TCP/ZAM/3601 TRAINING REPORT MA&D Phases 1 and 2
By…Makweti Sishekanu, National Consultant – MA&D Submitted to…Jeremy Mbairamadji, PhD
Sioma 25-29th September 2017
Page 1
INTRODUCTION The MA&D training contributes to the implementation of the TCP/ZAM/3601 entitled, Sustainable Forest and Woodland Management for Food and Nutrition Security, in the Western Province of Zambia. The project intends to increase and enhance food and nutritional security through production, utilization and sale of forest products among selected rural communities in Sesheke and Sioma Districts. The MA&D training feeds directly into the overarching objective of this project; to improve food and nutrition security of rural communities through commercialization of forest products for increased incomes and enhanced access nutritious foods for effective and sustainable forest management. In particular, it is expected that the training will lead to achievement of the following specific objectives: i. To increase household incomes through the harvesting, processing and commercialization of forest products; ii. To enhance food and nutrition security at household and community levels by sharing knowledge and promoting the widespread consumption of nutritious forest foods. This report is structured to outline the learning activities, processes, achievements, challenges and lesson learned from each of the five training days. The report also attempts to clarify certain unplanned developments that emerged each day, how the challenges were addressed and suggestions for improvements in the subsequent phases of the training, especially phase 3. Each of the five training days is evaluated from two fronts; (i) the participants’ overall impression about the logistical arrangements and, (ii) the participants’ overall impressions about the facilitation of the training. To provide a glimpse into the realities of the training experiences, the report employs the use of pictures to depict critical moments of the training each day. Methodology and Training approach The training is conducted in Lozi, the local language of the area and all training materials are translated for that purpose. The training adopts different pedagogical tools as indicated in the program in Annex 1. A Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method was employed taking care of local context, participants’ moods, group dynamics, literacy and their levels of conceptualization. Different facilitative approaches starting with story-telling through guided discussions, brain storming and quizzes, group work and cross examinations, field work, role play were adopted and a pictorial power point presentation to close the training on Day 5. These pedagogical tools have proven effective evinced from the daily evaluation results by the participants themselves at the end of each day. Design of the Training program The training targets a total of 60 participants constituting of 15 facilitators; one from Wildlife and National Parks; one from Community Development; two from forests Department, and 11 community facilitators from among the community forest producers. In this training, facilitators and producers are trained together while the 15 facilitators assist the consultant by taking the leading roles in group work sessions and field surveys. The facilitators will also be crucial in preparing for the second cycle of the training.
Page 2
The remoteness of the three community areas had a significant bearing on nearly all the challenges faced during the training. Four drivers, one from FAO and 3 from Forests Department including the project vehicle, were starting off as early as 04; 00 AM to drive utmost 30km across sandy terrains to pick up the community producers from the three areas. After which, one driver was required to drive 20 kilometers to pick up the consultant from his lodging place. To complicate this challenge, Sioma District has no filling station, meaning, drivers needed to drive more than 100km to the nearest filling station in Senanga District. As such, the trainings could not be executed as planned according to the training program in Annex 1, as the participants needed time to settle down for breakfast as their first activity having been required to wake up very early in the morning each day. Therefore, training sessions were only starting after 09:00 hours, and squeezing the lessons of each day between 09; 30 and at least 16: 00 hours inevitably demanded changes in the timetable as the participants had to be driven back to their distant communities before dusk. These changes also meant a compromise in the delivery of the training. Clearly, transport stands out as key to the success or failure of this program. Therefore, two suggestions are hereby put forward for improvements in the subsequent phase: i. Accommodate all the participants in the nearest location right in Sioma Boma. The advantage of this option is a reduction in driving time for the drivers and conservation of fuel in the cars, given the fact that Sioma District has no filling station. It will also guarantee adequate time to commence and end trainings sessions every morning and evening, respectively. There may not be need for four vehicles running around long distances every morning and evening to ferry the participants under this option. The disadvantage of this option however, is the lack of accommodation in Sioma. This challenge would mean that participants arrange their own accommodation within Sioma Boma and paid an allowance. With the experience from this phase of training sessions, there is no guarantee that the villagers will use that money for such a purpose but would rather walk long distances from their villages to the training center. Secondly, there will definitely be a need to adjust the budgets upwards to cover accommodation of 60 participants for five days. ii. Increase the number of vehicles from four to five so no driver has to make more than one trip to ferry participants from their villages. Prepare drums of fuel to purchase fuel in bulk from Senanga and store it for refueling right in Sioma. This option does not change the distance which each drive has to drive to ferry the participants but it will require each drive to make only one trip in the morning and evening. The participants will still need to be given time to have breakfast in the morning and driven back on time at least by 16; 00 hours. Compromises in the training will still be inevitable in order to accommodate this reality. The option will equally require an upward adjustment to the budgets especially for fuel.
