Learning to make aid work

My plea: For as long as we, outsiders, continue to intervene in other’s lives there is an urgent need to learn from our past mistakes.

It is challenging to evaluate development results

For the past few months I have travelled across the northern region of Ghana to meet with farmers and MoFA field staff. The purpose of this often dusty and tiresome yet interesting travel has been to evaluate EWB’s past work with the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA). It has also turned out to be great way to kick-off my placement – I have gained valuable exposure to inspiring insights into farmer’s lives as well as the frustrating challenges of the development sector.

By mid-December I completed my travels and attempted to write a report which encapsulates my observations and opinions on our past work with MoFA. As I sat down to write the report I began reflecting on a major limitation I faced through-out – how difficult it was to reveal our past mistakes! This limitation isn’t just specific to my situation, it’s a significant barrier that prevents the development sector from playing a stronger role in ending world poverty.

The biggest learning comes from failure

I remember learning how to ride a bike. When I was 7, I decided it was time to remove my training wheels. One summer Saturday afternoon, my dad and I attempted to learn how to ride my new 2-wheeler. It began with my dad supporting the back of the bike until I got enough momentum and he would let go. I would pedal for a few cycles and then bail – too scared to go any further on my own. This continued through-out the afternoon until my dad’s patience wore out and he called it quits.

This left me and my hot pink bike alone. Determined to learn to ride I began to go on my own. This time, my falls were more brutal but each time I fell I got back on my bike and could go a little further. Eventually I made it down the entire block. To my surprise I had learned how to ride and had also learned the important lesson how failure can teach.

“With decades of development assistance and the increasing scale of poverty, it is clear that many development projects fail. The mistake is potentially a vital piece of knowledge which can point to future lines of enquiry and changes of policy.” – Eric Dudley, author of The Critical Villager

Bridge failure - Who knew that this bridge was started in the 60s? At least it is serving a purpose!

The systems of development hide failure instead of learning from it

With private companies, learning is simple. Corporations like McDonalds, that offer fast food to their clients aim to please customers. If clients suddenly stop buying BigMacs then McDonalds sees a decline in revenue and adapts their marketing strategy – they add the McSalad to their menu.

Development agencies get their money not from their customers, in MoFA’s case small-scale farmers, but from international donors such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). So to keep staff employed, MoFA has incentives to keep donors happy while accountability to farmers remains low. Examples of this scary truth are listed below:

Anecdote 1 - Fine china for guests

I’ve just moved to a district office where I learned that all of the field staff will be shifted in the district. The reason? The hard-working field staff will be located in areas that are on the main road, areas that donors typically visit more than the more isolated areas.

Anecdote 2 – Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, keep flattering it

This week I attended a meeting of MoFA managers. There was a riveting discussion about a certain project that encourages farmers to raise ‘grass-cutters’ – grass-cutters are similar to guinea pigs and their meat is highly valued. All MoFA staff admitted the project was a failure, poor cage design, high mortality rate, and most of all farmer’s lacked the interest to engage in the project. Both farmers and MoFA jumped at the chance to engage in this project due more to the offered resources. Due to continuing flow of resources it’s doubtful that the discussion had during the meeting will be shared with those who control the purse strings.

These women and children don't control the purse strings. They are cattle herders from Mali called Fulanis. They are of the most marginalized members of society.

What to do with development?

This week I learned that an organisation will be conducting an evaluation of MoFA. I observed MoFA staff “coaching” their field workers with the answers they should provide to the evaluation staff. I felt frustrated at this system, yet I totally empathise with the MoFA staff, after all who wants to put their career on the line?

I cringe at the thought of a MoFA staff or worse, CIDA reading this blog entry. Yet, for me, I have the freedom of knowing that ramifications would be much less and understanding from the readers more forthcoming.

Power relationships made explicit as I greet the chief during a farmer meeting that has all the feel of a special occasion.

EWB doesn’t provide direct resources to MoFA so incentives to butter us up are greatly diminished. At the same time I am free to provide critical feedback to MoFA and already have. I am thankful our relationship with MoFA is more open and am grateful for the insights that have resulted because of it.

However, I still have a way to go to see the raw version of development because farmers instinctively put me in the same category as resource providing donors. I have tried to get past that with farmers but inevitably end up with a wish list of material items. My most recent visit yielded a lengthy list that includes crutches, solar panels, a tractor, and a motorcycle. Most items requested by the wealthier members of the community. I don’t want to play development Santa. I want to provide well-informed interventions with MoFA that won’t break after boxing-day.

