BRAC Advisory Council Member, Rod Dubitsky, Visits BRAC in Liberia - Post #3 of Series

This post is the third of a series of posts written by Rod Dubitsky, a member of BRAC USA's Advisory Council, on his recent trip visiting BRAC projects in Liberia. The trip was Rod's second experience with BRAC in Africa; in 2008, Rod visited BRAC operations both in Uganda and Bangladesh.

Tuesday May 4th, Poultry Vaccination

Today we visited the poultry vaccination program in Gbarnga. We were observing vaccines for the Newcastle disease. Newcastle disease is a highly infectious disease with nearly 100% mortality and is particularly devastating to small hold farmers in developing countries.

Many farmers lined up to have the chickens vaccinated. The gathering of the squawking birds, families, chickens, hypodermic wielding extension workers, made for quite an entertaining morning.

The poultry vaccination program is a perfect example of BRAC’s blending of market mechanisms with traditional NGO work. BRAC’s poultry vaccination program provided an incentive to Liberian volunteers to convince farmers to get their chickens vaccinated. The challenge was that BRAC required the farmers to pay for the vaccine. BRAC sells the vaccine at a markup to their cost and the poultry volunteers in turn mark up the vaccine to the farmers. The challenge was convincing the farmers to pay and from our morning visit there was no shortage of takers. They were able to convince farmers by demonstrating reduced mortality quickly after vaccination. Based on feedback from the farmers, the benefits went beyond reduced mortality. Farmers reported to BRAC staff that immunized chickens not only survived longer, they laid more eggs and laid eggs more quickly after immunization. Further, from what I could gather, BRAC was the only one doing this in Liberia.

I asked whether BRAC tracks chicken mortality and the other improvements that result from immunization. At present, BRAC tracks mortality before but only anecdotally tracks mortality after giving vaccines. Likely BRAC’s ramping up West Africa research division will tackle this. There is obviously a cost to detailed tracking of impact and if farmers are continuing to pay the immunization fees, it’s clearly working. It’s debatable whether the added cost of tracking mortality is worth it. Though quantifying the benefit will clearly depend on how many more eggs the farmers are able to sell. Nevertheless, impact assessment, while important, needs to be considered in light of the cost of gathering and studying the data.

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King of Kakata

"I joined BRAC in June 2009,” says King Kerkulah, a native Liberian supervisor with BRAC’s Agriculture program in Kakata, Liberia. “I used to be at Bong County’s Ministry of Agriculture. I got to know BRAC as they came to Liberia to assess areas where they could start agriculture programs. Then I resigned to join BRAC.” He was drawn to the opportunity with BRAC to advance agriculture in Liberia.

As of this spring, King manages 10 extension workers (each of whom visit 10 farms a day) and monitors three demonstration plots. Currently there are eight acres of plots dedicated to new varieties of rice and cabbage. So far, he has trained nearly 400 farmers, each with farm sizes anywhere between 2 to 50 acres. “I help solve farmers’ problems. I educate them on many things, like application of fertilizer, line sowing of seeds, new seed varieties, and others.”

When asked about his training in agriculture, “I have a diploma from Liberia’s Booker T. Washington Institute. I got my agriculture training at school, and also from BRAC from being on the job.”

King covers the entire area within a 4 km radius of BRAC Liberia’s Kakata office. He visits the farms that fall within his area of coverage on his bicycle. “Kakata is a hilly area, so travelling to farms on bicycle is difficult. Often I travel 8km on damaged or unpaved roads.”

At first, earning the trust of the farmers has not been easy. “One time, I visited a farm for the first time. The farmer was not present, so I introduced myself to his family members who were there. When the farmer later reappeared, he was angry at seeing a stranger (me) talking to his family. He was yelling at me, and I deeply apologized to him by touching his feet (the local custom). I then explained to the farmer about BRAC and that my job is to help farmers like him. Later we went to the fields to talk more. Now this farmer is very happy with BRAC. I taught him about new varieties of rice, and he is now planting it.”

Now all farmers know about King at BRAC Kakata. “I have become popular with farmers in the area,” he says

BRAC Advisory Council Member, Rod Dubitsky, Visits BRAC in Liberia - Post #2 of Series

This post is the second of a series of posts written by Rod Dubitsky, a member of BRAC USA's Advisory Council, on his recent trip visiting BRAC projects in Liberia. The trip was Rod's second experience with BRAC in Africa; in 2008, Rod visited BRAC operations both in Uganda and Bangladesh.