Page 3
DAY 1, MONDAY 25th SEPTEMBER 2017 Introduction of all participants: A total of 61 participants (38 males and 23 females) registered on Day 1. Sioma District Commissioner, Mr. Maurice Litula officially opened the training recognizing the esteemed presence of the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE) Induna seated as one of the participants. The training opened with a Brain-teasing story in Annex 2, meant to create critical thinking around what enterprise should be, what it should NOT be and community cooperation around exploitation of local resources. From the story, key lessons are hidden in the concept of community-based enterprises. Introduction to MA&D was opened with Phase 1 Lesson 1 of Annex 3. The supporting training materials for the lesson are designed to ask questions that lead participants in the way of identifying what the forest resources are, and where they are found. Out of this session, a total of nine prominent product interest groups were identified, namely - (i) Honey (ii) Seto (devil’s claw) (iii) Mungongo (Schinziophyton rautanenii) (iv) Timber (v) Wild fruits (vi) Grass (vii) Wildlife (viii) Crafts and, (ix) Mbowa (Mushroom). The products are all seemingly promising measured against the community’s challenges which came out as follows:
ENTERPRISE CHALLENGES FROM DAY 1 Poor community cooperation, 8% Lack of Leadership Training, 17%
Lack of Electricity, 8%
Poor market, 38% Transport problems, 8%
Unclear regulations, Lack of 17% equipment/technol ogy, 8%
Page 4
Reference to poor market as a challenge in this case means lack of buyers; the producers have to travel very long distances to a place where they can sell, often compounded by lack of transport. Before lunch, participants were challenged into a brain storming exercise that stimulated their thinking around why and how they would engage in an enterprise; what needs do they recognize as critical for such engagements aided by material in Annex 4? This was done through role play of selected participants after which everybody broke into groups formed around the five areas of sustainable enterprise development for which the groups cross examined each other’s ‘reasoning using the five criteria of enterprise development set out in Annex 5. Using these five areas as criteria, participants were guided into assessing opportunities, risks and challenges within their market setup. In their groups formed around the five areas of sustainable enterprise development, participants went through a screening process of selecting products which seemed promising from their perspectives. It was easier and practical to form five groups around the five areas of sustainable enterprise development than to form more than ten groups around the different products interests. Essentially, it must be justified that forming a group around economy and finance, for instance, did not divorce the group from examining their products-interests around the other four areas of sustainable enterprise development. The group formation around one of the five criteria of sustainable enterprise development only helped each group to be specific about what they needed to focus on in scrutinizing the other groups’ product interests. This approach was successful in ensuring that group discussions were more focused rather haphazard in a large group of 60 people. Group ONE (The Natural Resource Group) The group argued in justification of their products, that they were available, plenty, market was perceived to be good and they had multiple uses for their selected products. These products were – (i) Muwawa (Strychnos pungens) (ii) muhuluhulu (Strychnos cocculoides) (iii) Muzauli (Gilbourtia coleosperma) (iv) Mumbole (Vangueriopsis lanciflora) (v) Seeto (Devil’s claw) (vi) Malasha (Charcoal) (vi) Mumaka, (vii) Munola (viii) Namulomo (Ficus verruculosa) (ix) Mungongo (Schinziophyton rauteneii) (x) Munzinzila, and (xi) Linosi (honey). After screening all these products using the five areas of sustainable enterprise, Group ONE was only left with three products – Timber, Seeto and Charcoal. The other four groups, i.e., law/regulations group, sociocultural group, economy/finance group and the technology groups cross examined Group ONE on their three products prompting them to think more in terms of the other four areas of sustainable enterprise development. It was ultimately observed that Economy and Finance were the major factors influencing the screening.
