West Africa is a region which represent several countries.
This blog was first published on the Market Systems Development Hub as part of the 2020 Market Systems Symposium. Creative is a sponsor of the symposium, which is organized by EcoVentures International.
As it interrupts supply chains and halts transport, the COVID-19 pandemic is exposing weaknesses in the resilience of market systems across the globe. This is true for the Nigerian maize market, which lays bare the need to strengthen market systems for post-pandemic recovery.
On March 30, the Nigerian government instituted a lockdown of the capital of Abuja and Lagos and Ogun states to contain the spread of new COVID-19 cases, and several other states also opted for various levels of lockdown. The restrictions on mobility and trade placed immense pressure on the country’s domestic production, which had already seen increased demand and prices due to the government’s reduction of imported cereals.
The pandemic also coincided with the crop planting period, contributing to the rise in input and maize costs by roughly 40 percent, according to the Nigerian Agricultural Policy Project. The immediate rise in key staple prices, which has implications for this season’s harvest and foreseeable impacts on GDP and poverty in Nigeria, highlight the maize market system’s lack of resilience to shocks.
Market systems research and development interventions in the past few decades have attempted to unpack and address ways to bolster livelihood outcomes. The Market Systems Resilience framework released by USAID’s Bureau of Food Security in late 2018 went a step further to explore structural and behavioral characteristics of how markets do or don’t transform to shocks, including unforeseen events such as COVID-19.
The authors argue that markets range from reactive (inhibitive) to proactive (enabling) in their ability to absorb, adapt or transform in the face of shocks and stresses. They also make a distinction between fast-moving (e.g. prices and supply) and slow-moving (system-level) variables and point out that most development interventions focus on the fast-moving variables directly impacted by a shock like COVID-19.
However, there is a need to find ways to address slow-moving variables, such as market structure and gender norms, that can transform market systems in the long run.
In 2018, the Nigeria Agriculture Policy Project undertook a survey of 1,400 maize traders to understand the structure of the maize value chain. They found that the rural-urban maize supply chain in Nigeria can be visualized as a massive hourglass, with tens of millions of small farmers growing maize, 100 million people buying maize and 10,000 urban maize traders and a well-developed third-party logistics services and warehouse rental market that guide market trends. The study found that farmers not participating in outgrower schemes receive practically no advances from traders at the onset of the planting season, thus most of the risk is concentrated with smallholder growers at the top of the hourglass.
In recent years, the Nigerian government has tried to rectify some of the issues in the maize market, in which power is concentrated in the hands of traders, informal rules prevail, there’s limited diversity and competition, and short-term margins drive decision making. These factors set the maize market up to be reactive — which is why it was hard hit by COVID-19.
Shortened market hours and restrictions on transit between states during the pandemic shutdown had a direct impact on various components of the maize value chain, including the production of poultry and fish feed. In rural areas, input costs for maize farmers increased. Poultry producers faced shortfalls due to logistics constraints. A range of actors such as food stall retailers, small shops, rural and urban wholesalers, trucking businesses, logistics firms and warehouse companies were widely impacted. This led to a substantial drop in income for those who depend on these industries for their livelihoods, not to mention inflation of food prices for a wide swath of Nigerians.
Given the example of the Nigeria maize value chain and other similar cases throughout the Global South, how can development actors impact slow-moving variables to make market systems more resilient and advance toward more proactive behavior?
This is a question that Creative hopes to address in the West Africa Trade and Investment Hub. In collaboration with USAID and private sector agribusinesses, the project has redirected a portion of USAID’s $60 million co-investment fund to bolster the local food supply and ensure that businesses working with smallholder farmers help them access key inputs and pre-financing, given the impacts of COVID-19 on farmer income, supply chains and other constraints. This contributes to building a proactive market system that is adaptable to future risk by developing new business models, norms and incentives among market actors.
We will be looking to enhance market behaviors that decentralize power of traders, potentially through technology and enhanced farmer networks, improved competition, and increased access to data that allows farmers and consumers to make better decisions. Most importantly, our ability to directly co-invest with innovating U.S. and Nigerian agribusinesses to adapt their business models in the maize, soy, rice, cowpea and aquaculture value chains, deliver value for customers and suppliers, and challenge gender norms within their own operations and broader supply chains will help make these market systems more resilient to shocks from future crises like COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic has crippled African economies but also offers an opportunity to reinvent economic systems on the continent and make small businesses more resilient, said Creative Associates International’s Vice President and Senior Director for Economic Growth at a high-level forum for U.S. and African leaders in government and the private sector.
