Most people who found out I was heading to Ghana asked me if I was going there for humanitarian or even missionary work. This was especially true with Singaporeans. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's certainly a little disappointing, and demonstrates a very narrow world view. Of course, it's not the faults of the people who hold them.
Singaporeans grow up quite sheltered, and most of them probably still think Africa is a land of starving children and that the only thing to do there is to preach the word of God or hand out sacks of rice and build houses.
This is quite the contrary to what I'm actually doing here!
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I've had to explain my job to a lot of people, and it comes out different every time. It's actually a bit difficult and tricky to explain. Here's one attempt, for your benefit. But first, allow me to apologise. I'm trying really hard for most of my posts to be more pictures than words. This one is a big offender, but I had to write it, as much for posterity as for a convenient link to send to people if they ask what I do and I don't want to come up with an explanation.
I promise it will never happen again.
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I work at IDE in Ghana
IDE's tag line is "creating income opportunities for the rural poor". I think that's a pretty good description, but the devil (details) is still under the hood. How exactly does it do this?
IDE does a special kind of business and industry development, focused on products and services that will give people who use them better options and opportunities to increase their income. To this end, it acts as some mixture of a coach and consultant to all the parties involved along the way: manufacturers, dealers, service providers, and farmers.
A key difference between IDE and other "do-good" institutions is the principle that the work of local businesses and industry will achieve poverty reduction. IDE doesn't actually do anything to stop poverty, but it helps train people and build systems to be good at it.
Furthermore, IDE operates in the "real world". While IDE is itself a donor-funded non-profit, everything they help build or create in a country is self-supporting, so as to persist long after IDE leaves the picture and to flourish and grow beyond that. Another key difference is simply that IDE ever leaves the picture at all: the businesses it works with are cultivated to become independent and self sufficient, in start contrast to the work of most "development" agencies.
I think they have the right idea. It's hardly romantic (like education or health or peace programs tend to be), especially not in the details, but I think it's an equally worthwhile cause with very achievable goals.*
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So, this description is all still very theoretical, and what do I do, anyway?
Here's what IDE has done so far in Ghana (there are many more examples of what IDE does in a book called Out of Poverty, by its founder Paul Polak):
IDE found that there are a lot of (poor, small land area) farmers in Ghana who grow vegetables irrigated by hand. They carry water in buckets from rivers, or lift it from wells. By IDE's assessment, if they had more efficient means to use or obtain water, they could grow much more vegetables (the demand is huge in Ghana) and make a lot more money, especially during the dry season where water is scarce and vegetables are expensive.
IDE tested some foot-powered pumps for lifting water out of wells and found farmers' responses favourable. They worked with manufacturers who were willing to produce them and connect them to dealers who were willing to sell them, as well as a credit organisation who was willing to help farmers finance them.
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I work on a few things. One of them is a system for monitoring the impact or result of this new product on the lives of the people who use them. Another related thing is a set of protocols for testing and getting data on new products for Ghana, such as drip irrigation kits that are on their way here right now. The last thing is improvements to different parts of the system where pumps get made and make their way to a farmers' fields where they are installed. It's quite a mixed bag of things.
So this is my curious and somewhat bizarre first job. So far, it's going well. In the coming weeks, you'll see (I plan to put up) loads of pictures of and very few words about all the goings on over here in Ghana.
*An aside: I think that every initiative that will get anywhere in saving the world** is rooted in business. Profitable ventures are the only things that reliably grow and multiply. A ton of successful health and social ventures in "developing" countries rely on innovative business models to deliver much needed products and services to the people who have the poorest access to them. This is a shining example.
**Not that I'm trying to save the world or think it's something to strive for at all***. "Save the world" is such a vague idea anyway!
***That said, I do have some principles. I'd much rather help poor people get richer than rich people get richer, for example, and I'd rather repair the environment rather than damage it.
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