Sunday May 2, 2010 - Monday May 3, 2010: On the Road to Gbarnga

Sunday

We left for Gbarnga (pronounced “Banga”) on Sunday. After a 4 hour drive over deeply rutted roads with water filled potholes the size of small lakes we arrived in the dusty outpost of Gbarnga, capital of Bong County and the second largest city (town really) in Monrovia, and stronghold of Charles Taylor during the civil war. The trip was generally uneventful, except our driver had to disengage one of the wipers as it was causing both wipers to stall. The broken wiper stuck out from the windscreen, like a featherless bird bobbing its head up and down. A ragged boy in an oversized T-shirt that read “Stop Child Labor” curiously looked on while our driver gamely tried to Jury Rig the wiper in the poring rain. We spent the rest of the trip operating with one wiper blade. At least the driver’s wiper was engaged, an important factor given the driving rain we encountered most of the way. Anyway, despite the rain, rutted roads, and malfunctioning wiper, we made it intact to Gbarnga.

Monday, 830AM - Microfinance Groups

The cloud covered sky mercifully kept the Liberian baking heat to a tolerable level, and today we would be spared the torrential rain we suffered on the drive to Gbarnga. The meeting started with a song followed by a prayer and recitation of BRAC’s promises – the latter a standard feature of most BRAC microfinance meetings around the world. After passing the passbooks forward with the cash payments and finishing the business of the meeting I chatted with the group members.

The Microfinance clients had a different reaction relative to the SEP borrowers when I asked if they were happy with their loan terms. Though they were grateful for the opportunity BRAC provided, the women described the seasonality of the various businesses they were engaged in and the challenges this presented in paying back the loans. Further, the women were adamant that they should pay biweekly and the interest rates were too high. Given the many years of devastating civil war, it’s impressive that the women are very well aware of the impact of borrowing (as opposed to relief aid that often follows civil war) and the need to consider the terms of repayment. Though they were still grasping with interest rate calculations, they clearly understood the concepts of interest, repayment frequency and level of payments. They clearly seemed to have a credit culture and understood the need to repay the loan and the need to match loan terms to the cashflow of their income.

BRAC staff gamely defended the rates as compared to the other MFIs in Liberia. BRAC pointed out that though the nominal interest rates were lower for other MFIS, the term of the loans were much shorter and so the actual annualized rate was much higher for the other MFIs. It took some convincing , but it seems the women understood that simply comparing quoted interest rates wasn’t sufficient to determine which loan had overall better terms.

A second Microfinance group I met with an hour later mentioned precisely the same comments: lower the rate and reduce payment to biweekly and consider seasonal payments. The suggested enhancements to the loan program notwithstanding, the borrowers seemed happy overall with BRAC’s involvement and getting access to BRAC’s loans. Likewise it’s clear that life is still a daily struggle. Between rent, healthcare, school fees, there wasn’t a whole lot left over to make BRAC’s payments. Yet, the women seemed to be clearly better off with BRAC’s loan. The ability to offer flexible repayment terms is clearly a challenge for microfinance group lending but one that the women in these two groups would clearly appreciate.

When I asked what other things the Women would like BRAC to provide they weren’t shy to offer up suggestions. Some of the things needed included: a BRAC school, health clinic, toilets, agriculture loans, and a water pump.

Monday, 10AM - Health Education Meeting and CHP Activities

After the Microfinance meetings we attended a community health education meeting. The purpose of these meetings is to educate women in the community on critical health issues as well as provide basic medical and health supplies. The Community Health Promoters and the Community Health [Manager] ran the meetings. In addition to the meetings, the CHPS will visit the women in their homes and provide them basic diagnosis and look for early warning signs for potential ailments, birth complications, make sure the women are following basic health practices (eg bed nets, vaccinations, pre and post natal care, etc).

I was still trying to fully grasp the Liberian English, so I wasn’t able to follow everything, but I came away with several conclusions: 1) women were interested as evidenced by large turnout, 2) the “education” is designed not as a rote exercise but rather as interactive exercise that allows educators to ensure the women have truly understood the critical lessons; the interaction brought up lots of idea and questions that would otherwise not have materialized 3) there was a great breadth and relevance of topics – from vaccine administration to disease diagnosis and treatment to information about healthy birth practices – were clearly relied upon by the women and designed for maximum impact.

