Why I’m Currently in Zambia

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EWW Tanzania is currently going through a funding crunch. They had been on four years of USAID funding for the work I discussed in my last update, but this comes to an end as of December 31st. Because they are an American based NGO and have a fairly good relationship with USAID, they managed to get some funding for the next year starting in January, but this is only for the fruit tree part of the tree crop component. What this means is that the two most successful parts of the project (irrigation and timber crops) as well as all the technology components, are being cut. On top of that, from talking with the tree crops people, it seems like they are going to be trying to expand the hardest part of the projects. Planting timber only requires space and time. Seedlings are produced from seeds, you plant them, maintain a firebreak around them for a couple years, and then harvest when they are large enough. Fruit trees require much more work and education. The nursery people have to learn about grafting/budding, the farmers need to learn about care/maintenance (pegging to induce early fruit, stripping leaves to induce dormancy, new kinds of packaging for sale, finding markets for produce they have never produced before, dealing with new kinds of pests, different timing for harvesting/weeding).

So now they are going to head off gung ho in the new year promoting nothing but fruit trees so they can get enough numbers to ask for more money come next November. So instead of the people on the ground who understand the situation coming up with a project that fits the situation, the donor tells organizations like EWW what the project outcomes need to be. EWW is then put in a position where they can either reject the project because they don’t know how successful it will be, or accept the project and try and achieve the predetermined goals (in this case it is tied to the number of trees in the ground at the end of one year). And to make things just a little bit harder, the donors reporting periods don’t have any relationship to the normal planting/growing seasons. Now if you are the director and you know that your salary, not to mention the salaries of all your staff, is determined by whether or not you get new funding, what would you do?

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