The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World

by Jacqueline Novogratz

With one day left in the country, I found myself in the Kigali hospital, waiting among patients suffering from AIDS and malaria. After the doctor x-rayed my hand, he showed me the three bones with neat breaks right through the fingers. He then created a humongous cast that stretched from my fingers to my shoulder and charged me a total of $2 for the service.

  That evening, the women of Duterimbere held a going-away party for me. Wearing a maroon dress, Prudence presented me with a gold fertility necklace and a blessing that I would bear many children. The rest of the women gave me a beautiful quilt sewn with bright-colored renditions of my favorite scenes in Rwanda. In the center was Duterimbere's logo and along the sides were scenes from the blue bakery, children learning to read, the rolling mountains of Rwanda, the marketplace, and even a group of prisoners dressed in pink-in recognition that I thought it so strange that the government had decided on pale pink to dress those who had committed crimes.

  "We've done something wonderful together," Prudence said to the whole group. "We've built an institution that will show Rwanda and the world what women are capable of accomplishing. This country will grow stronger because of this work and because of women's solidarity."

  For a moment, I wanted to cancel my trip home to the United States and stay to see these dreams completely realized, though I knew that in reality this would take decades. A big part of me didn't believe I was leaving Rwanda, leaving Africa, anyway. Ginette told me that I might as well count on not leaving it for long, for it was clear the continent had gotten under my skin. I shook my head and said it would be at least a few years before I returned.

  I found myself quietly weeping on the flight back home and thought of my younger self crying on the plane when I had first come to Africa. The places I'd been had changed me more than I'd impacted them, but I'd also seen what a small group of people could do to change the world. I wouldn't have given up the experience for anything.

  BACK HOME IN VIRGINIA, in January I learned I'd been accepted at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and had 9 months before classes began. Though being with my family was divine, "home" felt foreign to me-my interest in African politics was shared by few, and I would watch the eyes of friends glaze over as I told too many stories about the people I'd known there and the places I'd encountered.

  I began searching for a short-term consultancy, something that would take me back to Africa. Through a number of connections, I secured a contract at the World Bank to focus on agriculture, women, and West Africa. Within weeks I was assigned to a project in Gambia, an anglophone country located in francophone West Africa. The nation is a sliver of an isthmus right in the middle of Senegal, along the strategically important Gambia River, a stark indication of how the colonial carving of territory in Africa had given no thought to what might make sense for the Africans who lived there.

  My mission was to work with Gambia's Department of Agriculture on a $15 million soft-loan package from the World Bank. Highly paid consultants had been working for months with the Gambian government to craft the proposal, but despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees paid, neither the Gambian government nor the Bank itself thought the final product was adequate. I was asked to review and complete the proposal to the satisfaction of both the Gambian government and the World Bank. Having seen Duterimbere run for more than 2 years for a fraction of what was paid to the bank's consultants made me resolve to do things differently, but I wasn't sure where to begin.

  The consultancy started in the plush offices of the Bank in its Washington, DC, headquarters. I loved seeing people from all corners of the globe walking the halls-learned men and women, all focused on helping the developing world. I knew the Bank's shortcomings-its top-down approach and need to lend directly to governments, which had led to too many failed projects-but I also could see the potential of a powerful institution with the sole mission of supporting countries that had significant development needs.

  Since my task was to revise a proposal for women agriculturalists in Gambia, I started by researching everything I could find on what the Bank had done previously in that country, especially with regard to women farmers. One project stopped me in my tracks: The Bank had spent more than $20 million over the course of more than a decade to implement an irrigation project for rice production. Early memos discussed how investment in an irrigation technology would greatly enhance productivity for the country's major food crop, rice, thus enhancing child nutrition as well as increasing farmers' overall income levels. The idea made good sense. Despite Gambia's being a coastal country, irrigation was needed for better production, and early cost-benefit analyses showed a likelihood of raising yields tenfold or more.

  I could understand how experts initially might have determined this a sound proposal, but many years of investing in the irrigation program had yielded nothing but disastrous results. Rice production had actually declined, and the health of women and children in the area had only worsened; indeed, early death rates among children had risen. Despite the logic of irrigating land to improve agricultural productivity, tens of millions of dollars had been spent with little to show for it.

  The story of what happened is textbook for traditional aid and how not to do it. Imagine the 1970s, when this project started. Well-intentioned agronomists and engineers from the World Bank arrived in Gambia, ready to help set up sophisticated irrigation systems that would improve food production. These men (most of the World Bank staff were men at the time) would interact with the government, which would identify farmers to work on the project. The project's farmers were typically men, though in Gambia women were responsible for growing rice while men cultivated the country's major cash crop, peanuts. So why focus on men? Because irrigation used technology, which was considered a man's domain.

  The farmers laid the irrigation pipes and worked the land, ignoring their own fields, and rice production actually declined over time-not because irrigation wasn't needed, but because it was managed by individuals having experience neither with rice nor with the new technology. What is surprising is not the poor results, but that so little was done to address the project's problems for so many years.

