"The kindness of consultants"

At GTZ in Nigeria I was part of a project called EoPSD

EoPSD stands for "Employment oriented Private Sector Development", although a better name might be EaGPP, standing for Ed and Gabby Pension Plan.
Ed and Gabby are two "Development Consultants" who were part time "project advisors" to GTZ. They are paid at short term consultant rates (1,000 Euros per day), although the project is scheduled to last between 5 - 10 years, hence EaGPP.

The title of this post is ironic: one one occasion Ed asked me to work at the weekend, and promised to buy me lunch if I did so. As a VSO volunteer I anticipated a rare treat such as a pizza; at a cost of 2,000 Naira not normally affordable on a VSO allowance. Actually Ed sent a driver to buy takeway from Mr Biggs, the Nigerian equivalent of McDonalds. This cost him about 350 Niara, saving him 1,650 Niara, or about 10 Euros, i.e. 1% of his daily income. I hope he spent this money wisely.

To be fair I have to say that there was also a full time consultant at GTZ who headed up the team working in the financial sector with community banks and MFI's. In contrast to the two part-timers he was very generous to all the VSO volunteers (there were seven working at GTZ at various times), and showed us a lot of kindness.

It was interesting to see how "International Development" is a business; I wonder how the typical German taxpayer would feel to see how their money was being spent; for example the EoPSD website was developed by a German consultancy firm in collaboration with the two part-time consultants (who do not have any experience in this area). Before going to Nigeria I worked as an IT consultant in London and have an MSc in Internet Engineering, so I can confirm that there are Nigerian firms with the skills to create complex websites. I would therefore have to ask why this expensive (and largely non-functional) website was developed in Germany.

Good news from Africa

The image of Africa presented in the Western media is generally negative. It would be nice to encourage more Africans to use the web to counter this, whether by blogging, creating websites, etc.
One good source for news on Africa is the BBC World website.

why have I started a blog?

There is a quote that sticks in my mind: "there are two superpowers in the world today - the United States of America and global public opinion"
The aim of this blog is to change the world, by influencing other people, and giving them the opportunity to influence me. The title of the blog refers to my experience as a VSO volunteer in Abuja, Nigeria. I went out to Nigeria in March 2004 and returned to London in March 2006. It was a fantastic experience; contrary to the image that we get from the popular media in the U.K. Nigeria is a great country, corrupted and exploited by a few selfish and greedy people.
Being part of VSO was, and is, also a fantastic experience. In Nigeria I met VSO volunteers from Holland, The Philipines, Kenya, Uganda, Canada, The U.S.A, New Zealand, Germany, and probably some others that I can't remember.
To get the blog started, here is a link to an article in todays Observer .
my VSO experience was unusual, and interesting, in that I was working for GTZ; the German Agency for Technical Co-operation. The aim was for a partnership between VSO and GTZ in Nigeria; unfortunately this didn't happen. I'll write more about this in future blogs.