Team Gambia of Jelka S, Mariah H, Mike Q, and Zeenith E embarked on their summer journey on Tuesday July 1, the day after the last assignments were due.  We knew this was no ordinary Strategic Consulting Project (SCP) when we signed on to help the Private Public Partnership of Haygrove and Concern Universal, but this point really hit home when we landed in Banjul airport and waited for our luggage with a beetle larger than your big toe! 

But this SCP has more than just an exotic location, it is really an amazing project.  We are being asked to audit the entire business of Gambia is Good (GiG), analyze what is working and not working, conduct a visioning workshop with all of the stakeholders to set their long term and short term vision, create a strategy, and finally recommend a 1-2 year operational plan and see if they can transform from an NGO to a profitable business.  The current objectives of GiG is to develop local small scale farmers such that they can provide high quality, locally produced vegetables and fruit to hotels and restaurants in The Gambia.  After just one week on the ground with them we can also see a much broader opportunity for this business.

We have had an intensive first week working non-stop to learn as much as possible about the business and to prepare for the visioning session Saturday July 12.  We spent a full day on GiG farm which serves as a research site, conference center, back up production, and tourist location.  Then we spent the next day in the office.  We met first with the head horticulturist, then took part in the monthly production meeting where sales and marketing tells the production managers how much of which varieties of produce they will need and production managers review where and how they can get it from.  It is important to note that while the production managers work for GiG, the producers (farmers) do not.  Thus it is a tough exercise with your supply being dependent on independent, small scale farmers who you do not control, at this point they don’t even have contracts with them.  Clearly this area is one of constant worry for the business and one we hope to address.

The theme of production continues on day 3 which we spent at a regional farmers meeting in the Western Division where we were welcomed by the local women with song and dance.  At this workshop we spent the full day discussing their perspectives on what was going right and what needed to be improved with their relationship with GiG.  After the full session our SCP team split up and each spent some one on one time with a few of the different farmers to ask some more pointed questions away from the GiG staff to help round out our knowledge and keep it more unbiased.

While we wanted to spend Saturday on the glorious Gambian beach, we only got a few hours off in the morning and instead headed to the ferry, across the river Gambia, to the North Bank region and a different view of production and training.  We spent the next day and a half going to the farmer training facility, meeting with the local production manager, visiting a community garden funded by another NGO, going to successful small scale farms started by former students of the training center, visited some truly small gardens which people have started in a spare plot of land to generate some extra income, and even helped harvest tomatoes and grade and select onions from one of the farms.  As we reached the ferry at sunset on Sunday we were drained from two days in the heat and sun, but brimming over with more questions and ideas and excited to get started on the vision planning and recommendations.

Monday we spent time with the Finance team, understanding the current accounts, what donor funding the “business” still relies on, and what areas of inefficiency there are which we can hopefully address to help their operating costs.  Then Tuesday we finally dove into the planning and pre-work for the visioning session so that it will run smoothly Sat – Mon.  We really want to do a good job, so we are putting a lot of thought into it.  To make sure the sessions are successful, we even ran them on ourselves.  Not sure what the team will come up with, but after an hour and a half of brainstorming and prioritizing we came up with two potential vision statements, which sound incredible if you ask me!  To round out our business exposure we spent Wed exploring the customer side of the with hotel, restaurant and market visits all of which were intriguing.  The customers in general were very pleased with the quality of the product and service they were receiving from GiG so we are off to a good start there.  Thursday and Friday are 100% dedicated to putting the rest of the workshop together and despite trying to be efficient, actually working quite well together, and wanting the same things out of the event, we are still up until past midnight every night trying to get this done.  But we all know it will be worth it when we are able to deliver a thought provoking and valuable workshop.

We keep looking longingly at the beautiful beach and dreaming of the weekend we will get off on the 19th so that we can really enjoy this lovely country.  We did manage to squeeze in a concert by a famous artist from Sierra Leone (Emerson), so we have had a bit of fun amidst the hard work.  Stay tuned for next weeks update to hear how the vision session goes.

(Personal Note from Mariah:  It is getting harder and harder to imagine having a desk job.  I knew this was going to be a life changing experience, but I was not sure the impact of that.  This week, number of hours spent in an office = 12, hours spent working > 60!)