The Wasafiri Retreat – The ‘how’ of delivering change

by Kate Simpson/

What a magical three days of learning , sharing and talking round the camp fire! We have just concluded our annual Wasafiri retreat, which brought together a diverse group of Wasafiri consultants, clients, friends and partners, all of whom are working to deliver change in Africa. Over these three days we shared challenges and successes and together identified some of the key ingredients for creating successful change; and most importantly, how to deliver change in Africa.

The power and the magic were in the people who came. We had participants from a wide range of contexts, countries and sectors, including private sector, government, not for profits and civil society. All of who are African or Africa-based and passionate about the possibilities, opportunities and challenges that face Africa today. Together we shared and listened to stories of delivering change;

  • at a continental scale through Grow Africa;
  • of the BRACED initiative to build climate change resilience and what it really takes to create effective, multi agency partnerships that can work well together;
  • how to strengthen government institutions;
  • and the very real and practical challenges of working in fragile, conflict-affected countries such as Somalia.

And on top of all that we even managed a little singing and dancing to aid all the thinking!

From all this diversity emerged some strong and surprising commonalities about the ingredients for delivering successful change. Watch out for the forthcoming ‘Wasafiri Briefing’, which will offer a summary of the lessons we have learnt over the last year around what it takes to create successful change.

A big thank you to all those who came – I leave inspired about the possibilities and with a greater understanding of what it takes to deliver successful change in Africa.

Book Launch: Civilian Tales from the Front Line

by Kate Simpson/

We are excited to announce that Wasafiri’s own Hamish Wilson has contributed to a new e-book of stories from civilians working on the front lines in Helmand, Afghanistan. “Making Peace in War” has been a labour of love; and is a compilation from a wide range of characters – none of whom are professional writers  but who offer a rich mix of raw tales and insights.

Check it out here; Making Peace in War

Grow Africa – a multi-billion model worth replicating?

by Ian Randall/

“Grow Africa, your immense contribution to African agriculture is exemplary.”

Akin Adesina, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture

 Grow Africa has received some remarkable and enthusiastic plaudits. Yet what is it about it that has enabled it to rapidly deliver change at scale, where so many others have failed?

Grow Africa can claim some big numbers. In May 2014, they announced that, during 2013, the partnership’s private sector commitments to invest in African agriculture doubled to a total of $7.2 billion. Of which $970 million was already invested, creating 33,000 new jobs and reaching 2.6 million smallholder farmers across 10 countries. At Grow Africa’s Investment Forum, leaders, including five Heads of State heralded this as remarkable progress for an initiative that is barely 2 years old. Raj Shah, head of USAID, stated that Grow Africa has shown that “success at scale is now possible. This effort can effectively end poverty and hunger in Africa.” Amena Mohamed, the UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor for post-2015 MDG planning, saw Grow Africa as a model to replicate to ensure that the vision for next MDGs could rapidly translate in to action, in a way that traditional development approaches have not proven able.

For Wasafiri, which has played an instrumental role in conceiving and managing Grow Africa, these accolades are clearly affirming and gratifying. Nonetheless, such unbridled enthusiasm begs the questions “What has made Grow Africa such a success?” and “Why is its approach not adopted more widely to deliver change on other systemic challenges?”

A recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled “Shaping Global Partnerships for a Post-2015 World” examined Grow Africa alongside five other pioneering cross-sector initiatives to ask how to unlock collective impact at a global scale. It concluded, “The most important condition is establishing a backbone structure that acts as the glue, holding the partners together and ensuring that the other four conditions are in place. The backbone provides strategic coherence around the common agenda, establishes shared measurement and learning systems, supports the mutually reinforcing activities of the different partners, and facilitates continuous communication.”

While Grow Africa certainly embodies all those features, I believe the story of its success is more complex. Or rather, I think there are underlying aspects of the global political economy that usually subvert the emergence of such elements when people attempt to collectively tackle change at scale.

Alignment of interests

Grow Africa is blessed by emerging at a moment of alignment for political, commercial and social interests. The 2008 food crisis changed the underlying economics of agriculture. The world realized that Africa must become a global food basket if we are going to feed 9 billion by 2050, while accommodating changing consumption habits, and linking food to energy through bio-fuels. Enlightened businesses – small and large – realized that African agriculture was going to grow, and they had a strong commercial interest in being in the vanguard. Africa’s politicians serve citizens who are primarily rural, and half of whom are under 20. Their political imperative is to increase rural incomes and generate jobs, or risk wide-scale unrest and disaffection. And for development aficionados, agriculture represents the best opportunity to reduce poverty and hunger. Everyone from smallholders to multinationals, and from African Heads of State to G8 Development Ministers, could rally behind Grow Africa’s common agenda of accelerating investment for sustainable agricultural growth. The only sustained dissonance has come from a few Western-based, ideologically-driven voices who fundamentally distrust the private sector.

