My work

Before getting into writing about nice weekend trips, I guess I could say a word about my work here in Madagascar. So I am working in a rural development project that is implemented by a Swiss NGO since the year 2000. Right now we are starting into the last phase of this project that aims to contribute to local and regional economic development in rural areas of Madagascar. My title is “Thematic Assistant on local economy and value chains”. I am supposed to support the team here in Fianarantsoa in strengthening the economic impacts of our collaboration with farmers’ organisations with the aim to increase their revenues and promote the private sector development in rural areas. The way this should be done is by supporting the functioning of the agricultural value chains so that the farmers can market their products better and get more money out of their work. The value chains we are looking at around here are quite diverse: honey (mostly eucalyptus tree flowers), fish (cultivated in fresh water), silk (both collection of cocoons and transformation), handicraft made from vegetable fibre (baskets, hats etc.), potatoes and beans.

My assignment consists roughly speaking of three parts: The idea is to first identify constraints in the value chains they are involved in; second, to propose solutions to these constraints; and third, to follow up on their implementation.

The first part of my assignment here was intended to take stock of where we are at with our farmers’ organisations. I made a lot of visits to their homes together with my colleagues and we tried to find out what has worked out in the last 3 years, what hasn’t and which should be the priorities for this last project phase. It was very interesting for me to see how these people live and work, and what their needs are. Since I knew very little about their production techniques, I discovered and learned a lot about things like how to construct beehives, catch fish in rice paddies, weave grass-like fibres to nice accessories and turn silk cocoons into cord. Unfortunately, I always needed translation by one of my colleagues since farmers very rarely speak French and my Malagasy is equally poor. The pictures may give some insight into these field visits.

With these impressions and notes from the field visits I then discussed possible project interventions first with the representatives of the farmers’ organisations themselves, and then with the other economists of the NGO that work in the capital. We came out with a bunch of recommendations that include actions like improving production techniques, establishing contracts with input providers, facilitating access of the farmers to microfinance, strengthening commercial relations between the producers and private sector companies.

Now the idea is to follow-up on these propositions and to support the farmers’ organisations in addressing the constraints in their value chains. Of course, my role won’t be to teach anything about farming – I don’t have a clue compared to these producers here! Instead, my tasks are more related to coordination: I will try to facilitate the linkages between the farmers and private companies (traders, buyers, providers of inputs such as fertilizer and small agricultural equipment...) and microfinance institutions. I will also watch out that we work together with other development projects in the region instead of doing the same stuff twice. Finally, I am also assisting in feeding into the monitoring and evaluation system of the NGO in order to measure the progress and impact of our work.
Ok, this was a bit of theory... In another post I am going to tell more about the challenges and what doesn’t work out as it should.