Page 5
Group TWO (The sociocultural group) The group worked hard to scrutinize every promising product enterprise against the taboos, culture and norms of the area. The group is equally cross examined by other groups around the potential influences which other four areas of sustainable enterprise could have on their selected products. Group TWO selected five promising products as follows - (i) Timber, (ii) Seeto, (iii) Thatching grass, (iv) Mungongo and (v) honey. After the screening process, the group only remains with two – Timber and Seeto. Notwithstanding the final selection, the group failed to satisfy the questions
Page 6 from the Group THREE below, technologies and harvesting techniques where timber harvesting was concerned. Group THREE (The technology/product development and research group) The group is subjected to the same process of cross examination by other groups. Initially, group three has five promising products, i.e., (i) Timber (ii) Thatching grass (iii) Seeto, and (iv) Honey. After thorough screening through the five areas of sustainable enterprise development, the group remains with Timber only. The Natural resource and the Economy and Finance criteria of sustainable enterprise development played a major role in this elimination process. Group FOUR (The law and regulations group) The group highlighted regulatory lacunas as the key challenge in the area for enterprise development of products like Seeto (Devil’s claw). The group identified five promising products as – (i) Mungongo (ii) Seeto (iii) honey (iv) thatching grass and (v) Muhuluhulu. Using the five areas of sustainable enterprise development, the group narrowed down their products to one – Mungongo, which they had to justify to the other four groups who questioned the product’s sustainability against technology, sociocultural issues, natural resource base and it economic and financial viability. What was interesting in the group’s analysis was the role of legal regulation in the elimination of Seeto (Devil’s claw) from their list of promising products. This is against the fact the Devil’s claw is the most economically lucrative product in the area – the green gold of the forests. Group FIVE (The economy and finance group) Group five raised only one question for everything presented in the training – are these products making economic sense? The group selected five promising products; (i) Timber (ii) Charcoal (iii) honey (iv) Seeto, and (v) Thatching grass. However, the group concluded in their final analysis using the five areas of sustainable enterprise development that only Reeds and Charcoal made economic sense. Through further cross examination by the other four groups, Reeds were eliminated for being a river/marshland resource
Page 7 rather than a forest product. Eventually, the group remained with only one product to showcase – Charcoal. Key lesson of the day Not all products, regardless of how promising they may seem at face value, are sustainably fit for enterprise development in the context of MA&D. Training had to cease before 16; 00 hours because the participants had a long tedious journey back to their villages. Daily Evaluations The consultant sat with the project team to review participant’s impressions about the training at the end of the day. What were the participants’ overall impression about the logistical arrangements of the day? A. Satisfaction – representing all the things (too numerous to mention) which participants expressed as good and/or recommendable B. Dissatisfaction – representing all the things which participants expressed as bad, not recommendable, the things for which they sort improvements. This included sentiments such as – inadequate food, inadequate water, water was too warm, transport delayed to pick the participants, participants needed to be paid allowances (which was the most prominent complaint), participants needed T-shirts and participants complained about keeping time. C. Demands to be paid an allowance – notably prominent among the dissatisfactory issues as it represented the major complaint from the participants D. No comments – represents those who had no comment to write, notwithstanding nor taking for granted the hidden meanings of this silence What were the participants’ overall impression about the logistical arrangements of the training?
Evaluation of Day 1 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Demand to be paid No comments allowances
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Page 8
What were the participant’s overall impressions of the consultant’s facilitation of the day: Very Poor; Poor; bad; Not bad; Fair; Good; Very Good, OR Excellent?
