Riots, global trends and poverty

Wednesday, Feb. 20^th. This evening is remarkably quiet in Bobo Dioulasso. No one really ventures out. The day has been marked by violent looting and rampage in all the major streets of the city. Youth have left virtually no street light, no road sign and no side road stalls functional. As the night sets and radios announce a day off school and work tomorrow, I try to recap what I heard in the course of today.

People gathered this morning at city hall, to sign an official protest against price rises, and about government hypocrisy in pointing to the shop keepers for raising them. They were met with tear gas, spread into factions, and walked back to their neighborhoods, breaking and burning everything on their path. Shopkeepers breaking side road shops…

Karim, 25, turned violent in the streets today. He explains: “The government has raised taxes on commerce. When you had to pay 30,000 Fcfa annually for your business, today you have to pay 80,000 Fcfa. I import motorbikes to Bobo. I have to pay 130,000 cfa per bike (worth 250,000) at the border. After that, they accuse the shop keepers of raising their prices for no reason!”

Indeed. The price of cooking oil has jumped from 850 to 1050 Fcfa per liter in the past few days. Rice, sugar, gas and basic necessity products have followed suit. In the second poorest country in the world, gas is more expensive than in Canada, almost the same price as in France, with 40% tax on it. More than one person in three here makes less than a dollar a day. The end of 2007 has seen the rise of bread prices from 100 Fcfa for a baguette, to 125 until last week, and 130 today in Bobo. Overall, a 30% increase in prices in just a few months.

It doesn’t help that the agricultural season has been disastrous this year. “People are worried” says Aimé, 30, “the rains have started late, and stopped early last rainy season, not giving time for crops to mature. Now maïs prices are already sky high.” In fact, yields in the region have been five times less than that in good years in some areas. The 100kg bag of corn is worth between 10,000 and 12,500 cfa today, for 8,000 last year at the same period, almost 50% more expensive. Maïs is the main staple for Burkinabés and many people in the city don’t grow enough of it to sustain their family and therefore need to purchase it.

Yet on the other hand, only half of the streets in Bobo are paved, and one cannot help but notice that the government here needs funds, desperately. People here seem to have no trust in a government that is believed to be wasting the funds. People notice small details, not big projects. Lamine, 35 and father of two, shows his frustration: “To officially launch the construction of a small city hall in a small city 500km from Ouagadougou, the capital, the government sends a cortege of 20 SUVs full of officials instead of sending the local representative. People want cheaper goods, but we explode loads of fireworks for the 20^th anniversary of democracy instead”.

How does a government collect taxes in a country where a great majority grows their own food, runs informal businesses and does not trust it for the use of the money? How will the poor get basic services like access to roads, electricity and water, if the money is funneled into repairing the damage, trip stipends and blowing fireworks? How does a government face trends like global warming, leading to the shortening of the already tight agricultural season, and increasing oil prices, when people are already stretched?

The truth about SUVs and my work

You know… the foreign-funded, all mighty, white trucks that big projects drive around the country looking all important, that cost pretty penny… Tonight we were coming back from Banfora, a regional capital. Cruising along, I was checking out the vast orchards of mango, cashew and nere trees in bloom, with already significant amount of almost ripe fruits on them, while chatting with the driver (Well, yes, SUVs are expensive, they also come with a driver). The afternoon sun was making the green of the tree leaves luminescent, in strong contrast with the ground, charcoaled by recent bush fires... So, cruising along, in our air-conditioned, all wheel drive, clean, white pickup truck, we encountered a family of goats. Goats like to check out the road side in the evening it seems, my guess, because over-loaded transport trucks often loose a few cereal grains, or cotton balls during their trips, and those are delicacies for the cute creatures. The family was a mom with big utters, a kid (literally) probably 4 months old by the size of it, and a third goat I didn’t get a chance to check the gender. The fact was, they were crossing the road, and while the two adults were fast enough, we ran over the kid. Front right wheel, right under my seat. We almost didn’t feel a thing. I just saw the goat fly off the side in my rear view mirror: dinner for the neighborhood, confirmed the driver. There was something I had to say about those white SUVs…

Those trucks… they have pretty good shocks, hey?

In reality, this blog post is about my work, not about roadkills.