“We are seeing digital solutions and transformation and awareness among political and business leaders that we can do things now that maybe we didn’t even imagine before,” Creative’s Jim Winkler said. “The pandemic has woken us up.”
Speaking at the Corporate Council on Africa’s Leaders Forum, Winkler explained that traditional global supply chains were highly efficient, but also vulnerable to a shock like COVID-19, leaving producers in Africa with no way to sell their products amid the pandemic. Winkler said an “unexpected silver lining” of the crisis is an opportunity to rethink those supply chains to make Africa more resilient in the face of future shocks.
For example, investing in processing and manufacturing that adds value to products, Winkler said, “will create value and jobs and more economic dynamism on the continent.”
The Corporate Council on Africa’s inaugural Leaders Forum, held virtually June 23-26, brought together heads of state, senior officials and private sector executives to discuss the role of U.S.-African business relations in supporting the long-term economic recovery from COVID-19.
Winkler, a veteran development leader and CCA board member, spoke on a panel alongside Hon. Betty C. Maina, Cabinet Secretary for Kenya’s Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development, Gregory Rockson, Co-Founder and CEO of Ghana-based mPharma, and Farid Fezoua, President and CEO of GE Africa. It was moderated by Dr. Witney Schneidman, Senior Africa Advisor at Covington & Burling, LLP.
Winkler’s fellow panelists highlighted the need for Africa to grow its health sector so that countries can be more self-sufficient in responding to a crisis like COVID-19.
“The key lesson for me in this is that we cannot continue to react only in moments of crisis,” said Rockson of mPharma. “What we need to do is take a step back as a continent to really ask ourselves how we begin to build that critical infrastructure that is needed to prevent the next pandemic.”
For the health sectors and other key industries in Africa, Winkler said, strengthening the private sector and supporting greater collaboration among African countries and between Africa and the U.S. are vital.
“That resiliency I think is now within our vision, and now it’s time to execute on it with the investment and collaboration with government, private sector and donors,” he said.
One example of that collaboration is the West Africa Trade and Investment Hub, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by Creative.
Over five years, the Trade Hub will provide $60 million in co-investment grant funds to achieve USAID’s objectives to support at least $240 million in exports, $300 million in new private sector investment, 40,000 new jobs — half for women — and food security by improving private sector competitiveness in West Africa. The Trade Hub focuses on increasing the agricultural productivity and profitability of smallholder farmers in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and other West African countries and promoting regional and international trade and investment. The Trade Hub works closely with Prosper Africa to promote two-way trade and investment between West Africa and the United States.
The Trade Hub will be directing a portion of that grant fund toward long-term recovery from COVID-19 through co-investment partnerships with U.S. and African companies, impact and private equity funds, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and other Development Finance Institutions to sustain jobs, mitigate disruptions in agriculture and manufacturing, and support exports across the region and to the U.S. under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.
For more information on the Trade Hub, please visit: https://westafricatradehub.com/
Winkler said that initiatives like the Trade Hub can give much-needed access to investment and financing to small businesses, which are the backbone of African economies.
“We need to get working capital and trade finance available to them … so that up and down the supply chains and across the economies, we’ll be able to see these companies be poised to rebound when the economy opens up,” Winkler said.
Winkler’s comments echoed those of H.E. Filipe Nyusi, President of Mozambique, who gave introductory remarks before the panel began.
“We have a new normal setting in, and we have to create the conditions to deal with that new normal,” President Nyusi said. “Small and medium-sized enterprises will need an injection of assistance so they can be revitalized.”
Creative Associates International is a leading international development implementer that works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience and building local capacity in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace. Founded in 1977 and based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 30 countries, including Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, Mozambique and Ethiopia.
The Corporate Council on Africa’s Leaders Forum was sponsored by Acrow Bridge; Afro Tourism; AllAfrica, APO Group; Caterpillar Inc.; Citi; Covington and Burling LLP; Creative Associates International; Development Finance International; Flutterwave; General Electric; Lockheed Martin; Procter & Gamble; Rabin Martin; and Visa Inc.