Evaluation of the consultant 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Very Poor Poor Bad Not bad Fair Good Very Good Excellent
Column1 Series 2 Series 3
Attendance
DAY 1
Females 23
Total 61
Males 38
Total Males Females
Page 9
DAY 2, TUESDAY 26th SEPTEMBER 2017 Recap of the five areas of sustainable enterprise development Having demonstrated understanding on the analytical use of the five areas of sustainable enterprise development, participants were guided to understand the market for their selected products. By the second day, it was then clear that the subsequent sessions were to be based on four selected products – Timber, Charcoal, Seeto and Mungongo; all having passed through the screening test of the five areas of sustainable enterprise development. Specific objective of the day; at the end of the session, participants were to be able to demonstrate an understanding of the term ‘market’ and the market system within which the different products were to be marketed and not just sold off. With the aid of the teaching material in Annex 6, particular emphasis was laid on understanding the value chain movements of each product from its production (where it is converted from a resource) through to consumption. A number of challenges were discussed coming from the analysis of product movements around different value chains: (i) poor market – having no or very few buyers who could buy the products within Sioma Boma (ii) lack of processing equipment – the producers had no choice but to give away the products in raw form without processing (iii) transport problems – are varied in nature. There are long distances involved to move products from one are to another coupled by the mode of transport (use of oxen) which was proving unreliable over such long distances (iv) lack of electricity – as much of Sioma is not electrified (v) lack of trainings – the communities have had different trainings offered by different NGOs in different areas of community development but no training had ever been offered around enterprise development (vi) poor community cooperation – communities felt they were being swindled by occasional middlemen because the producers were formally organized around forest management. Each individual worked in isolation of the other to produce by themselves and for themselves. This challenge pointed to the moral of the story in Annex 2, and (vii) unclear regulations – was a common challenge for products like the Devil’s claw. The problem seems to have persisted ever since the government suspended the Statutory Instrument (SI) to regulate the production and conveyance of the same product. The suspension of the SI has created a vacuum of regulatory authority where it is no longer clear who was in charge of the product among three institutions; the Forest Department, Wildlife authority and the Local council? At the end of the day, each participant was given a brainstorming exercise (as homework) to think about how the selected products from the screening process moved or would move around the value chains into the market system. This exercise served to introduce analysis of the market for each of the four products aided by the material in Annexes 7 and 8. Because market analysis is only complete with field surveys, the last session of the day was reserved for facilitators in preparation for field visits the following day. It was logistically impossible to involve all the 61 participants in the field survey using four station wagon vehicles across vast distances. This part of the training was designed as such from inception, to avert the challenge of teaching a large number of 60 people. The primary purpose of the facilitator’s session was to prepare for data collection in a guided manner that seeks to capture the relevant information
Page 10 around the five areas of sustainable enterprise development. Training material in Annex 9 was designed to provide that guidance. Daily evaluations The consultant sat with the project team to review participant’s impressions about the training at the end of the day. What were the participants’ overall impression about the logistical arrangements of the training?
Evaluation of Day 2 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Demands for allowances No comments
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
What were the participant’s overall impressions about the consultant’s facilitation for the day?
Evaluation of the consultant 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Very Poor Poor Bad Not Bad Fair Good Very Good Excellent
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Page 11
Attendance
Day 2
Males 38
Total 61
Females 25
Total Females Males
DAY 3, WEDNESDAY 27th SEPTEMBER 2017 Field Day with facilitators
Page 12
Day 3 formed a critical part of analyzing the local market situations of the four selected products. Field work was designed to augment the session on Introduction to Market Surveys on Day 2. On field day mission were a total of 15 facilitators from the community and 5 facilitators from the District. The consultant plus five other logistical personnel from the project team giving us a total of 26 people divided into four Product-based Groups, i.e., Mungongo, Timber, Seeto and Charcoal, which had to use four vehicles. It was clear that there was a problem with the selection of community facilitators prior to the training. A number of community facilitators had to be handpicked during the training session of Day 2. Teaching material in Annex 8 was designed to guide the facilitator into what exactly they had to look for in the field. That is notwithstanding the fact that they would encounter unexpected information and circumstances either on their way or right in their field work. The findings from field work were designed to complete the community producers’ home work on the introduction to market surveys and analysis. This was to be presented the following day on Day 4.
Mungongo processing facility in Sioma (the only Mungongo processing facility in the entire Western Province of Zambia)
Page 13
Each of the four groups went its own way until evening. Before the end of the day, the field work teams reconvened at the Training Center to summarize their findings in their respective groups and to evaluate the day’s work. The biggest impression of the day was that facilitators learned that there were significant differences between information they thought they knew about the area and the reality of things on the ground. Daily Evaluations What were the participants’ overall impressions about the logistical arrangements of the training?
Evaluation of Day 3 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Demands for allowances No comments
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
What were the participant’s overall impressions about the consultant’s facilitation of the day?
Evaluation of the consultant 40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0% Very Poor Poor Bad Not Bad Fair Good Very Good Excellent
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Page 14
Attendance
Day 3
Males 14
Total 26
Females 12
Total Females Males
DAY 4, 28th SEPTEMEBR 2017 Facilitators and producers reconvene Day four started with ironing out logistical issues that emerged from an emotive discussion at close of Day two, where participants demanded to be paid money instead of being given food. More than half an hour was spent ironing out the issue before training could resume. It became clear from the discussion that this issue was never addressed or overlooked during the initial sensitization phase of the project. BRE representative in the group concluded the matter when he asserted that the project team was to be excused for its ignorance of the fact that it was a custom to pay people whenever they were called to leave their homes for such programs. Meanwhile, that the project team became well aware of the custom, there was no more excuse for them not to pay the participants. This development was communicated to Ms. Celestina Lwatula at FAO in Lusaka, who escalated the issue to FAO Country Rep. It was then decided, for the sake of completing the training, that the project team gives in to the demands of the participants. With the BRE Induna’s caution, it is beyond doubt that the issue will have to be clear from the beginning of phase 3 training and participants paid. On resumption, participants were taken through their homework from Day 2 based on Annex 6. They presented their analyses of various forest products in different value chains. The aim of this exercise was to gather the participants’ perceptions, understanding and misunderstandings of the opportunities and challenges that would come with each of the selected products in different value chains.
Page 15
But to consolidate the producers’ perceptions and understandings, facilitators presented their field survey findings from Day 3. Because producers did not take part in field surveys, facilitators’ presentations were designed to augment the producers’ understandings and to clarify the misunderstandings about the outlook of local product value chains for the selected four products. One of the misunderstandings that had to be cleared in this session was a heated discussion around the seasonality of Mungongo. Facilitators in the Mungongo group discovered the truth about the issue from the field survey, that Mungongo was, indeed, seasonal. Facilitators’ Charcoal Group The group was led by facilitator from the department of Wildlife and National Parks. His presence as a participant in the training was very crucial for clarifications around the role of his department in the legal regulation of Devil’s claw. The group discovered a simple and small value chain of Charcoal production and trade in Sioma. The group found out that there were very few producers of Charcoal in Sioma, if not one man, who works hard to satisfy local demand from the traditional method of earth kilns. From the facilitators’ field survey findings scrutinized against the five areas of sustainable enterprise, Charcoal stood out as a promising product for enterprise development.
Page 16
Facilitators’ Mungongo Group The group was led by a female facilitator from the department of Social welfare and Community Development. The group noted that the resource base was huge with an abundance of the product available in more months of the year than its off-season period. Family labor is mainly employed in picking Mungongo which is consumed at household level and sold to the only processor within Sioma. The product is sold in its raw/unprocessed form to a South African processor based in Sioma.
Mungongo in the village storage shed
Page 17
Facilitators’ Seeto Group The group was led by a male community facilitator who has also been used by other NGOs like WWF as a community facilitator. The group found that regulatory irregularities were the commonest hindrance for enterprise development with the famous Devil’s claw. The product is on high demand in Zambia and across the border in Namibia. It is harvested selectively from communal forests but incidences of harvesters straying into the Sioma Ngweze National Park are not uncommon. Harvesters of Seeto in Sioma have not undergone any form of training in as far as harvesting is concerned, but rely on techniques informed by indigenous knowledge. Middlemen are the key players and trendsetters in the business – they work with Namibian middlemen across the border who sale the product to Namibian-based Germans. The price of the product fluctuates according to the season in which it is harvested. But on a good working day, a community harvester is able to harvest 2x50kg bags of the product, which shrinks to less than 10kg when dried and processed by the community harvesters before selling it. Wildlife authorities and the local council do confiscate the product, bulked in their offices but the confiscated product does find its way secretly back into the value chain. If not confiscated, producers are levied for conveyance without official receipts. But has legal authority to levy them is a different matter all together.