After six months with PAMER, I’m starting to understand a few things. Time has not desensitize me to goat killings, I felt worse being in the car than you did reading my bad joke – in fact it was the first road kill I experienced here, to make things clear. On the other hand, I can say that only now do I feel able to explain what PAMER is, mainly because explaining it earlier, I would have relied on my ignorance and culturally biased views of what should be, instead of what is. Even today, I must say that the picture I draw is mine and only mine, and reflects my little knowledge of a big project.

Let’s set the tone of this post: PAMER (Projet d’Appui aux Micro Entreprises Rurales) is a pretty impressive project.

Conceived in 1997, it was born in 2000 and close to two years before it could walk. In those two years, the head (UNCP), the arms (Antennes Locales, including that of Bobo, my employer), the hands (Conseillers en Entreprise) and the fingers (Rédacteurs Locaux du Projet, RLP) grew steadily. The heart, pumping resources into the body, is called IFAD, and relies also on a pacemaker, the BOAD (West African Bank of Development) to distribute the blood. The PAMER is an odd-shaped body, in that the heart pumps blood into the head, which then allots it to the arms, the hands and the fingers, much like in a drawing from a five year old.

In 2000, PAMER progressively started assisting rural people in becoming micro enterprises and now leads activities in four sub-Sahel regions of Burkina. In total, the Bobo branch has seen some ~1070 micro enterprises being created between 2002 and 2007 by motivated individuals and groups. The process in which micro enterprises are given birth is quite outstanding in my opinion.

Start with people (men, women or youth) who either do not lead income generating activities (IGA), or lead an IGA but with minimal knowledge or mastery of the trade, like shelling cashew nuts using a hammer or a rock and grilling them using engine oil.

The first step is called “Information on the project”. The Conseillers en Entreprise (CE – the hands) gathers people in a village, and explains what the PAMER offers: namely, skills training, micro enterprise management skills training and assistance in obtaining micro credit in a partner bank institution (Réseau des Caisses Populaires).

Safiatou and Djeneba, two Conseilleres en Entreprise

Then there is “Identification and diagnostic”. The CE finds out who is interested. Namely, some people approach him saying they’d like to try it out. Not everyone is daring: it is a pretty big decision. Then there is a series of conversations and skills diagnostic. What can you do well already?

Then there is “Elaboration of a plan of study”. The needed training is identified by the interested party along with the CE, and planned over a 1 year period. This plan is validated by the Cadres in Bobo (the arms) during a visit to the aspiring trainee on the ground.

Then there is the “Implementation”. Technical training, women learning to make soap with Shea butter for example, is contracted to service providers, specialized in workshop delivery in their trade. Simple business management, commercialization, accounting training and help in making a solid application to obtain a credit when needed are provided.

A meeting with honey makers in Sindou

After the first year, as the first bar of soap is proudly sold on the market, the micro enterprise is “Created”: it enters the project’s database as a micro enterprise.

In the subsequent years, the micro-enterprise (group or individual) are monitored by the RLP (the fingers) who collect data on revenues, number of employees and difficulties. RLPs are young people from the area they cover. They are paid by the task. Their advantage is that they know well the people they work with and therefore have an easier time building trust, since they re locals. There is one RLP per department, 190 in total in theory for the project, although sometimes, multiple departments had to be covered by one RLP only.

Two RLPs meeting Oumar, Cadre at the Bobo antenne, under a big mango tree

The CE manages the team of RLP for his region, gathers the micro enterprises demands for training, and sets up workshops when enough people have expressed the same need. He or she also plays a coaching role to (ideally all) a good part of the micro enterprises.

After a few years, a few micro credits obtained and reimbursed, a few markets won, a panel of products diversified and a marketing strategy in place, the CE is able to tell that the micro enterprise is “Autonomous”. (It feels good just to type this word).

Elhadj, proud owner of three cows, and a ranch to fatten them up

As a final note :

The CE are pretty impressive people. They know on average 100 micro enterprises like they were their best friends. Well… after a 5 year relationship that led to some dramatic life changes for the new entrepreneurs, they indeed are pretty good friends.

Ideally, each CE would need to know in average 220 micro enterprises each, since there are 5 CE for 5 regions and 1070 rural micro enterprises. The CE team is understaffed in my opinion.

Something exciting I’ve heard from a CE: “The most important thing in all this, is the process [the process of Information, Identification, Plan Elaboration, Implementation described above]. It is the process that changes people’s way of thinking about their own livelihoods, and makes them entrepreneurs.”