Creative Associates International recently named Sandy Oleksy-Ojikutu, Ph.D., as a Senior Advisor. She is an authority on Sub-Saharan Africa with three decades of project design and implementation experience at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
In this Q&A, Oleksy-Ojikutu shares her passion for Africa and the value of dialogue for international development partners.
Oleksy-Ojikutu: I went to live in Nigeria, West Africa, as a consequence of a personal choice. I lived within a Nigerian family, my husband’s family, now my family.
Having left my post at Pace University in New York, I smoothly transitioned into joining the Faculty of Education at Nigeria’s University of Lagos (UNILAG) training teachers and lecturing on aspects of educational psychology. There, I gained tenure and earned a sabbatical year back in New York at Columbia University.
Toward the end of my time at UNILAG, my work with doctoral students focused on traditional counseling for adolescent and young adults analyzing the use of totems, ceremonies and age-grades to mark both the passage of time and the assumption of social responsibilities. My students taught me about the many challenges of growing up in Nigeria (as well as in Liberia, Libya, and Iran!) and about the role of their cultures in aiding their progress. They taught me to really listen without judgment. To be an honest observer and an advocate, from the position of an outsider.
These insights served me well as I expanded my work through USAID across the continent — to listen deeply to individuals to understand their values and vision without judgment. To value differences, to see individuals, communities and nations in one panoramic view. And then have a dialogue with host governments, communities and individuals.
When you live in any part of Africa and deal with daily life issues as your own personal issues over an extended time (32 years in my case), you quietly internalize insight into African values. I simply want Africa — as a continent, a collection of nations, and as an amalgamation of individuals — to succeed and prosper, and I want to support that process. This desire grew over time and through experiences with individual Africans. It continues to grow.
Oleksy-Ojikutu: Basic needs exist across Africa, and similarly across the world. It is a matter of degree. I know folks would like me to identify a hierarchy of needs, but it just is not that simple. Good health services ensure and protect life. Education provides the skills needed for a good quality of life. Food security sustains life. Rule of law and democratic elections maintain peace and security for individuals and their respective nations. Electrical power supports industrial development and promotes safety. Trade hubs facilitate personal and national economic growth, and so on. Since these basic needs are simultaneous and not sequential in most countries, international development partners negotiate with African nations to bring their unique strengths and skills to specific geographic areas to assist in addressing basic needs. Yes, various political considerations are part of the decision making, but the goal is to eliminate dire needs (e.g., extreme poverty) and assist nations in developing solutions that meet and service basic needs. The impacts are cumulative across a broad spectrum of development interventions within a nation.
Oleksy-Ojikutu: We have learned a great deal about what does not work, including imposing external plans in development contexts, or using development funding as an effort to secure sustainability. We have learned to do better by co-creating with host countries and direct beneficiaries as we design international development activities. We have adjusted our perspective on exactly what international development is.
Oleksy-Ojikutu: I end where I began. International development partners need to listen deeply to, and work directly with, their African counterparts and beneficiaries. The resulting dialogue would address the reconciliation of the needs/goals of the development partner and the beneficiaries.
Oleksy-Ojikutu: Creative’s staff does listen deeply, understanding the value of dialogue with host country counterparts and beneficiaries when designing interventions in response to solicitations. This type of dialogue is not an easy task — moreover, Creative does this well! Their resulting submissions have that ring-of-truth. They address donor needs and requirements while respecting and representing the beneficiaries’ self-defined needs. Perhaps that is the unique ingredient needed for sustainability.
An authority on Sub-Saharan Africa with three decades of project design and implementation experience at the U.S. Agency for International Development has joined Creative Associates International as a Senior Advisor, the company announced.
Sandy Oleksy-Ojikutu, Ph.D., had a long career at USAID, including 22 years working at the Mission level, particularly in West Africa, before taking a senior-level positions with the agency in Washington, D.C. She retired from USAID in April as the Senior Education Advisor with the Bureau for Africa.
Creative Chief Operating Officer Pablo Maldonado says Oleksy-Ojikutu’s expertise is a welcomed addition to the company’s already strong credentials in Africa, particularly in the areas of education and project development.