The biggest health problem facing the women, by far, was malaria. Most of the women weren’t sleeping under bednets and they complained about the availability of malaria medicine (only one pharmacy in Monrovia had malaria medicine). This is clearly an opportunity for BRAC to fill the gap. Overall the CHP was happy and seemed to earn decent income from selling the products. The CHPs were able to take advantage of BRAC’s wholesale purchases and modest markup to CHPs. The CHPs were able to sell more cheaply than the local pharmacies and so could enjoy decent sales and income. The products the women sold included condoms, sanitary napkins, oral rehydration solution sachets (critical to the treatment of Diarrhea) and antacid tablets.
Questions the women asked included: 1) what is the difference between Asthma and pneumonia, 2) what are the symptoms of measles.

Monday 11:30AM - Farmers Meeting and Agricultural Extension Workers

As with the healthcare education meeting, the farmers meeting was likewise a spirited interactive affair. The farmers made various suggestions and requests and as appropriate BRAC would consider making changes to their programming or adding to their program offerings. A question came up regarding the cost of high yielding seeds. BRAC charges for seeds, while some NGOs give seeds away for free. As Shapon, the head of agriculture for Liberia, noted, BRAC we will be here forever and we will always have seeds. The other NGOs may not always be around and the supply isn’t as readily available as with BRAC.

As the farmers made various suggestions to BRAC’s agriculture extension workers, one important request was for storage. Given the seasonality of the rains in Liberia and the need to store agriculture products in general, one farmer made the point that adequate storage was a critical component of the production process. BRAC would take this request into consideration. BRAC’s extension workers have a similar role to BRAC’s CHPs. They are volunteers who educate farmers and earn a commission selling products to the farmers. Extension workers sells high yielding seeds, pesticide, agricultural equipment (eg cutlass or machete). Extension workers earned 13k Liberian Dollars in one month.

One challenge for Liberia, and for any post conflict country is the movement from relief to development. While some amount of handouts are needed post conflict, there is the risk of dependency in that the country becomes used to certain things being free which makes it difficult to transition to an integrated development/market economy approach. Why should I pay for what I’m used to receiving for free? Between the poultry vaccination, CHPs and agriculture extension workers selling various agricultural goods, BRAC was clearly having some success convincing Liberians to pay for items that in the past may have been for free (and in many cases were not available at all or at a prohibitive cost).

Monday 2:30PM - Demonstration Plot

Though I had visited a trial plot in Uganda, this was the first time I had seen a trial plot owned by a local farmer. The success of this trial plot clearly illustrated the concept that small hold farmers can improve yields by engaging relatively low cost technological improvements. In this trial plot, the technology was simply teaching the farmer to move from random planting of rice seeds to planting in horizontal rows (so called “in line” planting). The in line planting resulted in improved weed and insect control, better aeration and shared sunlight. Simple, low cost for BRAC and the only cost for the farmer was greater labor. Once the farmer saw how much higher the yield was, it became an easy sell. And this trial plot farmer would then pass the word to other farmers in the area.

BRAC's Kaosar Afsana Presents Outstanding Maternal Health Program Results at Gates Foundation, Seattle

Yesterday, BRAC's Kaosar Afsana was invited to present BRAC's Manoshi project to an audience at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

(Dr. Afsana with Mary Taylor, Senior Program Officer, Gates Foundation)

In 2006, BRAC initiated a pilot project to improve maternal and child health amongst those living in the urban slums in Dhaka. In 2007, the project evolved into Manoshi - an extensive maternal, neonatal, and child health program spanning five years with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The program is targeted to benefit approximately eight million urban poor living in the six major cities of Bangladesh.

One of the most prominent features of the Manoshi project has been BRAC's creation of safe birthing huts, where women's deliveries can be attended by trained health workers and the newborns' care can be monitored. In her presentation, Dr. Afsana pointed out the major shift that has occurred in location of delivery, as more women have started giving birth in Delivery Centers and Hospitals as opposed to their own homes (as seen in the slide below).

The presentation also highlighted the increase in referrals of maternal complications. Community health workers are trained to keep track of all birth records, offer essential newborn care, and, in the case of complication, refer the mother and child to neary pre-selected referral facilities, so that they can get the care they need.

