Technical assistance in practice; a story of brain, brawn, a lab and a sports field
“Not only does the TAF team oversee service provision on projects, but also intervenes directly when there is an unforeseen issue or additional piece of support required…”
Managing a portfolio of technical assistance projects requires a combination of practical and analytical skills; you could see it as brain and brawn, if you prefer. It is a mix of hands in the dirt and head scratching, preferably the other way around in order to keep your scalp clean. Before I make any overreaching claims that the Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) of the African Agriculture Fund (AAF), where I work as a portfolio manager, has achieved the perfect balance of brain and brawn, let me admit that it takes some fine tuning, and a couple of trial and errors to find the right approach.
The purpose of the AAF’s TAF, implemented by TechnoServe, is to enable small businesses, small-scale farmers, farmers’ organizations, and cooperatives to benefit, either directly or indirectly, from investments made by the Fund. The TAF team, the investors and our donors want to see these benefits reaped, just as much as you would want to see your favorite team win the tournament. TAF’s projects are therefore very much results oriented. When selecting service providers to implement the projects we have identified, we want to choose the one which, for any allocated budget, will deliver the most impact. But we are not just the squad selector sitting on the side bench, we get involved practically. As a team, TAF acts as a hybrid between donor and implementer. We accompany the service providers on the ground; we visit projects on a quarterly basis, not just to take nice pictures for our reports, but to facilitate interactions amongst stakeholders, troubleshoot problems and find solutions.
Working in private public partnerships requires some specific skillsets and the ability to interact across a wide spectrum of organizational cultures. In particular, when working on agricultural value chain projects and with smallholders on the African continent, the expertise is still very much in the hands of NGOs. Such organisations have had years of expertise in the countries where they work and have gained the trust of smallholders with whom they work, but they typically do not speak the language of the agribusinesses. On the flip side, consulting agencies with expertise in business management, or even the AAF portfolio companies with whom TAF works, do not necessarily know how to engage with smallholders. This is where the TAF team have to roll up their sleeves and jump into the fray.
This practical approach to project management would not add much value, however, if the team did not dedicate time to some more analytical work. You will tell me this is just common sense; action and reflection should go hand in hand, but it is not always a given. Way too often, development agencies miss the opportunity to couple analytical work to project implementation, not necessarily by choice but mostly by design.
As a native French speaker, one of the first English expressions I learnt through my work at TAF is “sounding board” because our team is encouraged to use each other, as well as our partners, for advice and problem solving. We come with different backgrounds, and each of one of us manages a variety of projects linked to a very diverse portfolio of companies across the continent. Using our teammates and other stakeholders as sounding boards helps ensure that the projects we manage benefit from the lessons learnt on other projects as well as the insights from different individual and organisational skill sets and perspectives.
We extend this analytical work to the service providers whom we are working with. Zariro Consulting, for example, has been implementing a series of projects in Madagascar for TAF. The latest project plans to work with a farmer association, with over 130,000 members countrywide, to trade maize on behalf of its member farmers who grow the crop. Elias Chikoto, CEO of Zariro Consulting remarks that “the model was greatly welcomed by FIFATA and the maize farmers in large part because TAF experience of implementing a similar project in Burkina Faso were shared. FIFATA and the farmers were particularly keen to learn from the Burkina experiences as they recognised many similarities between the market situation in Burkina Faso and Madagascar.”
To be honest, as much as we intend to scratch our heads prior to getting our hands dirty, it is hard to maintain a clean scalp, as lots of lessons are learnt and shared along the way, requiring more head scratching. TAF monitors project progress closely and is able to respond and adapt plans according to new information, and this flexibility is key to maintaining an eye on the final goal.
In a sense, TAF therefore acts as a lab, where partnerships and concepts can be tested and hopefully replicated. Within our mandate and budget, we have resources allocated for “platform” projects that encourage innovation, learning and problem solving across the AAF TAF portfolio of companies and projects. Overarching topics include: access to mechanization for smallholders; smart subsidies and access to finance and sustainable extension models.
Like any sports player, brain and brawn don’t always suffice. Stamina is key, and back to my initial claim: if it is true that we have achieved and enjoy a healthy balance of practical and analytical work, brain and brawn, our stamina has not been tested to the full extent. A TAF 2.0, now that our brain is sharper and our brawn all flexed up, would be up for longer distances. Most projects implemented had a maximum duration of two years, which in a context of business development in the agricultural sector is not enough to completely sustain on the field the practical efforts born from the analytical work in the lab.
This blog is a part of the June 2017 series on advisory support for inclusive businesses in partnership with USAID and the African Agricultural Fund’s Technical Assistance Facility, both of which deliver advisory support and have new analysis of it just launched (AAF’s TAF) and forthcoming (USAID).
Read the full series for more lessons from seven different providers of advisory support and stories of success from entrepreneurs.