WHATCHYA GHANA DO?

My assignment here, was to work with a network-based NGO working in the field of sustainable agriculture and rural development. Specifically they are meant to work with networks of small-scale farmers organised into farmer based organisations, to provide education and advocacy to improve the outputs of small scale farmers, and overall, reduce rural poverty.

My job was to help with stakeholder engagement, project scoping and development, research and proposal writing. When I first started, my supervisor, the national coordinator was enthusiastic, there was so much to do, he said, activities left, right and centre. I was excited. It took me less than a month to realise that what he actually meant was, that basically nothing was happening, that the organisation was in a state of disarray, and that I was going to be busy because I, as the foreigner, was going to fix it all. I was up for a challenge, and knew it was going to be a hard slog, but this seemed a bit ridiculous.

There were no projects on the books, just one being wrapped up. Core funding - the ever-elusive, stability-providing core funding - had dropped out ten years prior. Which isn't uncommon (who want's to fund boring things like project scoping, support staff salaries, and rent?), but the organisation had never really recovered. The only remaining full-time staff was the national coordinator who spent most of his time travelling and a lovely middle aged man who cleaned and ran errands, and taught me Twi when there nothing else to do. My intended full-time counterpart was in fact a volunteer agricultural scientist who worked only during the school holidays and the finance officer had left.

You can't really blame them – with your NGO in such a state, you’d say anything you could to get in on a programme promising to place qualified, experienced Australians with your organisation for a whole year for free, wouldn’t you? And the idea of the programme I’m on*, is not just to place us in fully functional, well-oiled machines, but rather place us with organisations that are doing good work, where we can learn from them but also fill gaps and improve things in some way, so the organisation can do even better work. But with next to nothing to latch onto and improve, I just couldn't. Without the support of an ag. scientist and finance officer, I could hardly help them develop better projects and proposals, and I was left, relatively unqualified for the task, to dream up my own projects and proposals to help local farmers. I did what I could, got to develop some new skills, and managed to fit in some regional travel, but by January I decided with the manager of the volunteer programme that brought me here, that I needed to change organisations.

It wasn't an easy thing to be transferred - I had come all this way to help that particular organisation, on the premise of developing skills in sustainable agriculture/rural development, but perhaps the most difficult part was that they had been (however unrealistically) pinning their hopes on me. No matter how much you know it's in everyone's interests, saying "sorry guys, I can't be a part of this" felt an awful lot like giving up.

Nothing happens quickly in Ghana, so I had to hang in there for some time before I actually transferred assignment. But now I have been in my new organisation for two months. I'm in a similar role with a bit of monitoring and evaluation thrown into the mix, but working for an organisation that works primarily in the field of sexual and reproductive health. While Ghana has made huge improvements in HIV and AIDs rates in the past ten years, the broader issue of sexual and reproductive health and related gender equality issues persist, especially HIV and AIDs prevention. My current organisation uses interactive drama and theatre methods to educate people on these issues and to improve their confidence in making positive, healthy choices and exercising their rights - rehearsing for life, you could say.

It's a remarkably effective method.  Of course there are organisational challenges, but there are some amazing projects going on and I'm enjoying the exposure to the public health scene. One project is with sex workers in one of the biggest slums in Accra, and we're about to embark on a pilot project with prisoners in prisons around Ghana. Most of my work is currently office based, but once I start collecting data for evaluations I'll get to go and meet some of our programme's participants - which is always my favourite part of research.

And what about Adam? Well despite the issue of "how can a development practitioner and a violinist pursue their careers simultaneously?" plaguing us for the best part of the last five years, it turns out he's one of the busiest people I know here! Music plays a huge role in life here. Within no time, he was in touch with musicians and was playing gigs all around town. In January he started working with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ghana (yes it exists) tutoring the string sections and playing in the section too. Although they are public servants, they are mostly self-taught and there are no auditions - if you've got an instrument and can keep up, you're in! Needless to say they all seem to appreciate having someone like Adam to tutor them over an extended length of time.

It's been a bumpy ride in ways that I hadn't expected, but I'm learning heaps, especially about how development organisations work, don't work or should work.

*Although it would be easier if I could just blurt out what programme brought me here and the organisations Iv'e been working for, our media policy would mean that every post on this blog would have to be reviewed by the media relations team. So, if you want to know more, I'm happy for you to contact me and ask away!