I know that only time, listening and humble efforts to show I’m not above hard-work on the farm and at home will break down the power-relationship between myself and farmers. To all those who have become overwhelmed and jaded by the complexities of development – don’t yet give up, there are challenges but there are also those of us doing our best to learn and make aid work.

A New Home

What at is a home? It is where the heart is? Where you hang your hat? Where you dance around in your underpants?

As human beings we have ways to easily identify ourselves in society. Our home is one of them. For me, living overseas for several years now and shifting geographic locations, I’ve had to re-define what home means to me.

This past Sunday was the first game of the Africa Cup of Nations. The first match of the Ghana hosted tournament was Ghana versus Guinea. I crowded around one of the few TVs in my community to watch the inaugural match. During the match, I was overcome by waves of emotions (and not just due to the numerous missed shots and eventual 2 – 1 victory from Ghana’s Black Stars).

My first day in Ghana I spent the afternoon holed up in a hotel watching a football match and feeling rather sorry for my lonesome bag-less self. This past Sunday, I realized how lucky I was in only a short time to have somehow become “un-lonely”. In contrast to my first day in Ghana, last night I watched a football match sitting next to Faiza and Manshara, two girls who sleep under the same roof as I, and amongst 30 people of the community which recently accepted me as a new member.

Above - In this community making 'gari' a roasted flour from cassava is the primary source of income for women.

I’ve found a new home with fantastic family. First, there's Faiza and Manshara who are 7 and 8 years old and are great fun to play with. Yesterday we spent the day riding my bicycle around town in the blistering heat, laughing all the way as the two of them tried to learn how to ride. In the evenings we sit together and play waori – a Ghanaian board game which is 20% strategy and 80% luck, or at least it is to us!

Close-up on Manshara as Zalaifa and Faiza play waori in the background.

In the mornings I wake up to the chilly weather this time of year brings, but also to warm greetings from Salamatu, the head of the household, who also feels inclined to constantly remind me to bath…at least the water is also warm! Being clean and well-fed I hop on my Japan-made bicycle and travel to work. On the way I pass swarms of children and adults who shout friendly greetings.

Salamatu and Zalaifa prepare a delicious bean cake called tubani

In the evenings I come home to Zalaifa, the hard-working 19 year old who is usually stirring supper or sweeping the yard. She is always patient with my eager yet clumsy attempts to cook, speak the local language (Gonja) and question her about her culture.

Zalaifa stirs TZ - the most common staple dish in Northern Ghana. In this area it's made with maize and cassava flour. Stirring it is really tough work!

I really love it here and am blessed to have found a family and a community that has welcomed me so acceptingly. And for now, as I keep up home in Saskatoon through emails and phone calls, I will also enjoy this new home that has been added to the patchwork of homes that sometimes defines who I am.

Posing with Manshara - she's dressed up because it's market day and we're going!

Corrected Blog Address

Here's the correct address for my friend Dan's blog (referenced in the blog titled 'Top Down or Bottom Up'). We just updated it so definitely encourage you to check it out if you're interested in a home-grown education focused project!

http://achievingqualityoflife.blogspot.com/

Celebrate!

To follow up a bit of a heavy post, this post is light and fluffy and full of feel-good pictures!

Christmas is around the corner and as you prepare to celebrate a Canadian Christmas I want to share some celebrations that I have been able to experience.

First, National Farmers Day, Christmas for MoFA! (Ministry of Food and Agriculture, my partner organisation). For the past two months, that’s all MoFA staff have been talking about and working on – National Farmers Day is a BIG DEAL! A chance to celebrate farming and the farmers whose hard work allows the country to eat.

A big banner overhangs the local and regional government heads who attended this celebration on Dec 7th.

During the event, I volunteered my services as multi-media person. I spent the day holding my camera within one foot of diplomats giving speeches on farming and shooting exuberant farmers who were awarded bicycles and other farming toys for their hard work.

Most innovative farmer next to his prizes (isn't his hat great!?!)

