“Smell No Taste”

“Smell No Taste” is the name of a famous Liberian village located between Roberts Intl. Airport and the infamous “Firestone” plantation. The village got its name because its residents were used to smelling the food and riches coming from Firestone, yet they never got to taste it.

Smell No Taste, Liberia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s sad to say most Liberians feel the same way about the “expat development world.” There are hundreds of NGOs in Liberia yet the locals remain cynical about the true motivations of all these “expats” having learned their lesson from the days of the “Firestone Republic.”

Last week I had a meeting with the team working on Liberia’s World Trade Organization (WTO) membership proposal. The team had just recieved their second sponsorship rejection from an International Ogranization. The rejection email included a recommendation that the Liberian government hire an “international consultant” to help with the proposal. This is how my Liberian coworker reacted “All these people want is to look for jobs for their friends. They just want us to train them and teach them then they go make a ton of money.”

This is a very serious accusation. It just goes to show you that Liberians today still believe they’re being dealt the “Smell, no taste” hand. Today Forbes published “World Bank Mired In Dysfunction: Mess Awaits New Head” about the dysfunction and corruption of the World Bank. These problem could  be generalized to most large International Organizations who lack objective supervision. This article couldn’t be more timely.

Something needs to change.

MOCI, Three weeks In

Work Update 

I started “week 2” by moving to the MSME (Micros, Small and Medium Enterprises) Division to sit in a big office with eight other people. It felt good to be part of a team. I met with the amazing division director Mrs. Edwina who asked me to help with the following projects :

• Finding a sponsor for the second season of “The Business Show,” which is a radio show intended to educate and inspire future Liberian entrepreneurs and small business owners.- Most of which are Liberian women in rural areas.
• Develop a project plan and implementation framework for mobile business registration for small businesses in rural areas. Currently there are only three business registries in Liberia which are located in Monrovia, Buchanan and Ganta.

Towards the end of the week, I got a messenger from the Minister inviting me to her office. It was a humbling moment. The Minister is an inspiring modest woman. She is trying to slowly yet steadily fix a broken organization from the top down with an air of quiet optimism. We discussed her priorites and where she believes I’ll be able to add the most value then I was moved to a new office right next door.

So, now I am working with the Research and Planning Division to help create a monitoring and evaluation framework in addition to my work with MSME.

So much work, so little time, yet I’m also trying to think of solutions to the “real problem” at the Ministry. If you’re curious what happened in week 1, click here.

Yellow Work Assignment Sheet

The Real Problem

I remember being upset that the Ministry was not very responsive to my emails before I got here. Now I know why.

Most communication here takes place by “messenger,” and by messenger I mean an actual person who goes between offices to deliver these “yellow work assignment sheets.”

There is a very real capacity problem in Liberia and by capacity, I mean the actual skills of the available work-force. All recommended solutions include high level concepts such as automation when the average worker has problems writing a grammatically correct sentence.

I spend several hours a day helping people write their reports/memos and work products and now, I am working on developing trainings for workers and budget templates for divisions.  It just  makes you think where would money be better spent? Low level trainings or high level consultants?

To truly develop Liberia, we need to develop its workforce. Coming here and doing the work for them and then leaving them to figure it out is naïve. I guess this is becoming a theme, development without maintenance is a disaster waiting to happen.

Development without Maintenance is a Disaster Waiting to Happen…

Last Week I went on a tour of the “new” Liberia Standards Lab. I went with the new Deputy Ministry of Administration to meet the technical team and discuss their budget needs for the next fiscal year. This lab was built to monitor the quality standards of goods flowing in and out of Liberia.

This facility was sponsored by several International Organizations and cost several million dollars to build. The Standards Lab officially opened for business last year. Here are some pictures of the Standards Lab last week (less than a year after its grande opening.)

In my limited experience in development, I have seen the same story over and over again. The development world seems to be full of expensive equipment yet no warranties or manuals, medical supplies yet no proper storage, brand new facilities without quality checks and high level consulting recommendations without the capacity to implement them.

Something needs to change.