CROSSING THE VALLEY OF DEATH
In business writing the 'valley of death' is a term that's frequently used to describe the period when a start-up or a new product is effectively just surviving on borrowed time and money before it can actually get to profitability. If you don't make it across that valley you end up with bankruptcy or an inability to service your debt.
I think this model is also very relevant for a lot of rural communities in Africa. You have externally funded projects, you have research organisations and you have extension systems coming in with all sorts of improvements designed to improve the livelihoods of the farmers. The problem is that very little attention is paid to how the communities themselves can actually get across the valley of death in a sustainable and enduring way when they are left on their own.
Whenever you're in a rural African community there's always a lack of cash. Where there is cash it's going on school fees, hospital bills, weddings and of course on the seeds, food, housing and water. To invest in a better future through their own initiatives is still very much in its infancy despite the plethora of local and international development projects.
At www.rarevrienden.org on the coast of Kenya we are attempting on a very small scale to help people get across that valley. It's just a case of targeted investment.
We trained a group of young people (aged 20 to 25, mostly girls) in painting, carpentry, cooking, tiling and window making over a two month period. Two years on they're running their own company Galfundi.
We also made the initial investment to enable a rural women's group to grow irrigated fruit and vegetables through the year (beyond the rainy season). The market is there. They now have their own bank account and business structure.
The initiative which comes closest to a true valley of death is the development by students of Pwani University of a locally produced coconut yoghurt. It's a full value chain initiative from sourcing through to production and marketing. The product has received KEBS approval and is now ready to go to market. We'll be walking through their valley as we believe this one too has the potential to work.
Our scale of operation is very much smaller than that of a conventional development project but the model has worked so far and the investment required is minimal. It may be possible to scale this out to other parts of the Kenyan coast or indeed elsewhere with fairly modest investment. The point is that no one seems to be aware of the potential at all and so much of the potential for development is going to be unrealised.
A bit further still would be to focus entirely on what the communities themselves want and plan, and then provide the investment to get them across the valley of death (perhaps via small cash transfers). Then of course you could monitor what happens.
The reason being is that despite all our best intentions in the way we've designed our development projects we still tend to send rather than receive. We still tend to see the farmer as the beneficiary. We work with all sorts of hypotheses about what will work for them. We want scale and impact in four years. Somehow we still don't think the way they do.
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