Nicolas Boillereau in West Africa
Please describe what the organization/company you work with does, how it is set up and where it is located?
I worked for the African Cashew Alliance which gathers all the people, organizations and firms that are involved in the cashew sector in Africa, from the farmers to the processors and the exporters. The Secretariat of this Alliance is run by the West Africa Trade Hub (WATH), which is a USAID project based in Accra and Dakar. WATH aims at promoting exportations from West African Countries, and cashew nuts are one of the commodities they focus on.
What is the organization/company doing well?
The African Cashew Alliance (ACA) was created in 2005 and is still at its beginning. In the past few months, several national level meetings were held in Benin, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal, Mozambique and others are planned in the near future. From what I have seen, ACA managed to make people from all the different levels of the cashew’s value chain work together to promote African cashew nuts, especially people who had not seen each other before. Enhancing transversal cooperation and raising awareness about the big issue the African cashew sector is facing is probably the major achievement of ACA so far.
Where could the organization/company improve?
During the national meetings I attended in Nigeria, Guinea Bissau, and Senegal, people had no difficulty to express their opinion and to describe the main problems of the cashew sector, but taking decision with determined action plans was much more difficult. National Committees have been or will be created in each country of this alliance. Finding ways to make those committees undertake concrete actions is probably one of the main challenges of the ACA.
What are some aspects of the local cultural that should be understood when foreigners consider doing business in this country?
My experience in West Africa was quite short to clearly point out the cultural aspects to be considered to do business there. What stroke me is that people, especially those related to the political life, always want to say something during a meeting, even if it is not necessary. Showing that they attended the meeting and they played a great role in the debates seems to be important to some of the people I saw.
I also had the impression that the choice of the people you work with is crucial, more than in Western countries. Due to an underdeveloped education system, it is sometimes difficult to find well trained people. Finding someone you can really rely on may also be a key to success.
What are some aspects of the local business environment (e.g. registration of company, government’s role in business, business items unique to this country) that should be understood when foreigners and locals consider doing business in this country?
My experience was focused on the cashew sector. This sector is really important in some countries such as Benin or Guinea Bissau, and the government fixes the prices of raw nuts. This is likely to trigger real disasters for local farmers. For instance, in Guinea Bissau, the government fixed a very high price for the raw nuts, to ensure higher revenue for the farmers. This price was so high that nobody could sell. Finally, some people managed to sell some small quantities at a very low price, at the end of the cashew season. Farmers had to store huge quantities of raw nuts, without proper infrastructures: badly dried nuts were stored, giving a bad reputation to Guinea Bissau’s products for the next season.
What were the direct and indirect results/deliverables as a result of your placement? Please be as specific as possible. Please provide both soft and hard examples. Hard examples include number of clients/people trained, dollars raised, people impacted, etc)
After 3 months spent at the African Cashew Alliance, I delivered a report on the local cashew markets in 10 countries. Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. This report is currently being edited and reviewed by WATH staff. It contains several recommendations for the local processors, in order to help them improving their sales on the local markets. The local market represents a way to ensure some revenue and is the only opportunity for them to sell “off grade” nuts, that doesn’t meet the quality standards that are required to export. We compared the prices, the packaging, the recipes, the secondary products and the distribution of cashew nuts in all those countries, to identify major trends, major constraint to consumption, and to benchmark best practices.
WATH and ACA will choose the best way to use this report: distribution to all West African processors, organization of training sessions…
Are there opportunities in this field (e.g… health, agriculture or finance) for local and international entrepreneurs?
Only 10% of all raw nuts produced in West Africa are locally processed, either for local consumption or for export. The major part of the production is exported to India, where it is processed and then re-exported to Europe and the US. There are clearly opportunities to further develop export oriented cashew processing businesses in this field. Many NGOs are already working in that field and providing help to local entrepreneurs. The major constraint faced by local processors is definitely the investment: due to very high rates, they can hardly get loans from banks to expand their companies to build good infrastructures. For instance, I met a Nigerian entrepreneur who could not produce enough cashew nuts to satisfy the demand; he was compelled to buy raw kernels from Benin because it was too difficult for him to develop its production capacity. Nigeria has the biggest potential for local consumption of processed cashew nuts and some local processors/roasters have difficulties to grow…
Questions about Personal Experience:
Why are you interested in international development and private sector development?