The day also felt special because all of us MoFA workers were dressed up in MoFA stenciled clothing. Here you see Trevor and I dressed up with Nina (an EWB volunteer who was visiting from Zambia)

The second celebration of the month took place in Burkina Faso. The 7 of us EWB volunteers who are currently working in Ghana took the 17 hour bus trip to a city in Burkina Faso (Bobo-Diolasso). There we spent three days “retreating” from some of the everyday challenges of working in a developing country and connecting with our French speaking friends volunteering north of the border. Two days of the retreat were dedicated to some fantastic workshop-style sessions while the middle day was all about being a tourist.

Below you see us celebrating…well I think we are celebrating being strong enough to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and for the small successes we have achieved in with our development partner organisations. This may sound cheesy but it’s very important to celebrate the small successes in a world where attribution for results is difficult (everyone wants to take credit for results so they get more money!) and big dreams can’t be realized in a day and even during a year-long overseas placement.

Despite a difficult growing season, this year farmers are still celebrating – babies are born and this new life is celebrated, chiefs are sworn in as their predecessors pass on, and harvests that are healthy and abundant are hard to come by so aren’t taken for granted!

My friend, Alaji of Sanguli village celebrates his healthy rice harvest.

So December has been full of celebrations! To my family and friends whom I’m sorry I won’t be celebrating the holidays with you, I hope you too take the time to celebrate.

Top Down or Bottom Up

To implement a project that is designed from the 50^th floor of a building in Rome, a program that is the brainchild of the top academics and development leaders, or to implement a program that doesn’t really have a grand master scheme but is one idea from one community member with minimal resources and training?

The current hot debate in development seems to focus around the conundrum of developing a program that can address the numerous numbers living in poverty complimented with locally appropriate and sustainable projects. “Can demands for generalizable actions be reconciled with location- specific solutions?” - asked simply in The Critical Villager, a fantastic book by Eric Dudley.

Well, what do you think?

I get excited when I read a proposal for a development project. For example, IFAD (the United Nation’s International Fund for Agricultural Development) has proposed a project for Northern Ghana. The rhetoric for the project promises sustainable economic growth for the agriculture sector in Northern Ghana, growth that will not leave the poor behind but allow them to drive it! Wow, that’s super fantastic! From my minimal development experience, the project proposal is actually quite impressive and seems to be innovative and holistic in approach – a rare combination!

Now to actually achieve this good thing this project is planning to work with MoFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture, my partner organisation) so I will be able to see and maybe even influence how this project rhetoric is turned into results.

Trying to put development into boxes

On the other side of the coin, I get slightly nervous when I hear of someone who has donated directly to get someone in school or given fertilizer to help a farmer plant more this season. These actions are surely bleeding-heart responses that give immediate gratification. But what about the project plan? How will these interventions be measured? What’s to say these resources couldn’t have been given to a project that will in theory have a broader and more lasting impact?

At this very moment I am sitting in an internet café with a new friend Dan. We are creating a blog that will let the Western world know about his idea for a development project (achievingqualityoflife.blogspot.com). Or rather, his solutions to a situation that he’s seeing in his own community. So while I continue to support his small-scale development project, I still continue to ask: “If we’ve been doing this development thingy for half a century, how come we can’t seem to make things work?”

Dan's best guess - get a girl of 14 years in school (Suraya)

I’ve come across several community leaders finding small-scale solutions but we run away from those since they are perhaps not “sustainable” or “scalable”…it’s almost like the development industry is too good for that kind of work. We prefer to have frameworks and figure everything out before we jump in and try things (sound familiar to those of you who are engineers?).

Iterations of “best guesses” is so not the way to do things, or is it? I’m starting to think so. So while I grapple with my engineering instinct that tells me to figure things out, put boxes around it and analyze everything before beginning, I recognize that small ideas are popping up in front of me almost daily. And to let those go by seems wrong (and I don’t think I’m just listening to my heart).

In an ideal world, community-based interventions that are participatory and big thinker programs can be harmonious components of effective aid. For starters, big thinkers can try harder to put themselves in the shoes (or bare-feet) of the beneficiaries. Secondly, field workers can try harder to inform to the big thinkers and funders of development aid that the aid process should follow the development process more closely by accepting the complex and dynamic nature of people’s lives and the need for iterations of community-based interventions. But don’t get me wrong, these are not my “solutions” to all the problems of international development, just best guesses from my perspective.

Dan and Sarah. My perspective on development is being shaped from inside his family's compound.