  Reading the proposal I was to work on did little to make me feel better: The money was mostly designated for giveaway programs that I thought would undoubtedly fail. For instance, $1 million had been allocated to purchase maize mills to reduce women's labor. Traditionally, West African women worked for hours milling maize by hand. By reducing this grueling work, women would have time for other things, including earning income. In theory, it made sense to provide technologies to reduce labor needs, but theory isn't enough. I'd already seen dozens of well-intentioned programs exactly like this fail miserably.

  Typically, aid workers would help install the mills, and local communities would operate them until, inevitably the mills would break down. Few people knew how to repair them, so the mills would sit broken and useless. Other villages suffered a lack of diesel to fuel the mills. On top of these problems, the Japanese government had just donated thousands of maize mills to women's groups and villages across the country. The notion that the Bank's new initiative might provide thousands more mills seemed absurd.

  Of all the initiatives in the document, one stood out: an experiment to more effectively sell fertilizer on credit to women farmers. I'd seen the importance of household food security in Kenya and Rwanda; individual farming families needed the tools to feed themselves through farming or earn enough income to buy food. The Green Revolution in India had demonstrated how better inputs-seeds and fertilizers-could improve agricultural production dramatically, but these options were rarely made available to smallholder farmers. The idea of combining access to credit with an input that could improve farmers' productivity was powerful.

  I still had a lot of questions about the proposal, but I knew the next step was to go to Gambia and see for myself. In truth, I had missed Africa and was excited to be returning only months after I'd left Rwanda.

  The nearly empty jet f
lew over the West African coastline and landed in Gambia's sleepy capital, Banjul, in a cloud of dust. All I could see were flatlands to my left and right and, in front of me, a tiny airport with a single terminal. A wave of thick, hot air hit my face the second I walked onto the tarmac, reminding me immediately of how much this tropical, flat part of Africa differed from the mountains of Rwanda and the dry savannas of Kenya.

  A friendly taxi driver took me to the Bungalow Beach Hotel, a lovely place situated right by the palm-fringed ocean. The main house was painted white, and I had my own little apartment near the water, making it necessary to walk through beautiful tropical gardens to reach my room. A small restaurant under a thatched roof stood beside the swimming pool, and the hotel grounds were filled with beautiful, colorful birds. Outside my window was a tree full of yellow weaverbirds singing playfully and building their nests. I felt free again the minute I arrived.

  I met my teammate a few days later; Duncan was a tall, slender engineer with dark hair and glasses. He always wore short-sleeved shirts with pencils in his front pocket and carried an enormous briefcase. Seated by the pool, we discussed our "mission" to craft a realistic proposal for the World Bank's $15 million soft loan to Gambia. I'd been appointed leader of the mission and shared my concerns about the task we'd been given and the work that had already been done. I didn't like the lack of accountability and felt that another $15 million loan, even with no interest, would do no favors for this country unless we were confident of seeing real changes in productivity.

  Duncan agreed, and we discussed how we would approach the next weeks of work. We'd speak with everyone we could find, go out to the rural areas, meet farmers, consult with the government ministers, and be as fair and as thoughtful as we could. We were committed to doing the right thing for the Gambian people. That was our deal.

  We spent a week or so in Banjul, located on an island at the mouth of the Gambia River and connected to the mainland by a bridge. The city's streets were always full of traders hawking their wares in front of twostory buildings with arched passageways that reminded me of some of Bombay's commercial streets. Women sold colorful batik fabrics and gold and silver jewelry, baskets, and vegetables, often under makeshift tents that shielded them from the hot sun. But for all of the petty trading, agriculture was what sustained the majority of people in the country.

  As Duncan and I were leaving the capital to visit rural farms, we passed a row of eight women sitting by the roadside, selling oysters in the hot sun. They'd gathered them in the mangroves, a jumble of roots and plants along the banks of the Gambia River that created enormous swamps that held not only debris, but fresh oysters, too.

  "One dalasi for a lid of delicious oysters," a skinny woman yelled at our car, her face breaking into a vivacious smile. Now I was definitely back in Africa, where, despite the crushing poverty that faces the majority of people, there is a sense of boundless enthusiasm that never fails to infuse me with energy.

  In one of the villages, we met Haddy, an unforgettable, irrepressible fertilizer retailer probably in her forties, who knew the local farmers and understood the psychology of selling. Her massive body was draped in a deep purple, flowing robe, and her hands were adorned with huge silver and gold rings. She sat regally on an overstuffed bag of fertilizer and was filled with the confidence that comes from knowing more than everyone else about something-or at least believing you do. After 19 years of hard work, Haddy had built an irrefutably successful business. In one day, I learned more from this impressive saleswoman than I had in months of listening to experts in offices.

  I suggested that my colleagues at the Bank wanted her opinion on their proposal to provide loans for inputs like fertilizer through large development and commercial banks.

  "Nonsense!" Haddy explained. "First, we are living too far away from the banks, and second, we don't trust them. Further, most banks don't want to deal with farmers like us. They just want the big ones. The small farmers come to a retailer like me and borrow the money they need to plant and fertilize the harvest. You see, they have no cash and so they rely on credit until the harvest comes, and then they pay back."

  "But how can you count on farmers repaying?" I asked.

  "Because this is a small area and we know everyone. If I had more cash myself, then I could lend even more to the farmers. My credit to you would be strong. So you see? You have to bet only on Haddy, and I will take the responsibility for making sure the others repay me so that I can repay you."

  "How do we know you are a fair seller?" I asked.

  "You must ask the farmers and see what they say," she responded. "I want to help change my country. And I will serve it better than those big banks."

  I didn't doubt her. And at least this was a starting point.

  This idea made sense because it relied on the strength of the local people rather than on the largesse of foreign consultants who would never have to reach into their own pockets. Here was a chance to build on something that was already working. After speaking with other farmers and local distributors, we wrote up our proposal and readied ourselves to present it to the project coordinating committee of the Department of Agriculture. We proposed developing local credit and distribution systems to address the problems of local farmers. The idea was simple-and we believed it could work.

  Down an open-air hallway, we met the woman who headed the committee in her stark white office. Draped in an enormous dress of screaming yellow and defensive blue, she sat behind a wooden desk, her eyes shaded by a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. She made me think of a vulture who considered us a mere distraction from the more political pursuits of her day.

  Before I could get through my opening statement, the chairperson cut us off.

  "Why would you establish a private retail network for women?" she asked curtly. "You will miss the women who are among the poorest of the poor."

  I explained that we were attempting to promote the private sector in a way that reached poor farmers. If we could find a way to help the market actually work for poor farmers, then they could make their own investments in things like fertilizers and seeds and repay when the harvest came in. They wouldn't be waiting for an agency to give them things. I talked about needing a mind-set beyond charity to reach poor farmers: The farmers themselves were market driven and deserved solutions that could help them sustain themselves for years.

  The woman missed the point of whether we would work through local distributors or develop banks altogether. She didn't believe in lending to the poor at all. We were back at square one. "You aren't helping the poorest farmers by giving loans to women already in business. They cannot be so poor if they have businesses."

  I tried to explain that supporting women already in business could actually be good for many people. Besides, I told her, the businesswomen we were talking about were not wealthy by any means.

  "The poor need our help, not businesswomen. Poor women farmers cannot afford to repay your loans. It is only when they get more money that they will be richer."

  You couldn't argue with the latter part of her sentence, but I didn't know how to get out of the circular logic: Whatever I said fell on deaf ears.

  "Just look at the track record of these giveaway programs," I protested. "Broken mills, lower production levels of rice after 20 years of work and money. This can't be right," I continued, maybe with too much selfrighteousness, for I could feel my growing anger. "The only way this will work for the farmers is if they own it themselves, if they can see their own lives getting better because of their efforts and ability to control their own futures and not have to wait around for the government."

  "You don't know this country," she reprimanded me.

  "No," I agreed, "I don't, though I have been listening to farmers."

  "Well, it is most clear that you don't know Gambia," she said and shut her book. The meeting was over.

  We had an ally in the Department of Agriculture, and we continued to push for the fertilizer program. We also tr
ied reducing the $15 million proposal to a $1 million grant that would be an experiment in building a selfsustained fertilizer distribution system, but it was ultimately rejected. Too much money and time had gone into crafting the larger proposal, and a smaller one couldn't be justified, apparently. I never saw the final loan document, but I believe that many of the original initiatives were reinstated, though no one could explain to me how they had a chance of success.

  Although my experience at the World Bank was a frustrating one, I was glad to have had it, to have met a number of extraordinary individuals, and to have gained a better understanding of how incentives to move money out the door can lead to initiatives that can be damaging to local economies. And it reaffirmed my belief in creating structures with the right incentives for success and in finding real business leaders like Haddy and giving them the tools to serve their fellow citizens. I left eager to learn better management skills at Stanford, for I was certain that understanding business was fundamental to building systems for change.

  After a solo drive across the United States, I found myself walking through the halls of Stanford's Graduate School of Business, feeling as if I'd landed in another universe entirely. Kigali made Palo Alto feel like a loaf of Wonder Bread. At the same time, I suddenly found myself with people who spoke my language, came to meetings on time, and made things happen. I loved the ease of it all and had never felt more privileged in my entire life.

  Still, I longed for the colors of Africa, the smells of cooking over an open fire early in the morning, the sight of the purple rain marching across the land. I missed the simple way that people embraced one another; the way they asked about your family, your day, your health before discussing business; the way children waved their hands back and forth, like little Japanese fans aflutter. I missed bargaining for everything. I missed the optimism and resiliency of so many Africans I knew. I missed finding beauty in everyday things. I even missed the rotten roads in Rwanda, as my friend Ginette had predicted as she drove me to the airport in Kigali on bumpy, muddy streets full of potholes.