Question from a reader:

Did you ever secure funding from the Dutch Funding agency?
YES!    We successfully convinced the funding agency to provide $10,000 for, …guess what… ?
An improved pork production project!
The ACEN board was able to convince this funding organization that a pork production project would be profitable in a country where 99.5% of the population is Muslim! (Islam forbids its followers to eat pork.)

The representative of the funding agency seemed to enjoy her role as mentor. Rather than just being the gatekeeper to her agency’s funds she found herself invited to impart her knowledge and wisdom to contribute to the skills of the ACEN board members. Unlike her first few days in Niger this was a no-pressure gig!

While the formal dress of Djara and Baljuwa differed from European business attire and in spite of their limited French, these ACEN board members are truly wise and experienced individuals.

Because of its non-Muslim identity, the Gourmanche people have always had some pigs running around their villages. Every few months a few old pick-up trucks rattle their way through the roadless bush into the villages to ask for ‘Gabriel’ – the code word for pork. The Muslim drivers then buy up as many pigs as their vehicles can carry and sell the meat in Niamey.

The ACEN board members realized that their traditional way of pig raising could not keep up with the demands of the pork vendors. So, they wanted to hire a veterinarian on retainer for a year to introduce (in their words) ‘modern’ pork production techniques in the Gourmanche villages. During an initial interview with the Nigerien veterinarian they had already heard that they would need to build pig pens and that it would be valuable to plant Moringa trees, since adding moringa leaves to the millet chaff for feed would make pigs grow faster. Besides that, planting Moringa would also contribute to reforestation, and consuming the beans as part of the family’s diet, would provide much needed iron to their diet.

And, so, by the time they met with the representative of the funding agency the ACEN board already had a detailed plan as to how this would work, who would be involved, and how they expected this to affect their people. Once they had verbally explained their plans to the representative I put the ACEN board members together with my Nigerien colleague Harouna. The board members would verbally explain their ideas to Harouna who would then transcribe their ideas into proper French, following a standard proposal outline. Thanks to the ACEN board’s solid plans and Harouna’s skill in transcribing these plans into an excellent proposal ACEN was awarded $10,000 to start an improved pork production project.

Harouna then worked with the ACEN board members to manage this grant.

ACEN contracted the veterinarian who provided advice on housing, feed, and care. He immunized the pigs, taught about fertility, and monitored the pork production enterprises in each village for a year. Project participants planted hundreds of Moringa trees in each of their villages (introducing Moringa as a new tree/food variety.) They collected millet chaff from village households for feed and mixed it with other ingredients and Moringa leaves. Individuals were selected to look after the pigs, and the vet was called on when needed. Some families also started using the nutritious Moringa leaves and beans for personal consumption. And, finally, the increasing the number of pigs for sale would improve their terms of trade for the villagers.  

When we left Niger this project was being implemented, and it continues to operate with success.

This project reinforced a lessen that I had learned many years earlier from the ACEN board members. A lesson that is so well-articulated by the Latin-American development genius Paulo Freire, who warned against “…a lack of confidence in people’s ability to think, to want, and to know.” In other words: TRUST the folks that you work with to be capable of making the right decisions!
Below: One of the modern pork production units resulting from this grant.​