Letter from Kenya #3 (August 6, 2006): The Work
Dear friends,
After my past email it came to my attention that some believe I was cheering for Italy during the World Cup finals. Despite the fact that Italy did not have a long or widespread colonial presence in Africa (as opposed to France), rest assured that the Azuri were not the recipients of my support. That said, I have to admit that I had hoped that France would "bring it" so that Zidane would go down in history books with the likes of Ronaldo and Pele. Unfortunately, I think the head butt that rocked the world will be making the liner notes. As they say, c'est la vie.
On a completely different note, a few people have asked what it is I do out here, exactly. Now that I have a better idea myself of this, I thought I'd share my interpretation of what goes on out here.
1. The Work, Broadly Speaking
So the NGO I work for is kind of a pseudo-NGO; it splits its time/resources between providing "development services" and "evaluation."
What does that mean, you ask? Basically a group of development economists, nearly all from the U.S., take on projects that people generally believe are good (e.g. school lunches, girls' bursaries for secondary school, HIV/AIDS education, capacity building for subsistence agriculture, credit risk-sharing, etc), but they deploy services in a way that allows them to gauge if people's lives improved because of the NGO service rendered or because of other factors. And, if they're able, they try to throw in a little cost/benefit analysis and offer policy information regarding public vs. private goods, the benefits of externalities, and the impacts of nutrition, health, education and capacity building.
So what do I do? I like to think of myself as the little Dutch boy, using my fingers to plug up holes in projects. The ECs (which is a fancy term for "research assistant") are responsible for smoothing out kinks and balancing the needs of local communities against the needs of our staffs against the needs of our bosses in the U.S. My job is to make sure that "research threats" are mitigated, avoided, or measured so they can be factored into the analysis later. The other part of my job is to make sure that people in our target population actually receive services.
2. The Office
So I come into the office between 7-7:30AM Monday through Friday, and on rare occasions around 6:30AM or 8AM. Since it's quiet before hours, I usually spend the morning focusing on any (or all) of the following: answering emails, entering data, writing randomization codes, packing up supplies, prepping training materials for our field officers, putting in budget requests, catching up on our project's accounting, revising/editing grant proposals and papers. At about 8AM the office staff starts pouring in, including our field officers (who distribute services to the local community but also conduct surveys) and our project coordinators (who manage/direct the field officers).
Then, many of the following things happen, usually at the same time:
1. I check in with the Project Coordinator to make sure everything's ok with the field activities.
2. I check in with our field officers, brief them about the day, take questions and address snafus in the field.
3. The team leaves for the field, and then I do things like inventory our supplies, put in purchase orders, etc.. Then I try to balance our accounts, figure out payroll, etc.
4. Someone breaks their computer, or my computer, or the printer, or the intranet and I spend time trying to fix it. Usually the power will go out about 2-3 times during this time.
5. I teach 3-4 people how to design wedding invitations.
6. The country director of the NGO calls, and I brief her on any and all administrative concerns/challenges. I usually propose solutions, and I'm usually responsible for then creating the accounting and personnel forms and protocols that I've just recommended, reminding me again that I should keep my big mouth shut.
7. I input more data and send it to the U.S., and back it up 1000 times in preparation for aforementioned power outages.
8. I'm given an unfunded mandate to hire new staff, so I come up with some fun arithmetic acrobatics to pay them, at least in the short term. I sit in on interviews and listen to people try to explain to me how they have experience taking anthropometric measures because they did an experiment that involved weighing children who had been electrocuted (both dead and alive).
9. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So it's a little crazy, but altogether it's not so bad, and the lack of structure kind of keeps me on my toes.
3. The Field
Every now and again I get to go to the field, which basically means traveling with a team of field staff and watching in as they conduct interviews and distribute services. This is one of the best parts of the day because I get to see a lot of the local village communities, talk to people, gain some exposure to local dialects, and see whether people are into the services they're receiving or if they think these services are useless. This is also a nice counterbalance to the office because it helps frame why I took this job to begin with. Being in the field is also exhausting and grimy and takes about 13 hours, including some very bumpy traveling. More importantly, though, it helps keep me grounded.
So that's what I do in a nutshell. It's not very glamorous or elaborate, but I like it.
