Understanding our Direction
EWB’s work with farmers in Northern Ghana has created a buzz! With our partner, the Ghana Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), EWB has become synonymous with the popular term “agriculture as a business”. In Canada, EWB has secured financial support from Webster and Wardrop towards this initiative due to their belief in our program.
So what’s the buzz about? Attend this session to develop your understanding of the context around our work with MoFA on Agriculture as a Business, and come discuss the challenges and successes involved in helping small-scale farmers provide for their families through operating secure and profitable businesses.
This interactive presentation will answer a series of questions that relate to EWB’s strategy in the Agriculture sector in Burkina Faso:
- In what context does EWB work in Agriculture in Burkina Faso?
- What does it imply to work for the Rural Enterprise sector team in Burkina Faso?
- What strategic choices has our team made this year, and how did we do it? In practice, what did this look like in the field?
Boris will use examples of current projects for a few of our overseas volunteers. He will also take the time to answer questions about strategy and the possibilities for involvement, both in the context of a Junior Fellowship or a professional experience.
Participation in agriculture value chains offers viable long term economic opportunity for smallholder farmers. However, current market access for smallholder farmers is limited in number and poor in quality. The development sector can play a significant role in helping to ‘facilitate’ new and improved commercial relationships between smallholder farmers and markets. While simple in theory, effective “market facilitation” is difficult to put into practise as it is a significant departure from traditional agriculture approaches.
Participation in agriculture value chains offers viable long term economic opportunity for smallholder farmers. However, current market access for smallholder farmers is limited in number and poor in quality. The development sector can play a significant role in helping to ‘facilitate’ new and improved commercial relationships between smallholder farmers and markets. While simple in theory, effective “market facilitation” is difficult to put into practise as it is a significant departure from traditional agriculture approaches.
The leading causes of death among children under the age of 5 in Burkina Faso are the lack of available clean water, of basic personal hygiene practices, and of maintenance of a clean environnment.
The EWB team working on Water Supply, Hygiene and Sanitation (WSHS) has been working for over 2 years in this sector and last August established a strategy of intervention that is presented in this workshop. This strategy allows certain development organizations to better respond to the needs of local populations.
This workshop will allow you to understand the essence of the WSHS sector in Burkina Faso and to recognize EWB’s contribution.
The high diarrheal disease levels that are inhibiting personal and societal development in countries like Malawi and Zambia are 100% preventative. We know the solutions: clean water, hand-washing and hygienic behavior… So why will the equivalent of all the children in New York and London die in the developing world as a consequence of simple diarrhea this year? This presentation will try to explain why this problem is so complex to solve and what EWB is doing to help.
Kristy will be presenting the current sector strategy targeted on improving rural infrastructure and services in Ghana. This sector team is focused on working with the local government to implement an evidence-based decision-making process, through the development of tools and through behavior change.
Come out to find out what it’s like to work with the government in implementing complex strategies affecting multiple communities and sectors.
Understanding the Field
Find out how Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), a new approach to sanitation and hygiene, impacts communities and the implications on implementing organizations. This session will go over Jean-François’ experience in helping his partner organization, WaterAid Burkina Faso, to better implement and scale-up CLTS. He argues that some institutional changes are necessary for this approach to be successful - find out what those changes are and how EWB can help make them happen!
Graham will share his experience as an OVS working closely with rural entrepreneurs on the field. As we work in value chain projects, it is important that we understand the behavior and thinking of rural entrepreneurs and small-holder farmers to better link them into a market system - an area Graham has gained valuable insights in his last year working with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Malawi. In this workshop, he will challenge your assumptions and mental models about the private sector, farmer and entrepreneur behavior and project design.
In this session, Jenn Dysart will share from her 3 years of experience in Zambia her lessons on how different forms of financing can work for or against the success of water and sanitation projects. She will address questions such as the role of subsidies, the reason behind frequent water point failures and the differences between rural and peri-urban water projects. She will help you understand how Water, Hygiene and Sanitation, if it is to be successful, needs to be more that just a “health thing” - the economics matter!
Monica will be presenting on EWB’s newest program - Engineering Education. She will provide an overview of the progress that has been made in the last year, make a detailed snap shot of the challenges in engineering education in Africa, and present EWB’s root cause analysis leading to the three exciting pilot projects that she will be launching in 2009 with the University of Malawi Polytechnic, Faculty of Engineering.