Going beyond the party line

This post was initiated by my Grandpa who expressed gratitude at me sharing my cultural experiences via blog post, but still wasn’t clear on the purpose of EWB overseas (or at least of my placement aside from an amazing cultural exchange). Caution – the following post contains more questions than answers, for those who enjoy in putting a box around the “final” answer do not continue reading; for the rest please enjoy some controversy and feel free to share your love or discontent with the ideas I share below. The “party line” for my placement is in the header of my blog: “I work for small-scale farmers in Northern Ghana through a partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in Ghana.”

Me working for a small-scale farmer by watering his tomato garden.

But what does this mean?

In order to try and figure this out I have embarked on a 2 month learning tour. I am learning how incredibly complex, diverse and locally specific the lives of small-scale farmers (and their families) is! It has been particularly challenging as white people typically get exposure to the best farmers (see all October posts for some examples of "best farmers").

I am starting to discover why some farmers adopt a business-like mentality towards their farm while the majority of farmers take low-risk decisions that keep them farming for subsistence. Is it really just a matter of the educated vs. the uneducated? The entrepreneurial vs. the common majority? What other common indicators set these farmers apart? Am I just doing the classic outsider thing of simplifying the situation too much? At some point simplification of this incredibly complex and dynamic situation is required to move forward, to communicate my ideas to others and to ultimately do something. How can I find that balance?

I am also learning about the ways that MoFA tries to help these small-scale farmers develop their livelihood to something more secure, more profitable and ultimately something that provides a better life for their children. The ideas and what actually happen on the ground are often quite different (micro-credit loans have a repayment rate of less than 40% and the productivity of farmer’s fields hasn’t increased in the last 5 years despite countless interactions between farmers and MoFA field workers)…Accountability for projects flows upwards to the donor instead of downwards to the beneficiaries…Grandioso development projects are planned nationally or internationally with great rhetoric but lack the understanding of the realities surrounding implementation and consequently expectations of field workers are sky-high while resources fall short. How can I, as an eager outsider make my mark in this mess of development?

I have been worrying about this through-out my 2 month learning tour – until last week when I visited a fellow EWB volunteer Sarah Lewis. She is also working with MoFA but in a different region and has got a 6 month head start on me. I believe she has started something very exciting, something that will hopefully transform the way MoFA works and has already touched the lives of 9 farmers.

Last Thursday I was privileged to accompany Sarah Lewis and her co-worker a MoFA field worker (Lawrence) on a trip to visit a beautiful vegetable garden and meet the people who were tending to it. Every year these farmers work together to grow vegetables during the dry season. It’s a risky undertaking because once the veges are ripe and ready to be sold they need to be sold asap and at whatever price the market is offering! Veges also seem to be more prone to pests and diseases than other crops. But if all goes well, vegetable gardening can pay off and can provide a supplementary income during the difficult dry season.

Lawarence, Sarah Lewis and a farmer inspect the onion crop.

The farmers Sarah and Lawrence were working with had doubled the area they planted, thanks to Sarah’s and Lawrence’s support of fertilizer and labour to dig the wells for irrigation. Initially I was shocked to learn that Sarah had provided inputs! EWB is supposed to be a capacity building organisation, not a donor organisation! But I’ve also seen that one place where development projects fail is they fail to consider to equal importance of financial and technical assistance. I’ve seen development projects whose solution to a lack of acceptable results is to crank up the resources, like the Ghanaian analogy of applying more fertilizer on a poorly planted crop it’s basically a waste of money! Others look to provide only training or capacity building, for example: informing resource-poor farmers about the negative impacts of poor natural resource management only means farmers get the free soft-drink and crackers provided during the training!)

So enough ranting, as this is just the extreme of two approaches. What’s exciting about Sarah Lewis’ approach is that she and Lawrence are finding local solutions to help these 9 farmers. Grand plans are confined to these 9 farmers. Everyone is learning as they go along, Sarah, EWB, Lawrence and these 9 farmers. I’m not sure how scalable or sustainable her approach is, or what the development industry would make of it, but I do know that already these 9 farmers stand a better chance of yielding at least twice as many vegetables as they did last year. I consider that one small victory for farmers, MoFA and EWB among this mess of development.

Beautiful onion crop

So What Does MoFA Do?