Page 18
Facilitators’ Timber Group The group was led by the female District Forest Officer (DFO) of Sioma District. The group had the greatest challenge of having to travel more than 80 km to the first point of their field survey. The group noted that the harvest of timber is done on a large scale and heavily mechanized but well regulated. They are very few community producers involved in the timber business right from its production. When they are, it is those casual laborers engaged in loading and offloading logs on and off trucks. Primary production is marred with numerous challenges which are mainly mechanical in nature and complicated by the long distances from the primary production areas to the main market in Lusaka and or Livingstone. The day closed with an introduction to enterprise ideas based on facilitators’ field survey findings and producers’ value chain analyses of the selected products. The participants had to be paid lunch allowance and allowed ample time to buy their own lunches. As such, the day’s training had to be closed at 13: 30 hours, another compromise that needed to be made to accommodate some of the challenges. First, it took more than an hour to disburse payments to each participants. Secondly, the participants needed ample time to move around the market looking for lunch, and thirdly, the participants needed to be ferried back home on time at least by 16:00hors. It was discovered later on, that the participants did not use the money for lunch but rather sacrificed to stay hungry and keep the money for subsistence back home. In the evaluation, a few participants complained of hunger. Daily evaluations The consultant and the project team assessed the participants’ evaluative comments for the day and particularly noted the issue of hunger emerging out of the dissatisfactory issues. The level of dissatisfaction was remarkably low most likely because of the allowances paid. What were the participants’ overall impressions about the logistical arrangements for the training?
Page 19
Evaluation of Day 4 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Demand for allowances No comments
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
What were the participants’ overall impressions about the consultant’s facilitation for the day?
Evaluation of the Consultant 40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0% Very poor Poor Bad Not Bad Fair Good Very Good Excellent
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Page 20
Attendance
Day 4
Females 21
Total 60
Males 39
Total Males Females
DAY 5, FRIDAY 29th SEPTEMBER 2017 The key objectives of the day were
Page 21
(i) To consolidate the development of enterprise ideas around the four selected products from day four’s work, and (ii) To demonstrate an understanding of product value chains desired by the participants. All the 60 participants had to be subsumed into four product interest groups with Charcoal divided into two groups because more participants expressed interest in the product. Ultimately, it was to be interesting to see two different enterprise ideas emerging around the same product. Charcoal Group ‘A’ Enterprise Idea The group assessed their potential Charcoal enterprise from both an individual and a group perspective. Having learned from their findings in the field survey, it was noted that an individual approach was too labor-intensive and would be cost ineffective. Therefore, the group concluded that a group or cooperative approach was a better option. The group justified their simple enterprise idea based on the attempt to avert the challenges noted with the product; labor-intensity and unreliable transport. Cross examined by other groups against the five areas of enterprise development, the group was convinced that their Charcoal enterprise idea was promising. But whether it would be profitable or not was a question for phase 3. Charcoal Group ‘B’ Enterprise Idea Interesting from the Charcoal presentations were the different ideas emerging around the same product. Group B highlighted the challenges involved in the production and trading of charcoal; transport, labor and the poor quality of Charcoal being key. The group further outlined the opportunities in Charcoal and weighed them against the challenges. Hence the group builds its idea around sidestepping these challenges. What is salient from group ‘B’ is their focus on the quality of charcoal being an incentive for a higher price than group ‘A’. But like group ‘A’, group ‘B’ equally adopts a cooperative enterprise because it solves the labor puzzle in the production of Charcoal. The enterprise idea is promising with rough estimates of ZMW 72, 000 annually from 4 kilns. Whether these estimated projections are realistic or not is a question for phase 3 training. But to protect the idea, the group sees need for introduction of community bye-laws around communal forests.
Page 22
Timber Group Enterprise Idea Timber group presented two ideas, both group-based ideas. The first idea is based on selective harvesting of trees that go into a local communal carpentry. The idea is informed by the need for construction timber in the newly created District of Sioma which is in dire need of infrastructure developments. In the second idea, the community cooperative goes into a partnership with a chain saw owner for a stipulated period of time as the community producers realize their need for heavy and costly machinery. The timber group outlined two different value chains for each of the two ideas while wary of the fact that timber has huge challenge with production costs but huge profits too. How profitable will this idea be was reserved for phase 3. Seeto Group Enterprise Idea
Page 23
The group is alive to the fact that lack of government regulations for the exploitation of the product is the single major challenge for enterprise development. But having been reassured by the Forest Department that GRZ was working on putting a lasting solution to the problem, the group had the incentive to settle for the product – around which, a group-based business idea was developed. The group argued that the harvesting and primary processing were too laborious for an individual enterprise while acknowledging the fact that the product was too economically lucrative to be left only for Namibians. The group’s idea was simple and built around the need to eliminate the middleman. The group raised a critical argument, questioning why it was easy for the Namibian traders to move around the enterprise in and out of the country while it was extremely difficult for the Zambians to do the same! The group could not find an answer to this question during their field survey. Mungongo Group Enterprise Idea The group identified the lack of processing machinery as their greatest hurdle, as Mungongo is an extremely hard nut to crack. The group envisions a cooperative system of enterprise in partnership with the South African Mungongo processor in Sioma. This idea was informed by the observation from the field survey that even the South African processor in Sioma was the only one in the entire province who had the sort of machinery designed to crack and squeeze the nut into oil in a complicated mechanical process. The group learned that the processor had his machine patented as he designed it himself. The details of the envisioned partnership which the community producers are planning will be seen and evaluated in phase 3. Fortunately for the producers, the South African processor guarantees to play his part in working with organized community producers.
Page 24
The session with producers ended with a recap of the training from Monday to Friday by selected participants who had been recorded on video from Day 1. The video snapshots were beamed through power point presentation to give the participants an unexpected pleasure of seeing themselves talking on a large screen. In the next cycle of training, participants will be expected to understand whether their enterprise ideas are profitable or not, as they will be taken through the details of planning and building an Enterprise. Facilitator’s session The last session of the day was with facilitators to underscore the principles of MA&D facilitation according to Annex 10. The session was also designed to prepare the facilitators for phases 3 and 4 of the second cycle. Facilitators were reminded of the fact that the end of this phase was not the end of the MA&D process but rather a break to enable them gather more information around their enterprise ideas. The consultant and the project team reviewed the participants’ evaluations of the day.
Page 25
Daily evaluations What were the participants’ overall impressions about the logistical arrangements of the training for the day? It must be noted that the demand for allowances shot as the highest grievance after being paid on Day 4. Essentially, this indicates three possibilities – (i) that the participants were still not adequately informed that the Day 4 allowances were meant to cover the two remaining days (ii) participants’ expectations were not properly managed right from the sensitization of the project, and (iii) as the saying goes – that it is very difficult to satisfy villagers.
Evaluation of Day 5 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Demand for allowances No comments
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
What are the participants’ overall impressions about the consultant’s facilitation of the day?
Evaluation of the consultant 30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0% Very poor Poor Bad Not bad Fair Good Very Good Excellent
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Page 26
Attendance
Day 5
Females 19
Total 55
Males 36
Total Males Females
Mean 5-Day attendance
Average attendance 70 61 61 60 60 55 5140.00% 50
40
30 20 20
10
0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Average
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Page 27
MA&D NATIONAL CONSULTANCY TORs 1. Contribute to the design of MA&D training of facilitators and communities 2. Develop training materials for the MA&D training and report 3. Conduct the trainings in MA&D to the targeted facilitators to help them implement the outcomes of the TCP through all cycles of the training 4. Assist the participants (facilitators) to gather information for cycle II 5. Conduct MA&D training to communities with the help of trained facilitators 6. Develop feedback to work plans developed by training participants 7. Support facilitators and communities in the implementation of MA&D activities in the field 8. Coach forest product interest groups in implementing their EDPs tailored to market needs and forest products
Page 28