Sipping tea, we sat with a half-dozen village elders in the mosque courtyard, soaking in the thick calm of the Kandahar morning.
Having teamed up with the village to dig wells, fix roads and a number of other small projects, we were relaxed and positive as we described our support of the villagers’ idea for an ambitious irrigation system. We just confirmed our view that the most poor should have good access to water.
Of the elders, three were in total agreement, one seemed unsure, and another, a wealthy man sporting a field-weary black turban and glasses askew, was hostile. He wanted all the water for the wealthy farmers only. “Your idea sounds a lot like the Russians,” he said slowly, “and we killed them.”
I sighed. Another day of development in Kandahar.
Development Works was formed to quietly tackle the roots of poverty through economic development. We are not a charity, but a company that is part of an emerging trend in development called “social enterprise.” Often described as a business that produces social benefit, the best social enterprise marries a charity’s mission to serve society with an entrepreneur’s savvy approach to business. Think of the Right Thing meets the Bottom Line.
The range of activities that fall under social enterprise is wide and populated by private business and charities. For instance, hundreds of thousands have escaped the poverty trap through small loans provided by the Grameen bank and others. In Mexico a growing network of for-profit pharmacies provides the poor access to affordable, high quality medicine. The homeless in Johannesburg, South Africa, are finding affordable accommodation through a housing charity.
Our way is to create employment through sustainable agri-industry and business in conflict zones.
Our first major initiative occurred in 2004, north of Kabul, where we established Afghanistan’s most advanced agri-processing facility. Now spun off in the Afghan private sector, the operation employs about 100 workers who process fruits and vegetables from a 1,500 strong farmer network.
It wasn’t easy, but the project succeeded, possibly because we pushed ourselves to work inside Afghan culture and not on top of it. Our engagement went well beyond exchanging pleasantries over tea – rather we took part in a dynamic exchange with Afghans.
This experience informs the way we work. It framed our views on the types of development needed and wanted by Afghans. While the import of schools, clinics, clean water and security cannot be exaggerated, to date there has been little effective focus on the role of the private sector in development. Good governance is important, but a villager can’t eat it. Only through the private sector, through farming or business, can Afghans find lasting income that will help them attain a better life.
Unfortunately, few investors, local or foreign, can get seriously interested in a country that suffered three decades of war, has a flattened infrastructure and suffers wholesale poverty.
This is where social entrepreneurs, seeking more than an immediate profit, come in. By using a mix of patience, impatience, empathy and hard-nosed business sense, they can help prod, mature and improve the local economic infrastructure one business at a time. As the shock troops of private sector development, their early successes can build the confidence of Afghans to invest in their own country and possibly spark interest in foreign investors to take another look.
This is the thinking behind our current work in Kandahar. Commissioned by CIDA, the Rapid Village Development Plan kick-starts the local economy through a short and sharp barrage of activities that aim to create instant and long-term benefit. To date, about 70,000 people have directly benefited from the project.
Avoiding the temptation to spread itself thin, the small project concentrates resources into four important farming areas, each dominated by a small town and dozens of villages.
Once engaged with the community, activities start small and only progress based on the engagement and support of the host community.
Equipped with a rough playbook of potential activities that range from digging wells, irrigation canal improvement, market construction and the launch of small business, the project zealously maintains an approach that lets it tailor programs to needs on the ground.
Generally, selected activities have three things in common. First, they must be strongly supported. From landless labourer to village elder, all activities are discussed and agreed by the community, usually through the traditional forum of the most important local mosque.
Next, as the project is an investment in the local economy, all activities should demonstrate potential immediate and long-term benefit. Finally, villagers themselves must do the work, not outsiders. This way, the money stays within the community, creating an immediate and welcome dispersement of capital.
Obviously, not all activities requested by the community, or suggested by us, are implemented. The limits of budgets, level of community engagement or our evaluation of the economic value of potential activities rules out many, but only after an intense, ongoing engagement with the community.
Perhaps with experience gained earlier in other project sites, our current work in Zaker Kalai, an important farming community south of Kandahar City, best demonstrates our approach.
Zaker Kalai was chosen as a project site partly based on its potential to increase yields in wheat, grapes and world-class pomegranates, and partly due to the determined support of village elders. After a number of meets, a contract was drawn between the community and our agency. In it, we promised to provide the technical expertise and resource for any agreed activities without delay. The elders promised to actively protect the project, manage and pay a villager work force, meet all targets, and work openly and fairly. It was understood we would start small, and only build up if both sides kept the bargain.
Soon after, the community and our agency agreed to dig a handful of wells as a test. Well digging machines were on site the next day. A few small projects later and up to 500 villagers were clearing a mile of canal a day, eventually improving or opening up hundreds of hectares of land for new crops.
This enabled us to invest more funds to build a much-needed market and a community bakery, the land donated by the local mosque, which will stream profits to recruit new teachers.
Confidence would best express the mood in Zaker Kalai these days. During a recent insurgent offensive in nearby communities, the project directed that all work should temporarily stop. Villagers simply refused to drop tools. Said one man digging a canal in the blazing sun, “this is our future. We are not afraid.”
This courage is expressed in many ways. Dozens of families, who lived as refugees in Pakistan, have returned home to the village to farm newly irrigated land. Established farmers have planted thousands of new grape vines, and many others now harvest two crops out of their once dry soil.
Over 50 villagers are competing to rent one of the six stalls in the new market. Among the would-be entrepreneurs are plans to establish a general store, pharmacy, motorcycle/bicycle workshop and tailoring facility. In an unusual twist that befits the project’s inclusive approach, all applicants will pitch their ideas and be selected through an open town-hall style meeting.
This building momentum of success, albeit accompanied by a lot of missteps, seems to be encouraging villagers to open up to opportunity. Recently, and unexpectedly, village elders have overcome their hesitations about providing opportunity to women and have asked us for ideas. Jumping at the chance to reach women in the notoriously conservative culture, we are now launching a pilot that will provide house-bound women an opportunity to earn rare income through egg production.
So goes social enterprise in Kandahar, at least for us, for now.
While imperfect, social enterprise is finding a warm welcome in Kandahar. It seems to fit the circumstance, by providing hope, resource and opportunity for villagers. While not all communities buy into it, those that do embrace it with a passion.
We have found that once communities engage themselves in the social enterprise process, the area tends to calm. Villagers and elders seem extraordinarily determined not to let politics get in the way of any chance to rise above grinding poverty. They want the jobs, they want the income, they want options.
Back at the village, the elder with the skewed glasses and black turban is getting steamed again at me. He wanted newly irrigated water to benefit wealthy farmers, not be wasted on the poor. “You’re just like the communists,” he repeated, somewhat louder than before.
I could see the other elders were growing uncomfortable. I knew they were on board, but did not want to cause problems with their volatile friend.
I reminded him that we are working with the community, and that together we developed the irrigation plan that targets the most poor. The entire village wants this, I said, but you can stop it.
“Take it or leave it,” I said, than sat back, sipping my tea. He smiled briefly, nodded his head, and we moved on. Within a week, hundreds of villagers repaired or built a mile of canal a day in a mad rush to complete the irrigation in time to sow crops.
Not a bad day after all.
Drew Gilmour, who founded Development Works in 2003, has worked for the UN and charities in Iraq, the Balkans and Asia. He holds a MA in Post-War Recovery from the University of York, UK.