While the program has made significant strides in reducing maternal and child mortality rates in Bangladesh, Dr. Afsana also mentioned certain challenges that the Manoshi project still faces, and is working to overcome. Included in these challenges are high C-section rates, unhygienic environments and poor water sanitation practices, and slum evictions.

Overall, the Manoshi project has done, and is continuing to do, a great job in addressing the problem of maternal and child mortality in Bangladesh, and we congratulate them on their success!

Read more about the Manoshi project on BRAC's website.

Read more about the Gates Foundation's strategy to improve Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health.

Please join us for a conversation with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed

Please join us for a Global Washington event—a conversation with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder and chairperson of BRAC, on Tuesday, May 25, from 5-6:30 p.m. in D-209 of the Health Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle.

This event is sponsored by Global Washington, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, University of Washington Department of Global Health, World Affairs Council, and BRAC USA.

Please send your RSVP to ghrc@uw.edu or follow this link: https://app.etapestry.com/cart/GlobalWashington/default/item.php?ref=4143.0.35071029

BRAC Advisory Council Member, Rod Dubitsky, Visits BRAC in Liberia

This post is the first of a series of posts written by Rod Dubitsky, a member of BRAC USA's Advisory Council, on his recent trip visiting BRAC projects in Liberia. The trip was Rod's second experience with BRAC in Africa; in 2008, Rod visited BRAC operations both in Uganda and Bangladesh.

Saturday, May 1st, 9am

Small Enterprise Program (SEP) Program, Monrovia


My first program visit was to BRAC’s SEP or Small Enterprise Program. We visited about 5 or so businesses. The businesses were all located in a market area close to BRAC’s branch office. James, a Liberian, was the Credit Officer and served as our host. Unlike the Microfinance program, the SME program is a mix of male and female borrowers and loans are made to individuals, as opposed to the group lending that is common in microfinance. Just as the borrowers are mixed male/female the Credit Officers are also a mix of men and women.

All borrowers we met were enthusiastic about BRAC’s support and had a clear view that BRAC’s loan made a meaningful impact on their business. Though it was obvious that these borrowers were better off than the Microfinance borrowers we would see the following day, they were clearly poor under most western definitions. One borrower in fact lived in the back of the store with his family.

All, but one, of the SEP businesses were retail store fronts. It was great to see these borrowers/business owners so overwhelmingly positive about their prospects and about the contribution BRAC’s loan made to their business. The devastation of 25 years of civil conflict and brutal dictatorship did not diminish the business owners’ enthusiasm for the present and hope for the future. I saw in these five business owners a microcosm of the true potential for Liberia and the contribution BRAC can make to Liberia’s development.

Though the businesses were retail stores, the products sold were fairly diverse. Common themes among all the businesses were that all goods were imported (from as far away as China), most seem to be renting their store space and all were enthusiastic about the contribution BRAC made to their business. All businesses were registered and were tax payers, which was a bit surprising as I expected more of the businesses to be informal given the nascent state of Liberia’s development.

The most common product sold was rice. Of all the stores visited none sold country rice (ie Liberian Rice) and all sold imported rice. Other goods ranged from plastic ware, dishes, wigs, washboards – yes washboards.

I asked where they acquired their goods from and sources ranged from Guinea to Togo to Ivory Coast to China. And the storeowners always seemed to travel to the source. I asked one woman who traveled to China why she didn’t phone her order in rather than spend the money to travel to get the merchandise. Her answer was that she wanted to make sure they shipped the right merchandise and that it was good quality. Clearly these store owners understood about running a business. Given the traveling cost and likely common locations for much of the merchandise, I wondered whether BRAC could organize their clients and work with them to coordinate purchases to take advantage of economies of scale. For example, rice and plastic ware were available in several of the businesses and BRAC could potentially bring volume discounts to their clients by acting as a sourcing conduit.

Overall these businesses were run by sharp business people. If one wonders whether these shop owners extend credit, a sign in one store answered the question. One shop owner had a sign that read, “No credit today, come back tomorrow.” I naively asked what happens when they come back tomorrow. “The sign will still be there,” he replied. No fool, he.


One business that stood out was a makeshift gas station owned by a women. She stored the gas in a large cement tank and piped the gas from big cement tank to a smaller delivery tank which then siphoned into a bucket. This modest makeshift business would be competing with the fancy new Total gas stations, including western style convenience store.

