provides critical services that leverage economies of scale.
The GDC has huge potential to facilitate our work and that of our peers, which will ultimately serve to benefit millions of households across developing countries
Tania Laden, CEO, Livelyhoods
Help us work with communities to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems.