In our last installment on food, I made the case that it is better to invest than to donate. Here’s a story from the other side of that fence.
I made trip to a village called Kiwere. It is a small village south of Iringa kind of out in the bush. There are 13 producers of honey in this village and another 10 in outlying areas. Oddly, I kept bees for a few years myself when I was in university so I know a fair bit about the craft.(Pictured: meeting in the beekeeper's house.)
An NGO (non-governmental organization) had come to their village and taught them how to keep safe bees, produce honey and beeswax, and donated the basic equipment to do this. The man who took me to visit Kiwere did so to show me the amazing value of honey because he wanted me to invest in his own creation of a beekeeping operation. A pastor who accompanied me said, ‘It is a treasure hiding among us that we just never even noticed.’
I was noticing something completely different.
The largest producer of the village hosted us, showing his operation from top to bottom. He had enormous volumes of honey, including four each 55 gallon drums full and a couple of 30 gallon drums. By African standards, the sanitary conditions were less than ideal.(Pictured: a local hive of 'safe' bees.)
When I asked to purchase 20 liters (so I could share with students from Tumaini and the hostel I was staying at) we waited more than an hour for them to prepare it. It turns out that they were searching for a container to put the honey in. When we finally learned of this, we took a water bottle from the car, broke the seal, poured out our drinking water. I purchased a liter and a half. It was the only container we had.
The organization that donated the equipment and provided the training was well meaning but gets nearly a failing grade for results. They might give themselves an A+ because there is honey in production. But the point is that they missed the point.
(Pictured: some of the high quality stainless equipment provided.)
They were thinking like a typical aid organization that gives things away. This is the model that they follow.
…Warning: I’m stepping on a soapbox: It is easier to give away $100 million than to start a dozen successful small businesses. Chosen carefully, these small businesses can have an even 
wider impact than the $100 million and keep delivering that impact in increasing measure year after year. For a lot less money. And the money is paid back so it can be invested again. To take $100 million and invest it wisely is really hard to do. If you were given that much money in the US or Europe, you would be held to a very high standard.
(Pictured: drums full of honey that remains unsold.)
As was described to me, if you go to a conference of aid organizations, you are likely to hear the keynote speakers’ accomplishments in terms of how much they gave away and how fast. Not end results. Not sustainability.
I’ve been cautioned by people in the aid industry that to say or write this will probably get me in trouble with a lot of NGO aid organizations. And I do want to say, there is a lot of good being done by many organizations. But also a lot of dependency is being created and there is a lot of waste.
(Pictured: a solar powered separator that melts the honey comb wax and filters it.)
Back to the honey.
The NGO that did beekeeping work thought about honey but didn’t think holistically. In a business structure, you are forced to think holistically – the value chain from end-to-end or you fail. And when you failed, it would be clear because there is no profit. That is the built in discipline of business.
If the NGO had been helping to start a business, they would have been forced to deal with a much wider set of issues. Where will the honey be sold? How will it be packaged? What standards for processing will the buyer have?(Pictured: the recovered bars of beeswax.)
Instead, poor farmers were moved from one crop that they were unable to sell like maize to another, slightly more glamorous one, honey. The poverty persists.
I have told the man that wants me to invest in a new beekeeping operation that he is missing the boat. Instead, of competing with beekeepers, he should find a way to organize the hundreds that dot the landscape. He could solve the core issues: food standards, packaging and marketing. That’s where the money is. And that’s how he could help hundreds of families.
(Pictured: the beekeeper is a leader in his village. You can tell because he flies a flag over his house, albeit tattered.)But at Cheetah we are left with an understanding gap. When many well-meaning people hear that Cheetah Development is doing business development in the 3rd world, they often react as if we’re polluted by money. That somehow the drive for profit is a sign of an inferior model.
In this case profit equals sustainable.
It is widely agreed that the most important need in impoverished nations is for economic development. The lack of development is at the root of every problem (the reverse of ‘money is the root of all evil’ – which by the way is not in the bible.) Check some more facts: there has only been one successful model for economic development in the history of the world: business.
(Pictured: the local market we visited while they searched for a container to fill with honey.)
Business is a model that provides:
- discipline for success,
- built-in results-measurement and accountability,
- sustainability,
- and a sense of achievement for participants rather than emptiness.
People really don’t want to be given what they need.
At Cheetah, we use business as the model to help people. They respond joyfully. Energetically. They want to engage.
In the developed world we say to each other that ‘it is better to teach someone to fish than to give them fish.’ But we still feel somehow more self-righteous when we are giving the fish. Let’s stop this. And let’s go one better: let’s teach them to sell fish so that they can eat steak if they want – and afford to send their kids to school! Let’s help people get beyond subsistence. Together we can go beyond hunger, beyond barely enough food, to agribusiness. It really can be done.
(Pictured: women filling their buckets at the local well.)
Next: Cheetah’s agribusiness strategy. To continue this series on food, go here: http://cheetahdevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/06/food-part-6-chained-by-broken-chains.html
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment