farewell canada!

So it's 2:32 am on August 31st and I'm still up. My flight leaves today at 5:30 pm from Toronto Pearson and I am due to arrive in the capital city of Lusaka in the morning of Sepetember 2nd. Two full days of commuting, 14 hours in Frankfurt, and a whole lot of adventure.

Toronto --> Frankfurt, Germany --> Johannesberg, South Africa --> Lusaka, Zambia

I'm also still awake because I have a lot on my mind. It's filled with nervousness, excitement, and the unknown, all at once. Maybe I should try going to bed before it turns into mush tomorrow morning (or shall I say this morning).

Goodbye Toronto, I'll miss you. I'll be back!

So long my dear friends and family. Please continue to read my blog! I'll have more exciting stories and photos, this time FROM ZAMBIA, very soon!!

agricultural value chains sector

So you may have asked yourself, "What EXACTLY is Arthur doing in Zambia?" GREAT QUESTION. I will be joining the Agricultural Value Chains sector team in southern Africa.

Agricultural Value Chains takes a relatively new approach to international development. In traditional agric development projects, specific livelihood constraints are directly addressed (e.g. farmers dont have access to fertilizer, NGO helps them gain access to fertilizer). Agricultural Value Chains on the other hand, takes a more systemic view at development problems. The farmer's constraints are no longer isolated. The entire value chain is examined all the way from the producer to the consumer. The cause may be rooted in the complex web of, or lack thereof, relations between the small-scale farmers, the government, consumers, govenrment, rules and regulations, and social norms. Using a market facilitation approach, the value chains for high-value cash crops are mapped out and relationships are built with the intention of making small-scale farmers active, entrepreneurial market participants. The overall goal it provide the farmers the ability to leverage their small-scale agricultural operations as means of wealth creation.

What EWB's job is to assist local NGO's/partners, who are taking a Value Chains approach, to develop greater capacity in doing what they do. Currently the constraints that exist include:

• gaps in field staff capacity (i.e. ability to train farmers)


• monitoring and evaluation systems for implementation (i.e. ability to detect and evaluate market fluctuations)


• managerial and organizational capacity

As Overseas Volunteer Staff, our jobs are to work together with these various levels by helping to develop and implement tools to increase the partner organizations capacity to be market facilitators. I will be paired up with an organization called International Development Enterprises (IDE) (http://www.ideorg.org/) for the first 3 months in order to gain some field-level experience to truly get a better understanding of farmer livelihoods. IDE enforces and compliments the Value Chains approach by idenfitying high value crops and helping small-holder farmers become effective market participants in their respective value-chains. To compliment this approach, IDE also seeks to increase farmer labour productivity through providing responsible access to low-cost irrigation technologies (i.e. treadle pump).

I will (most likely) be working at the IDE field-office located in a small town called Pemba (just south of Lusaka and north of Livingstone).

I know that may have sounded a little buzz wordy. But that's what I'll be doing in a high level perspective. Once I arrive in Zambia.

thoughts on pre-dep

Pre-departure training concluded last night. With the leadership and guidance of Robin Farnworth, pre-depature training, for me, was extremely powerful, invigourating and empowering.

Some findings and thoughts:

• It has forced me to focus. Focus is a very powerful thing.
• I have made many new friends
• I made use of an analytical and creative thinking part of my brain that wasn't taken advantage of while working in the industry
• Facilitating workshops and discussions are key to building key relationships
• Change on all levels: individual - organizational - institutional, isn't easy, but challenging and very exciting.
• I need to think more in terms of field level realities.

I feel confident about what I know and what I can contribute. Still lots and lots to learn, live and experience.

pre-departure training - week 3

Sorry for the lack of updates. Pre-departure training has been quite intense and has kept me on my toes. We are entering our third week here at the EWB house in Toronto (near Dundas and Bathurst). Time really flies by. In less than two weeks, I will be off to Zambia for a year.

My wonderful pre-dep training friends/colleagues/fellow change-agents include:

• Robin Stratas (former UWindsor Chapter) who will be heading to Ghana with their Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA),


• Ashley Good (professional) who will also be heading to Ghana with MoFA,


• Troy Barrie (former UBC Chapter) who will also be heading to Ghana with MoFA,


• Charles Cauchon (former LavalU Chapter) who will be heading to Burkina Faso and working with CEF,


• Noémie Paradis (former LavalU Chapter) who will also be heading to Burkina Faso and working with CEF,


• and myself Arthur Kong (Toronto Pro-Chapter, former UWaterloo Chapter) will be heading to Zambia to work with IDE (International Development Enterprises) in the Agricultural Value Chains sector on agricultural irrigation product market facilitation.

Working, living, sleeping and learning with all these folks have definitely helped me focus. To no one's suprise, each and every single one of them are extremely intelligent, knowledgable, ambitious, and supportive. EWB definitely chooses the right people to go overseas. It's definitely not for the faint of heart.

The past three weeks have been filled with challenging assignments, case studies, projects, and personal learning. I compare the work that we've been doing to work done by management consultants in Toronto: we are given a big pile of ambiguous data or case studies, then we use the problem-solving frameworks, our creativity, and our analytical thinking to draft up an intervention/solution, and then present our ideas and thought processes to important stakeholders. However, with all the case studies being in the context of international development, it adds an extra dimension of complexity and challenge. Creating positive impact for those living in poverty in developing nations has been a challenge for even the most well-known and talented development workers and change agents. There is no simple equation, and nor is there a "right" answer. Livelihoods are complex and are dynamic in nature. Quoting Robert Chambers,

"Objectivity in the social sciences is regarded as a mirage. Post-positivism, constructivism, and post-modernism variously stress the limitations of the "scientific" method in the social sciences, holding that objectivity is not possible and that we have multiple realities, each of us constructing our own." - Robert Chambers (Whose Reality Counts? - Putting the First Last, 1997)

After working in the engineering-design industry for over 2 years, I noticed myself lacking in such deep analytical and creative thinking skills. After many years of applying equations and stadardized designs to the worlds technical engineering problems, this new intiative with Engineers Without Borders will definitely help push me out of my usual comfort zone.

I will write more about the details of my overseas placement in my next blog post. Stay tuned!