I arrived in Toronto for pre-departure training at the end of January and touched down in Lusaka international airport in Zambia on March 3. I am on my first placement, living in Katete, Eastern Province with my wife. She is an awesome nurse working at an awesome local hospital. I am working with a mobile finance company and a cotton company, both private, for profit companies, not NGO's.
The mobile finance company is basically an online bank account, but with MUCH cheaper fees than a regular bank and you can access it through your mobile phone. They also do money transfers like Western Union, but again, at a much cheaper rate. They have agents, who are often stores that are agents as well, not solely agents, in most cities in Zambia that you can go to do to deposit, withdraw and send money.
The cotton company does out grower programs (they give seeds and fertilizer on loan at the start of the year and then buy back the cotton at the end of the year and deduct the loan from their payments when they buy. Buying cotton is very competitive, the main competition here being Cargill (I think it's the largest private company in the world, look it up).
Last week we just started buying cotton. The payment system in complicated and costly. Long story short, within a few days of buying the cotton they drive a vehicle with lots of cash with a paper list of farmers that should get money and then give the farmers all their money in cash, which the farmers then spend and stash in their house. The hope is that (and this is a pilot program) some farmers will be paid onto their new mobile accounts the day their cotton is sold, saving the cotton company time, money and confusion all the while saving the farmer time and giving them a bank account.
My role is collecting info so that we can set this up so that it can succeed, as well as "capture learning" (figure out what mistakes were made so that next year it's better), and do some gap filling, capacity building, learn the local language Chewa (CHAY-wa), the small task of understanding rural Zambian culture, make friends, support my wife, capture learning for EWB, blah blah blah.
Funny story, Steph and I went for dinner with 2 bwanas (bosses) from the cotton company and the next day a guy from work said "Who was your friend last night? He came to dinner with you". I was confused, "do you mean one of the bosses?"
"No the other one, I don't know his name, but he came with you"
me "No idea who you're talking about"
After about 2 really awkward minutes of this, I realized the "he" was Steph, my wife, or Steve as she's better known here.
Steve and I along with 5 other white women, including a 6ft. tall blond Norwegian (quite a sight to see us all together) hiked the big hill overlooking our tiny town. From the top we saw what at first appeared to be fairies, just like tinkerbell, then after some more sightings we thought they might just be beautiful locusts, they looked like 5 inch grasshoppers with big bright wings. The wings were a mix of blue, yellow, orange, purple and red, with nice little circles. REALLY beautiful. We ended up deciding they must be fairies.
hey Ben!
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering, have you come across any downsides for the farmers being payed on their Mobile Transactions account as opposed to having someone from Dunavant visit them in person? What kind of process does Dunavant use at the moment to communicate with the farmers? How have farmers responded to being payed through a mobile phone account?
Keep up the good work!
Sorry Andrea, there are actually no downsides to this perfect system. No I'm kidding, Dunavant still sees them in person the day they get paid. I think one obvious possible downside is the fact that farmers will have the same income but there is the option to attach transaction fees to it…Although I think the potential "goodness" as they would say in Zambia, outweighs the potential "badness" (don't you love saying things like they are?!). I'll write about the goodness in a future post, thanks for the prompting!
ReplyDeleteCurrently, Dunavant communicates with farmers through field days (people gather in fields) and talk about improving yields or something else. Also, distributor/buyers who are regular farmers living in villages, buy cotton on Dunavants behalf from their fellow farmers and get a small commission. Each area is divided into a "shed" where the cotton is collected to and Dunavant operates locally out of, and has a shed manager, who knows most farmers personally. Dunavant has an excellent relationship with its farmers and is doing a lot of the right things in my opinion.
We won't actually pay farmers until June 1, so I can't say what the reaction is, but the initial response is really good. People are excited and think that it can help them save money. I hope they're right!