Borrowers generally seemed to be happy with the terms of their loans. The only comment borrowers made on the loan terms, was the forced savings – they didn’t like the fact that BRAC retained a part of the loan as savings. One borrower also suggested disbursing loan in hard currency since they have to convert Liberian Dollars to hard currency in order to buy the merchandise.

Credit Officers are paid a fixed salary with raises based on credit performance. BRAC’s underwriting for the SEP program seems come down to four factors:

1) Borrower inventory
2) Borrower business
3) Guarantor Credit
4) Guarantor collateral

Further, for each SEP loan BRAC requires a guarantor. The SEP clients we met had guarantors ranging from relatives to landlords to business partners. In addition to checking the credit of the guarantor BRAC will generally look at deeds and titles for property owned by the guarantor.

In Haiti, building stronger communities is more important than building stronger houses

Last week, BRAC held a 4-day long workshop in Haiti to teach Hatians living in Fondwa, Leogane (the area hit worst by the earthquake) how to build back better ... literally.

Local artists chipped in to help advertise the workshop...

Participants began by talking about their experience of the earthquake.

Then Kabir, an architect from BRAC University who specializes in post-disaster housing, explained the earthquake's effect on the land.

Participants visited houses in the neighborhood to see for themselves which local materials held up best in the earthquake.

...and then they had to design their own houses.

Members of the community came to watch as the workshop participants presented the design for the houses.

And as with any good workshop, there was lots of singing!

BRAC Tanzania Celebrates International Women's Day 2010

More than 700 girls from BRAC Tanzania's ELA (Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents) program celebrated International Women's Day 2010 with an energizing rally and inspiring discussion session.

BRAC's ELA program in Tanzania focuses on creating safe spaces for adolescent girls and providing training on different livelihoods in attempt to empower adolscent girls and make them active members of their respective communities.

International Women's Day has been observed since the 1900s and is now an official holiday in many countries around the world.

Click here to see how you can support these girls!

BRAC USA Program Associate: Sherie Gertler

As a Masters student at Stanford University in 2008, I became familiar with BRAC's holistic, grassroots development approach and, specifically, the start of their work in Africa. After graduating from Stanford, I took a job with a small non-profit working in a refugee camp in Zambia, near the border of Congo.

Upon my return to New York this past fall, I began interning for BRAC, an organization I sought out because of its real and significant impact on the world's poorest populations. Now in my 5th month as part of the BRAC USA team, I am thrilled to be engaged with BRAC programs and staff across Africa and Asia, working with such an inspiring group of people.

Photos from the Field: How to build houses in Haiti

Last week, the BRAC team in Haiti partnered with Architecture for Humanity to conduct a 2-day participatory workshop on safer-building design and construction. The workshop included instruction spanning several areas of construction such as proper structure layout and dimensions, composition of concrete bricks and mortar, site cleanliness and safety, and steel reinforcements.

As those in Haiti begin to rebuild their shelters, both organizations - BRAC and Architecture for Humanity - recognized the importance of ensuring safe buildings this time around in attempt to prevent another tragedy in the future.

Below are pictures from the first day of the event:

Washington Post Praises BRAC Founder, F.H. Abed, for Oral Rehydration Salt Initiative in Bangladesh

"A pinch of salt. A fistful of sugar. A half liter of water."

Margie Mason, in an article that appeared on the WashingtonPost.com on Sunday, recites the ingredients for what she calls the "Poor Man's Gatorade" that is saving lives across Bangladesh. According to Mason, children and adults alike know the recipe by heart and know when to use it, combating the potentially fatal effects of diarrhea that claim about 1.5 million kids a year

The article references Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder of BRAC, and his personal efforts to spread the word:

As founder of Dhaka-based BRAC, one of the world's largest non-governmental aid organizations, Abed trained a small army of women to spread the ORS recipe to millions of households across Bangladesh in the 1980s.

"I know of nobody else who's tried to do this. Everybody came here and looked at the problem, and it was mind boggling for them to think that one could go to every household and do it,' says Abed, who was recently knighted in England for his development work. 'I think this could have a similar kind of impact in Africa."

Click here to read the entire article on washingtonpost.com.

Abed's rehydration efforts were also covered by PBS in it's RX for Survival series. "The Story of BRAC" shows how BRAC is transforming lives by reaching out to millions of people in villages and helping them out of the vicious circle of poverty: