Down to Business!

‘So WHAT will I be doing exactly…?’ This is a question I have been asking myself many times, especially early on this week, while we were trying to distill expectations down to a realistic Scope of Work….

We will be working with ‘Berendina’, one of Sri Lanka’s leading poverty alleviation non-governmental organizations focusing on economic and social development services.

It was a good week overall and a very positive start of this project. After a couple of days of long meetings at the NPO head quarters we have come to a list of solid deliverables, some of which I have listed below;

1. Assessment of NPO’s current value chain development project in the Dairy Industry and identification of suggestions for improvement

2. Compilation of successful value chain projects or programs that have been implemented nationally and internationally

3. Capacity building training for NGO staff around identification and evaluation of potential value chain opportunities in Sri Lanka (feasibility assessment/market assessment)

Now the SOW has been locked down, and after having spent a long day yesterday evaluating the current dairy value chain, we are working from the hotel today to put together a first draft of the VC mapping and assessment methodology we will use for this project going forward.

……And while we are working out if topping up a cow’s feed with ‘silage waste’ from the ‘paddy lands’ will provide enough extra dairy income to some of the poorest families in Sri Lanka, I am reading in my news feed that ‘some’ president has lashed on twitter at a private company for refusing to enrich his family…It is a funny world we are living in…