“Sandy’s deep appreciation for Africa and her specialization in results-driven, forward-looking development will be an asset for our team members, clients and beneficiaries,” Maldonado says.
Oleksy-Ojikutu, who was a professor in Lagos, Nigeria, before joining USAID, says the future of doing better, sustainable development activities rests on formulating plans with host countries, communities and beneficiaries.
“I admire and respect that Creative places a great deal of emphasis on the co-creation of development plans,” she says. “Creative’s staff does listen deeply, understanding the value of dialogue with host country counterparts and beneficiaries when designing interventions in response to solicitations.”
Oleksy-Ojikutu explains that the impacts these collaborations are cumulative across a broad spectrum of development interventions within a nation.
“Since these basic needs are simultaneous and not sequential in most countries, international development partners can support African nations by bringing their unique strengths and skills to specific geographic areas,” she says.
Oleksy-Ojikutu started her distinguished 31-year career with USAID in Nigeria, first as a project analyst in 1989 and finally as the Team Leader: Investing in People in the Education Sector until 2011. She transferred to Washington, D.C., and became a Senior Education Advisor in the Africa Bureau, where she provided technical support to Africa-based USAID Mission Education Teams in the design and procurement of education activities, implemented in the field Mission and through the bureau.
During her time at USAID, she participated in two important Inter–Agency Teams. One Team, comprised of USAID, the Defense Department and the State Department, created the first “development game,” a model that is based on traditional war games used by U.S. Africa Command, for the Sahel region. Another Inter–Agency Team went to Uganda to address issues related to Uganda’s Anti Homosexuality Act and the potential impact of sanctions on U.S. government’s investments in health, education and democracy sectors.
Oleksy-Ojikutu was presented in 2011 with the prestigious Administrator’s Implementation Award for creative or innovative education program development in challenging circumstances for her work in Nigeria.
Prior to USAID, she was a tenured Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Lagos, providing pre-service teacher training for 12 years.
Oleksy-Ojikutu has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and Research Design from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education. Her master’s degree is in the Psychology of Reading from Teachers College at Columbia University.
For more information and updates about Creative and our programs’ response to COVID-19, click here.
A group of women in Northeast Nigeria are pooling their tailoring skills and setting their sewing machines to work to produce tens of thousands of face masks that can help to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Their effort will help protect residents of Borno state, particularly those whose work prevents them from staying at home or maintaining strict physical distance from others. And with the economy under additional strain from the pandemic, the work is also a source of income for the 40 women — each of them widowed or otherwise affected by the conflict with Boko Haram in the region.
The mask production was organized by the Nigeria Lake Chad Basin (NLCB) program in partnership with the Borno State Ministry of Women Affairs. The program, which is known in Nigeria as the North East Regional Initiative (NERI), is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives.
“I wish to commend NERI for this remarkable work because a lot of people have benefited from the face mask production,” says Hajjiya Zuwaira Gambo, Borno state’s Commissioner of Women Affairs and Social Development. “As time goes on, quality face masks like the ones NERI is supporting will be scarce, so this is a great initiative.”
As of the first week of June, more than 51,000 non-medical cloth masks had been delivered and distributed by state officials to high-risk residents, including people with disabilities, transit workers and market vendors.
“This is a great opportunity for women of Borno state as a whole, because these face masks will not only benefit commercial transportation drivers, market vendors and the public, but it is also an income generating activity for us,” says Bintu, a tailor who helped train the other members of the group on making masks. “I praise NERI for all that they have been doing for women in the state.”
Bintu and the other tailors had all previously received livelihoods skills training through NLCB under various activities aimed at supporting vulnerable women to generate income. Past trainings have focused on how to make bags, shoes and other items, and the same process is now being applied to producing masks. The mask making training occurred in small group settings, and then the women were provided with materials and instructions to continue the work from home.
The masks, sized for children and adults, are made from 100 percent cotton and use multiple layers of a traditional patterned fabric called Ankara. The masks were reviewed and approved by Borno state health authorities, confirming their high quality.
Coordinators are regularly stopping by the tailors’ homes to collect finished masks and then donate them to the state officials, who then distribute them to markets, mosques, motorparks and other high-traffic areas.
In the future, NLCB is working on establishing a collective for the tailors, so that they can continue collaborating to produce and sell masks in bulk.
