STORY TELLING TIME
BEHIND THE SCENES
The alarm goes off. It’s 2:00 am on a Saturday morning. It will be at least 24 hours before I see another bed. Addis Ababa. The capital of Ethiopia. My flights were uneventful, for which I give thanks. The kindly lady at the airport offers to phone my connection to see if he is waiting outside. And there he is. Mekaele has a broad smile which immediately makes me feel welcome. This smile never seems to fade. For two weeks he puts himself at my disposal. This will be my sixteenth volunteer assignment. Some as long as eighteen months, others only a couple of weeks.
Mekaele, the local country officer for the Cooperative Development Foundation of Canada, is a very important person in this world I have just entered. He will play a key role in determining whether it turns out to be enjoyable or a nightmare. Especially for the longer assignments. This one is only for two months, but still a long way from family and old friends. The other major player here: Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resources Association (EWNRA), the local partner. At best: a great symbiotic relationship; at worst: a long two months of frustration at every turn of the road.
VOICE for Women and Girls. a seven-year project to advance gender equality and economic empowerment for rural, marginalised communities in Africa. Change. Some embrace it, others shun it. Fortunately for me, EWNRA welcomes me with open arms. Providing me with space, resources, logistic support, and, most importantly, their time. Sometimes volunteers are not so lucky.
Coffee. Every cup here is from hand roasted beans. All thanks to Kaldi. The goat herder, who noticed his flock eating the berries. And then their reactions. I am spending a month here in Dilla doing training sessions for several of the local cooperatives. Asres, my translator, invites me and my driver to share in a libation. Enda does not refuse, nor do I. A poor cup of coffee is a rare thing here. Enda, another cornerstone in my existence, has assumed the reins passed over from Mekaele. The high level of Ethiopian hospitality is bred into his bones. The universe has certainly smiled on me this trip.
Ethiopia is the tenth largest coffee exporter in the world, topping over $ 1 billion in sales. The formation of multi-purpose cooperatives (MPS’s) made it possible for the small grower (often less than 1 hectare of land) to access the foreign markets. Some cooperatives have over 2,000 members. The Arabica berries first need to be dried and the pulp removed. The beans are then soaked for three days, sorted and further dried. The product is shipped in this state and roasted when it arrives in the destination country. Coffee grows best at an altitude of 1,200 meter, give or take a few hundred. These Ethiopian highlands are an ideal location.
Coffee drying beds
A year ago. In Malawi. My original assignment there was not working out well. An email to Chikondi, Mekaele’s counterpart, changed everything. For the better. No wonder I enjoy these assignments with CDF so much. Someone is doing a remarkable job in staffing the local country offices. Many, many thanks. You have no idea. Well, maybe you do!
TRAINING DAY
Training day. Morning prayer, introductions. I’m about an hour into my presentation. There is already someone sound asleep. I tell the rest of the participants that I am not a very good presenter. I point to the person lying prostate on the floor. It is a two-year old boy.
Ethiopia. The tenth most populated country in the world. Three times as many people as all of Canada in a land area less than the size of the Yukon territory. The cooperative movement in Ethiopia, after a drastic decline in the 1980’s, has rebounded tremendously. Currently there are about 100,000 cooperatives with over 25 million members.
This training session is focused on several rural Savings And Credit COoperatives (SACCOs) outside of Dilla. A day’s drive south of Addis Ababa in the Lake Abaya region. Savings usually are two or three dollars a month. Seed money for lending may only be a couple of thousand of dollars. Individual member loans are often 50 dollars. They will have the rest of the year to pay this back, with a flat 10% “interest” charge.
One SACCO board, almost all women, spend a lot of time meeting with the borrowers every month to collect payments. Their biggest complaint: too much time spent with no pay. They ask me: “How can you help?” The only suggestion I can think of: Include a schedule of repayment amounts and dates in the contract for the loan. Therefore, when they sign the loan contract they will have agreed with the repayment terms. Will this help? Who knows?
Do the SACCOs collect all the loan money by the due date? A resounding Yes. Very impressive. My hat goes off to these ladies!
MALAWI MOMENTS
“How many copies?” “Where do they go?” I had said this so often in the last few weeks it felt like it was becoming my personal mantra. Though no sooner had I gotten the words out, they were being echoed off the wall. Except the words bouncing off the wall were in Chichewa. We are in Lilongwe and Chikondi, the local CDF program officer, is doing the translating. I look around the room and see the signs of battle fatigue: the tired faces and glazed over eyes. Chikondi must have looked as well, for he calls a halt and has everyone stretching, clapping, singing and dancing for the next few minutes. Breathing new life into the participants. Another attempt to recover some measure of alertness.
It started with an email. I received one a while ago thanking me for my volunteer efforts in the past. Would I like to do another volunteer placement for the VOICE for Women and Girls project in Malawi? I had never done any volunteering for the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF), but I was interested. Let’s talk. I had racked up about five years of volunteering experience over the last twenty years with organisations such as VSO, CUSO and Catalyst+. I assumed someone had shared my resume with them.
Volunteering had become a significant part of my life ever since I went into semi-retirement. Many years ago I read that whatever you put into the pot for humanity, it is always more than enough. I had felt it was high time for me to contribute something for the gifts life had brought me. It was a symbiotic relationship. I satisfied my travel bug at no cost to me. They got an experienced professional accountant with a zero charge-out rate. I had never been to Malawi. I was keen to go.
The cooperative movement started in Malawi in 1947 with a significant resurgence in the mid 1990’s. CDF established a local office here and was supporting the cooperative movement. Hence the email to me. I am working for Malawi Federation of Cooperatives (MAFECO) for six weeks. Sometimes in their Lilongwe office; sometimes up-country. With support from CDF they throw together a four day course for some of the primary cooperatives directors. Two days of internal controls with me, two days of strategic planning with another Canadian volunteer.
“How is driving a car related to internal controls and financial systems?” I ask the participants. I am trying to relate the concept of controls and feedback systems to these small-time farmers. Many of them had formed primary cooperatives to gain access to markets and avoid the middleman. I listen to the people talk in their local language and hear the English words: “internal controls”. If the words don’t exist, neither does the concept.
This is my last session. I am flying back to Canada soon. How have these Malawi farmers benefitted from my six weeks? Perhaps some idea that a strong financial system is part and parcel of a strong cooperative. Perhaps some idea of the weaknesses and gaps in their own systems. The first step in making a change is realising that the change will be beneficial. What did I get? Interaction with the local small-time farmers and seeing how eager they were to learn and understand what their roles and responsibilities as directors were. The benefit of being supported by a competent and caring local CDF office, who were invaluable in making the placement, and my stay, both productive and comfortable. What else? New friends and a very worthwhile experience. Many thanks MAFECO and CDF.
WHERE'S THE MONEY??
This one is about a small local government where the council and members were angry, upset and worried. For the last few annual general meetings, after the auditors had presented the financial statements and given a clean opinion, the members would ask: "Where's our money? How much is the current government borrowing (read stealing) from our long-term funds? WE WANT A FORENSIC AUDIT." This was the situation when I came on board as the new Finance Director. Well, I couldn't blame them, I've seen thousands of financial statements and after reading theirs I had no answers either.
I guess I had until the next AGM to see what I could do. Six months of installing a better accounting system with a chart of accounts and department coding that matched their current operating setup. Six months of analysing 10 years worth of data and balancing net assets to the proper restricted and general surplus accounts.
Next annual general meeting. This time the financial statements included supplementary statements that showed all revenues and expenditures for each surplus account and the net assets belonging to them, all reconciled to the totals for the year. Plus a special presentation that showed the changes in restricted assets over the last 10 years. So when I asked "any questions?" all was quiet for a few minutes, then one old fella stood up and said: "Thank you, now I understand. But could you make it any simpler?" "Well, no promises, but I can try."
EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR
Let's call her Shirley. The finance manager for a civil society organisation. First one to work, last one to leave. Has someone gone on vacation? She was there providing support including sweeping floors after hours. And just try getting money from her without proper authorisation and approval. I was part of a team of long-term volunteers to support management in their efforts to expand their operations throughout the country. Capacity building. I had been there for a while, putting in additional systems and facilitating management sessions. The auditors were now coming to do annual audit and Shirley was working extra hours helping me to get things ready. Yes, Shirley certainly was a model employee; too bad she was embezzling funds.
I remember it was a Monday morning. The other accounting clerk and I had spent the previous Friday going over the rental income receipts which we had to track down through some incorrect postings, and I was just doing a quick review. Wait a minute, there was only eleven months income, $5,000 USD worth of income had disappeared over the weekend. And look, there was a corresponding decrease in the cash on hand account, now showing only a few hundred dollars. Unbeknownst to Shirley, their was an audit trail in the accounting software with a time and date stamp proving she had come in on the weekend and deleted the invoice in the system. Well, now her cash on hand account balanced with the physical count!
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