Few other global issues currently benefit from such alignment. Climate change is riven with competing interests and public health issues struggle to attract strong commercial engagement. However, the same would have been said about African agriculture a decade ago. Perhaps part of the secret is sniffing out the right historical moment when interests align, and then to forge global partnerships to drive change at scale as fast as possible while the political window of opportunity lasts.

Coalition of the willing

Grow Africa is also unusual in welcoming all parties, without finding itself paralysed by the outcome. Many multi-stakeholder initiatives end up crippled by one of two effects. Firstly their governance often demands consensus, which means they become hostage to minority interests. For example, whilst a reasonable number of governments and actors seemed willing to act on climate change, negotiations, in attempting to accommodate everyone’s demands, have either ended up in a stalemate or conceding to the lowest common denominator. Secondly, successful initiatives are asked to layer on issue after issue, until their mandate is too diffuse and complex to meaningfully deliver anything. CAADP (Africa’s overarching plan for agriculture) is at risk of this as it is expected to address issues as varied as nutrition, climate change, job creation, regional trade, tertiary education, natural resource management.

So far, Grow Africa has evaded these pitfalls. Its clear focus on the commercial and development opportunity presented by agricultural investment, has allowed it to welcome all parties who are committed to advancing the agenda – a coalition of the willing. Co-convened by AUC, NEPAD and the World Economic Forum, but serving a wide range of stakeholders from Farmers Organisations to Multi-nationals to donors, it has created a space in which minority voices are heard, but that majority interests then drive action.

The World Economic Forum’s role in this cannot be underestimated. Most influential development actors are effectively civil service in culture – whether governments, African institutions, donors, or multilaterals. Too often their accountability pressures are to avoid obvious failure, rather than to deliver results at scale – leading to an aversion to taking risks, a focus on appeasing all interests, and a default towards extending timelines rather than making swift decisions. The World Economic Forum brings a refreshing private sector orientation that, whilst very protective of reputation, is ultimately dependent on showing it can deliver.

For more insight into the work of Grow Africa, view the latest report

Shaping the future of International Stabilisation

by Hamish Wilson/

Wasafiri’s Director Hamish Wilson has been invited by the UK Government to help facilitate an international conference to consider the future of stabilisation. Co-hosted with the Government of Denmark, and joined by representatives from NATO, the EU and the United Nations, the event, to take place in late June, will explore lessons and best practice emerging from contemporary stabilisation operations in Somalia, Mali, DR Congo, South Sudan and others.

In doing so, the event will examine how stabilisation has contributed to conflict prevention and resolution, and will seek to establish a common approach and shared principles for actors engaged in stabilisation.

Hamish has recently concluded a two-year assignment with the British Embassy in Somalia as Senior Stabilisation Adviser and is leading Wasafiri’s efforts to help improve the delivery of stabilisation approaches in fragile and conflict affected states.

Changing attitudes, changing lives: HIV, stigma and faith communities

by Hamish Wilson/

22.9 million[1] people across Africa are living with HIV. The social stigma associated with HIV means that for many people living with HIV is not just about their health, but also about their livelihoods, their home, community and family. Reducing the social stigma of HIV supports those affected by HIV to gain work, earn a living, live with those they care about, talk about their status, access the care they need, and ultimately to live with HIV. In turn, this increases the willingness of others to get tested, to discuss HIV prevention and hence to tackle the spread of HIV.

Reducing social stigma is hard. In many communities, faith provides the backbone to people’s attitudes and behaviour and so faith leaders and faith communities have remarkable influence over beliefs around HIV. By refusing to acknowledge HIV or through messages linking HIV with morality, faith can drive stigma. Consequently CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) in partnership with GNP+ (Global Network of People living with HIV) created the ‘Stigma Reduction Initiative’. This programme was launched in Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia and used a peer to peer approach, based on people living with HIV ‘surveying’ others also living with HIV about their own experiences of stigma, discrimination and faith. The findings from the surveys were then shared with faith leaders who were supported to develop action plans to reduce stigma and discrimination in their communities.

Katie Chalcraft of Wasafiri Consulting was asked to evaluate the impact of the Stigma Reduction Initiative. We found a notable improvement in the HIV-related knowledge, attitudes and practices of the faith leaders involved in the initiative in the 3 pilot regions. More specifically, among the people living with or affected by HIV involved in the survey in Adigrat (Ethiopia) and Ibenga (Zambia) there was a general decline in exclusion from from social, family and religious activities, and improvement in the psychosocial aspects of peoples quality of life and increased uptake of HIV testing in the target communities.

For more information about Katie Chalcraft and her work please visit her profile here

Lead for CAFOD on this work was Georgia Burford. To learn more about CAFOD and their work with faith communities and on stigma reduction visit here

Solving the puzzle of parallel donor funding in Tanzania

by Ian Randall/

The Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) is an inclusive, multi-stakeholder partnership to rapidly develop the region’s agricultural potential. To advance this pioneering effort, the SAGCOT Centre was formed to provide coordination and facilitation for the partnership. For a development initiative, the SAGCOT Centre has an unusual governance structure that ensures it is genuinely multi-stakeholder and inclusive of government, farmers organisations, companies, and donors. This important innovation has however presented problems for structuring donor finance. Multiple donors means multiple procurement requirements, plus SAGCOT Centre’s unique structure did not sit comfortably with establish protocol. The SAGCOT Centre’s work was severely hampered until structures could enable funding to flow.

The challenge was both technical and human. A technical solution was needed on how to structure parallel funding, whilst at the same time a relationship-driven process was required to encourage each institution to make some concessions to their established protocol in order adopt a common approach.

Wasafiri Consulting was hired by Grow Africa to support this process, both by facilitating a consensus and developing a technical solution. The SAGCOT Centre can now plan their finances with a degree of confidence.

 

Engaging Swiss Re leaders to scale up smallholder insurance

by Kate Simpson/

Swiss Re, one the world’s leading reinsurance companies, runs a leadership programme each year for its next generation of Managing Directors. To make the learning engaging, Swiss Re wanted to present the delegates with a business challenge that was real and compelling.

Wasafiri identified that providing insurance to Africa’s 600 million smallholders offered a huge commercial and social opportunity, but one that was going to demand Swiss Re staff to rethink traditional business models. Swiss Re was already pioneering new models, such as through a partnership with Oxfam and WFP in Ethiopia to strengthen the resilience of rural communities (see video below). But how could such models be taken to scale? Against this question, Wasafiri designed a 2-day business project that threw Swiss Re’s future leaders into the challenges and dilemmas of how to provide affordable, commercially viable insurance to smallholders at scale.

http://youtu.be/JgXEEH3lqXI

2014 will be the fifth year Wasafiri has run the simulation. Each year participants not only leave with rich learning about their leadership skills, but also with renewed passion for the role Swiss Re can play in generating shared value in Africa. Over this period, Swiss Re has also significantly scaled up its engagement in Africa, and programmes like R4, that were once managed as corporate responsibility initiatives, are now managed by commercial teams.

Best practice for smallholder value-chain financing in Africa

by Hamish Wilson/

Agricultural production in Africa, undertaken in the main by smallholders, is a highly risky activity with poor returns. To realise Africa’s potential, there is a need to commercialise smallholder production, thereby increasing returns. But amongst a range of different inputs, such commercialisation requires greater access to finance.

Value-chain finance offers an opportunity to expand and coordinate financing for agriculture, as well as to improve efficiency by facilitating financial access and lowering agricultural costs and financing risks. Agriculture investment of this nature is being provided at different levels and by a range of private- and public-sector actors, with facilities financing smallholders that are integrated into value chains through the use of inclusive business models. Such models are therefore helping financing facilities to access smallholders, because the risks and operating costs for lenders are reduced when farmers are integrated into value chains.

Wasafiri (in partnership with Prorustica) was commissioned to carry out a mapping survey on best practices in this field by the AFRACA-CTA partnership on strengthening smallholder-inclusive value-chain finance in Africa. The study also extended to gauging the use of associated tools such as (mobile) technology and risk management mechanisms for enhancing agri-finance.

The intelligence generated by the survey is expected to inform future decision-making in efforts to advance farmer-friendly rural agricultural financial products and services in Africa.

Building institutional capacity on counter-trafficking in Cameroon

by Hamish Wilson/

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders annually, with many more trafficked within the borders of their own countries. The practice is fuelled by demand for cheap labour in a number of sectors, including for domestic workers.

In Cameroon, migration both to and within the country has led many people, including women and minors (under 18 years), to perform domestic work in order to improve their standard of living. While the government has ratified a number of international treaties against human trafficking, including the UN Convention against Transnational and Organized Crime, the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Domestic Workers Convention (C189) has not yet been ratified. The area is still largely governed by an obsolete decree from 1968.

Working in an under-regulated sector and with a poor grasp of any rights and entitlements they may have, migrant domestic workers frequently face situations of exploitation, moral and physical abuse, and employment under illegal working arrangements.

Wasafiri was contracted by the IOM to support Cameroon’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Ministry of Labour and Social Security in a bid to strengthen their capacity to deal with the consequences of trafficking in domestic workers. The assistance included conducting a feasibility study on ratification of the C189 Convention, so as to facilitate government approval of the same. Wasafiri also developed tools such as standard operating procedures and designed a communications strategy and materials (including sensitisation leaflets, posters, and so on), as well as training modules. These will help raise awareness and equip relevant stakeholders with skills to provide assistance in cases of abuse and exploitation.

Expert advice was also provided by Wasafiri to top ministry officials on wider issues associated with migration and human trafficking.