“I hope that this mask-making initiative by women tailors in Maiduguri will spark the contribution of other actors working in the Northeast – international NGOs, foundations, private sector actors,” says Chief of Party Olivier Girard. “We hope that they will replicate what we did, or better, and order larger quantities of masks from this group of well-trained tailors.”
With reporting by Rukayya Jibrin.
by Janey Fugate
For more information and updates about Creative and our programs’ response to COVID-19, click here.
With classrooms shuttered because of the COVID-19 pandemic, students in Northern Nigeria are seeking much-needed alternate methods to continue their basic education.
The pandemic has left many parents and educators concerned that interruptions to education would undo much of the learning gains made in an already fragile environment, says Jordene Hale, Chief of Party of the USAID Northern Education Initiative Plus program (NEI Plus), which aims to strengthen quality education and improve children’s reading skills in Bauchi and Sokoto states.
“My fear is that kids will give up their education without that structure,” says Hale. “School is a habit. It’s hard to get that momentum going again.”
To keep students engaged in learning during difficult circumstances, educators are reaching students at home through radio and television.
USAID NEI Plus and UNICEF produced and aired a combined 670 lessons over radio and TV aimed at learners in grades 1-3. The lessons are in English and Hausa and follow the Let’s Read! (or Mu Karanta! in Hausa) early grade reading curriculum, which was introduced by NEI Plus. These lessons, which are being broadcast for several hours per day, are expected to reach a total of 600,000 students in Sokoto and Bauchi.
“We want to stem the learning loss by having families re-engage with the process of learning,” says Hale.
NEI Plus tapped into its broad network within the education system — including teachers, government representatives, religious leaders and families — to spread the word about the distance learning. Tailored messages were broadcasted on government-run radio networks and sent to more than 20,000 WhatsApp contacts to help ensure parents and children would tune in.
Radio campaigns are not new for the project. In 2017, NEI Plus successfully used radio programs to promote learning and reading among educators and parents in Hausa language. The radio skits used culturally relevant scenarios to help promote education. At the same time, the project contacted parents to engage them in their children’s learning and emphasize the importance of literacy, using voice messages to reach those who may be illiterate themselves. Some of the material developed for these programs is being repurposed to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
Nurudeen Lawal, the Deputy Chief of Party for NEI Plus, believes the radio programs will put students at ease during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also coincided with an outbreak of the viral illness Lassa fever.
“Education cannot wait for the crisis to end,” says Lawal. “Because part of resilience is that when learning continues despite the crisis situation, it tends to reduce the level of anxiety and stress in the children.”
Nurudeen Lawal
Lawal says the radio lessons can continue to serve kids and their families even after the crisis is over and may complement other learning initiatives.
In Northern Nigeria, 30 percent of children do not have access to basic education and often lack adequate parental support. Schools suffer from insufficient funds, among other challenges. Girls face even greater difficulties and have lower levels of enrollment and are more likely to drop out of school. These obstacles to learning have been made even greater by the pandemic, making NEI Plus’ response even more urgent.
“The broader social implications for a setback in education are scary,” says Hale, particularly without a clear timeline on when schools will be able to reopen.
Entering its fifth and final year, NEI Plus has made significant progress in bringing quality education to Nigerian students and was equipped to respond to the crisis.
“NEI Plus is well-positioned to serve children and communities in unusual and unpredictable circumstances. The team’s experience working in Nigerian formal and non-formal schools and with vulnerable children gives us a greater sense of urgency as we respond to the pandemic and prepare for the future,” says Semere Solomon, Senior Director of Creative’s Africa Regional Center.
A midline early grade reading assessment conducted by the project indicates improvement in most of the key reading skills for Hausa and English. NEI Plus has enabled more than 260,000 children to gain literacy, numeracy, and life skills through non-formal schools, and 20 percent have gone on to mainstream into formal schools.
With an eye to further offsetting the potential losses brought on by COVID-19, the NEI Plus team is also producing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) programs for television, radio and cell phones that focus on social-emotional learning. Designed for parents and teachers, the IVR messaging will teach interpersonal skills and how to recognize and appropriately deal with signs of stress that may be a result of the pandemic.
Lawal says that they are also beginning to think about structuring remedial classes for students to catch them back up on missed material before schools reopen as well as teacher trainings.