Before I jump into this question I want to take this time to display a somewhat incriminating photo of a fellow friend and EWB volunteer - Luke Brown. He is just completing 2 years in Ghana and was privileged to become a "cheif of friends" in Tamale. I observed the very elaborate and formal "cheifing" ceremony with some other EWB volunteers. So what does an EWB volunteer do after 2 years in Ghana...

Luke before he becomes a chief. The actual chief is sitting behind him. Note the small girl in the top-right corner, she's fanning Luke!

Me recording this momentous occasion on Luke's sound recorder.

So what does MoFA do? To answer this question, I went overseas… My first step to understanding what MoFA does brought me overseas with “Prince” an employee of MoFA. So I’m guilty of cheesy Ghanaian humour. “Overseas” is an area of the Northern Region that is accessible either via boat in 2 hours or via road which takes a 5 hour detour. Since we were in a truck we had to do the 5 hour detour.

The intention of Prince’s visit was to assess a farmer who had been nominated for the prestigious national award for “Best Farmer”. Every year, MoFA organises a one-day event called “National Farmers Day” that is intended to raise the profile of farming within Ghana. Even though National Farmers Day is over one month away, it is foremost in the minds of all MoFA staff. When I first heard of the event, I figured it was just a big PR thing and wasn’t really sure why MoFA was so excited about it.

I asked Prince what the big deal was and he explained to me that the day is also an opportunity for MoFA to explicitly thank the farmers that they work for – the people that MoFA are essentially accountable to, after all without farmers in Ghana the role of MoFA would be quite different. To me, the event was also a great opportunity to profile farmers who model best practices – whether those best practices be entrepreneurial in managing the farm as a business or perhaps responsible use of natural resources – these best practices are the messages that MoFA strives to share with farmers and highlighting farmers through National Farmers Day is just one approach to encouraging farmers to adopt best practices.

The farmer we met, Alhaji Imoro, had been farming for the past 30 years. This year he planted rice (100 acres) and maize (50 acres). Unfortunately, all of the maize was destroyed by the floods that affected a huge amount of people in Northern Ghana this year and received international attention (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6996584.stm). However, Alhaji with his keen knowledge of animal husbandry, and a critical understanding of market opportunities, will not suffer this year. Alhaji is smart to grow rice – a crop that actually thrived this year during the drought – the market opportunities for local rice are growing due to a combination of a government school feeding program and a growing popularity of rice as a starchy food by children!

Prince and Alhaji chat it up

Alhaji also rears cattle – an extremely profitable venture in Ghana, but an opportunity that is rarely exploited due to farmer’s attitude towards cattle. From what I learned from the farmers I lived with in Chayili village (recall groundnut picking adventure), cattle is viewed as a form of savings and is killed for a funeral or sold in desperate times to buy food. Alhaji was rearing over 500 cattle and was definitely looking at his cattle as a profitable venture, not a mooing, grass-chewing, form of saving.

Encouraging farmers to adopt the best practices that Alhaji exemplifies is a crucial component of MoFA’s work and arguably the most effective grassroots approach to making poverty history in Ghana. Encouraging farmers to adopt best practices is more than providing technical education on proper farming techniques – like the correct spacing for maize, or the proper amounts and timing of fertilizer application – it is encouraging a behaviour change that shifts farmers from viewing their cattle and crops as part of a business venture. That’s tricky stuff!

Alhaji is successful because he has solid technical knowledge of cattle rearing and rice and maize production but he also has the attitude of a businessman. When I asked how Alhaji learned cattle rearing and why he’s been successful with his farm, Alhaji answered that he learned from his father. At the end of our visit with Alhaji he asked Prince about growing mango trees, the market for mango fruit has been getting a lot of attention both internationally and locally and Alhaji wants to expand his business to mango production.

Prince was more than happy to share information. I watched as he reached above him to a tree that I noticed for the first time was a mango tree. Prince grabbed a branch and proceeded to demonstrate grafting – a technique that involves preparing and planting a branch from a live mango tree so that it will develop into another tree.

Grafting part 1 - remove a small branch and strip the leaves

Grafting part 2 - wrap the branch with a small piece of plastic and plant.

With farmers who aren’t as lucky as Alhaji who inherited not only a profitable farm but an approach and the practices that led to continuing prosperity, MoFA staff work towards changing farmer’s behaviour. Changing farmer’s behaviour is certainly not as easy as grafting a new mango tree from an existing one and so National Farmers Day is but one approach in the basket.