After my past email it came to my attention that some believe I was cheering for Italy during the World Cup finals. Despite the fact that Italy did not have a long or widespread colonial presence in Africa (as opposed to France), rest assured that the Azuri were not the recipients of my support. That said, I have to admit that I had hoped that France would "bring it" so that Zidane would go down in history books with the likes of Ronaldo and Pele. Unfortunately, I think the head butt that rocked the world will be making the liner notes. As they say, c'est la vie.
On a completely different note, a few people have asked what it is I do out here, exactly. Now that I have a better idea myself of this, I thought I'd share my interpretation of what goes on out here.
1. The Work, Broadly Speaking
So the NGO I work for is kind of a pseudo-NGO; it splits its time/resources between providing "development services" and "evaluation."
What does that mean, you ask? Basically a group of development economists, nearly all from the U.S., take on projects that people generally believe are good (e.g. school lunches, girls' bursaries for secondary school, HIV/AIDS education, capacity building for subsistence agriculture, credit risk-sharing, etc), but they deploy services in a way that allows them to gauge if people's lives improved because of the NGO service rendered or because of other factors. And, if they're able, they try to throw in a little cost/benefit analysis and offer policy information regarding public vs. private goods, the benefits of externalities, and the impacts of nutrition, health, education and capacity building.
So what do I do? I like to think of myself as the little Dutch boy, using my fingers to plug up holes in projects. The ECs (which is a fancy term for "research assistant") are responsible for smoothing out kinks and balancing the needs of local communities against the needs of our staffs against the needs of our bosses in the U.S. My job is to make sure that "research threats" are mitigated, avoided, or measured so they can be factored into the analysis later. The other part of my job is to make sure that people in our target population actually receive services.
2. The Office
So I come into the office between 7-7:30AM Monday through Friday, and on rare occasions around 6:30AM or 8AM. Since it's quiet before hours, I usually spend the morning focusing on any (or all) of the following: answering emails, entering data, writing randomization codes, packing up supplies, prepping training materials for our field officers, putting in budget requests, catching up on our project's accounting, revising/editing grant proposals and papers. At about 8AM the office staff starts pouring in, including our field officers (who distribute services to the local community but also conduct surveys) and our project coordinators (who manage/direct the field officers).
Then, many of the following things happen, usually at the same time:
1. I check in with the Project Coordinator to make sure everything's ok with the field activities.
2. I check in with our field officers, brief them about the day, take questions and address snafus in the field.
3. The team leaves for the field, and then I do things like inventory our supplies, put in purchase orders, etc.. Then I try to balance our accounts, figure out payroll, etc.
4. Someone breaks their computer, or my computer, or the printer, or the intranet and I spend time trying to fix it. Usually the power will go out about 2-3 times during this time.
5. I teach 3-4 people how to design wedding invitations.
6. The country director of the NGO calls, and I brief her on any and all administrative concerns/challenges. I usually propose solutions, and I'm usually responsible for then creating the accounting and personnel forms and protocols that I've just recommended, reminding me again that I should keep my big mouth shut.
7. I input more data and send it to the U.S., and back it up 1000 times in preparation for aforementioned power outages.
8. I'm given an unfunded mandate to hire new staff, so I come up with some fun arithmetic acrobatics to pay them, at least in the short term. I sit in on interviews and listen to people try to explain to me how they have experience taking anthropometric measures because they did an experiment that involved weighing children who had been electrocuted (both dead and alive).
9. Lather, rinse, repeat.
So it's a little crazy, but altogether it's not so bad, and the lack of structure kind of keeps me on my toes.
3. The Field
Every now and again I get to go to the field, which basically means traveling with a team of field staff and watching in as they conduct interviews and distribute services. This is one of the best parts of the day because I get to see a lot of the local village communities, talk to people, gain some exposure to local dialects, and see whether people are into the services they're receiving or if they think these services are useless. This is also a nice counterbalance to the office because it helps frame why I took this job to begin with. Being in the field is also exhausting and grimy and takes about 13 hours, including some very bumpy traveling. More importantly, though, it helps keep me grounded.
So that's what I do in a nutshell. It's not very glamorous or elaborate, but I like it.
posted by Camille @ 9:55 PM
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