Working to insure a better future

By Richard Harvey
Former Chief Executive, Aviva Group

Children in Kajiado district, Kenya show off their lunch Watch: Adam interviews Richard before he set off

I used to think that improving aid to Africa was about how cost effectively you could throw bags of food out of the back of a plane.

Coming from the City, operational excellence and cost efficiency are the bywords on every chief executive's lips.

So when I quit Aviva and came to Africa with Concern Universal, I thought I might have something to contribute here.

But Africa has already taught me a lesson or two about sustainable change.

Unforgiving environment

Here in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya the traditional way of life of the Masai can no longer sustain them or their children.

Global warming has just turned a tough and unforgiving environment into an impossible one.

For over 25 years the World Food Programme has been providing one basic meal a day in the form of maize, peas and a little oil and it is all most children get.

This would be boring, but OK, if the delivery of it could be relied upon, but in the last week I've been to a school where they have had no food delivered for eight weeks.

Way forward

I don't know what to say to the children when they tell me this.

The dinner queue at a primary school in Kenya's Kajiado district

Working with the Concern Universal team and their local partner organisations, we have been visiting a sample of rural schools to find out what is really happening; what parents, teachers and children really think about the programme, and what their ideas are for a sustainable way forward.

A sort of 'aid consumer survey' that might just nudge forward some ideas to build on.

At the same time, my wife Kay has been a volunteer teacher at one of the schools, learning from hands on experience.

Tin roofs

It is hard to describe how bright, clever and cheerful hundreds of children with nothing but a few ragged clothes and very little to eat can be.

The classrooms are crude sheds with dirt floors and tin roofs that radiate heat like an oven.

I tried a quick maths test on some of the children and was astounded by their ability.

Outside, in a corrugated iron shed, lunch is boiled in a huge pot over an open fire.

Green shoots

Wood is so scarce in these arid conditions that the children have to bring a piece to school each day and, by the way, they walk anything up to five miles.

The good news is that the 'free lunch' provided by the World Food Programme has done wonders for school attendance, especially the girls, and saved many from starvation.

But not only does the delivery mechanism need improvement but the community has to be encouraged, trained, and supported into the green shoots of self sufficiency.

Not easy when there's no water and it hasn't rained since last January.

Time and dedication

Agriculture is not a traditional skill and both Aids and Malaria continue to deplete the labour supply.

Richard Harvey sets a maths test

So what's needed is 'capacity building', as I've learned to call it.

Water from wells, dams and boreholes pumped from rivers and collected off roofs. Sanitation, health clinics, seeds, and agricultural training, but most important, all delivered with the full buy-in of the community.

This is far from impossible, but it does take time and dedication - lots of which I have seen from the team here and I've heard enough success stories to know this is not a hopeless task.

'Don't panic'

In the City, I used to turn to Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe for my management training - all you need to know is one very short sentence: "Don't panic."

Here in Africa, it is back to Douglas Adams again but this time his holistic detective Dirk Gently who got it right with "the Interconnectedness of Everything".

All of these issues have to be tackled with a holistic approach so that the community tackles its own problems, realises its own strength and is helped to help itself.

In the next few weeks the challenge for me is to put what we've learnt into practical recommendations and harder still, get the buy-in to make lasting changes.

The opinions expressed are Richard's, not the programme's.