Doing something that makes sense, providing input to create value where people need it the most were clearly my first two motivations to work in this sector. Moreover, the realistic approach of private sector development looked like a guarantee that I would do something really useful for local people. I think that local entrepreneurs can be among the best drivers for development in Third World countries, by creating value and employment. Finally I just have the impression that developing countries are the place where important things really happen: fight against poverty, major economic, social and political changes… and contributing, at a very, very small scale to those evolutions is really exciting and rewarding.
Originally, why did you want to participate in this program?
I just finished my MBA program in December and was still looking for a strong and meaningful experience abroad. I already had an experience in private sector in India last year and being part of international development programs seemed exciting for all the reasons I mentioned in the previous question.
MWB’s position was a way for me to make a first step in this sector, to discover new parts of the world, and to work in a multi-cultural environment right after my graduation which is usually not so easy.
What were your main challenges, both personally and professionally?
The main challenge was, in my opinion, to coordinate a market study in 10 countries: to work with several organizations in those countries, to find partners and to manage them from Accra. Being only 24 years old, I had never had to manage so many people at the same time, with a very tight deadline. Some of the consultants we worked with were paid by WATH/ACA but others worked with us for free. I found really difficult but also very interesting to adapt my words to those various types of partners: it is not so easy to put some pressure on someone you do not pay to get your results on time…
Time was the major constraint throughout the mission: designing the study, preparing a guideline for the consultants in charge of the field research, writing the final report could have taken more than the 3 months I spent on it.
One of the professional challenges was also to adapt my knowledge in marketing and market surveys to the reality of the African market: the reality can really be far from the theory… For instance making recommendations about packaging material can be ridiculous in some areas where cashew nuts are mainly packed in glass liquor bottles with the labels of whisky brands…
On a personal level, I did not face many problems in living and working in Ghana. I spent most of last year in India and South East Asia which helped me to learn how to live in a totally unknown country, to meet people, to communicate even if the English spoken by local people is not always easy to understand…
Was the monthly stipend of $1,000US/month sufficient and how, if needed, would you change the way and what MBAs Without Borders financially covers?
$ 1,000 US per month was enough to live very correctly in Accra. My housing was paid and I staid in a very clam and clean hotel at only 5 minute walk away from my office.
What would have made this experience even better for you?
Even if this experience was really positive for me, I would have appreciated to be on the field more often. I spent most of my time in my office and would have liked to visit more factories, more plantations. This is basically the “problem” of market surveys: analyzing data and writing reports is interesting but seeing the concrete consequences of this would have been even better!
What advice would you like to offer future MBAs who work abroad for MBAs Without Borders?
I used some knowledge and some capacities I did not know I had, my academic background was necessary to do what I was expected to do, but one of the main things I learnt is probably to be able to work with all the uncertainty and daily difficulties of life and work in Africa: power cuts when you absolutely need a computer, holidays decided by the President of Nigeria the day before, flight delays… Then my only advice would be to be prepared to those uncertainties and to adapt oneself to the unexpected situations that are very likely to happen in developing countries.
Why would you recommend others to participate on MWB programs?
The positions offered by MWB ensure very rewarding jobs and great responsibility. I have the impression that there is a real need for trained people such as MBAs in lots of development organizations.
This kind of project is an excellent way to enter the sector of international business, to meet people that have great experiences in many different countries, with outstanding backgrounds and/or a great knowledge of the filed reality.
Finally, this is the kind of experience that really enable people to learn a lot and to differentiate ones CV…
What are some of your goals and aspirations (i.e. job, personal, etc), that you are planning for once this placement has concluded
I am thinking about working in international development in a few years. Discovering what this is really about and what opportunities it offers, I consider this kind of career as a very serious option for my future. On the short term, I am now going to look for a job in France, probably in some consulting firms, mainly to learn more. I feel that I still need to improve my work methods, my skills to really contribute to projects that aim at developing private sector in Third World countries, or anywhere it is needed to revitalize a region.
Going back to “normal life” is not so easy, I definitely miss the rewarding work I did for the past 3 months, the people I met in West Africa…