Coping with the Economic Crisis

Ever heard of a "dzud"? It's pronounced zuhd, and it's an extraordinarily harsh Mongolian winter -- the kind where temperatures plummet, animals freeze to death, and you can enter your house only through the roof because that's how high the snow is. Any Mongolian will tell you they're bad news.

The dzud during the winter of 2009-2010 was "a national catastrophe," according to Mercy Corps' Oidov Vaanchig, who's based in the capital of Ulan Bator. A shortage of grass during the preceding summer meant that herds of sheep, goats, camels, horses, and cows couldn't put on enough fat to get them through the winter. And herders didn't stock enough animal feed because the financial crisis cut into their cashmere sales. As a result, the unusually cold temperatures killed between 8 and 15 million animals. An estimated 45,000 people lost their entire herd.

A cow or goat skull in the Gobi Desert. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

All those rotting carcasses have been a problem. Herders were unable to bury the dead animals during the winter because the ground was frozen, and burning the carcasses is too risky in Mongolia's dry climate. Serious health problems could result if the rancid flesh is allowed to decay and permeate the water supply. Mercy Corps encouraged rural herders to partner with local veterinary clinics to clean up the carcasses before disease becomes rampant.

We are also training herders to diversify their income so they don't have to completely rely on their animals for survival. Participating herders learn how to sustainably manage pastures and produce vegetables and dairy products while developing business skills in accounting, marketing, and risk-management. We are trying to get herders to share information on commodity prices, and trade knowledge-based skills with each other.

Better access to loans and markets can mean more income for rural herders and ex-herders. And if herders become less vulnerable to nasty weather, maybe the next time you hear about a dzud, the news won't be so bad.

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Liberia is a lush tropical rainforest, just the right climate to grow cocoa beans. And before the country’s two civil wars, it did just that.

Farmers tended cocoa trees and sold the beans for export on the world market. But the long years of conflict decimated Liberia’s cocoa industry. Because they couldn’t farm cocoa for 14 years, a whole generation of cocoa farmers lost the knowledge they once had. What little cocoa they did grow was poor quality, and yields were low.

“The people who used to grow cocoa were killed or displaced during the war,” said Mercy Corps trainer and technical advisor James Kiadii during a visit we made to the cocoa farm in November. “Now there aren’t many people who know how to farm cocoa correctly. The younger generation needs to re-learn what the older generation once knew.”

Mercy Corps staff and beneficiaries at an 80-acre cocoa farm that we're working to rehabilitate in Grand Bassa County, helping farmers re-establish it as a new business. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps has been investing in the revitalisation of Liberia’s cocoa farming industry, with support from our own start-up arm — the Phoenix Fund — as well as the Aspen Institute. We have been working with the Liberia Produce Marketing Corporation to rehabilitate an 80-acre cocoa farm in Grand Bassa County, helping farmers re-establish it as a new business.

Clearing the land

First we hired workers to clear land that became overgrown during the wars, a cash-for-work approach that infused much-needed funds into the local economy. We’re showing farmers — women and men — how to establish and maintain a plant nursery, introducing new varieties of cocoa trees and improved agricultural practices including pest control. With the skills they learn, farmers are growing their own cocoa seedlings so they can rehabilitate their own farms.

The farmers are learning how to inter-plant banana trees between their rows of cocoa seedlings. The bananas provide the shade young cocoa trees need while they’re getting established, as well as a valuable cash crop in the four to five years before the cocoa trees are productive. Once they’re big enough, the banana trees are cut down so the cocoa trees can get the sunlight they need in order to thrive. Mature cocoa trees continue to bear fruit for 25 years.

Higher-quality beans

A ripe cocoa pod hangs on a tree. Mercy Corps has been investing in the revitalisation of Liberia’s cocoa farming industry, with support from our own start-up arm —the Phoenix Fund — as well as the Aspen Institute. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Cocoa beans are harvested at the end of the rainy season, and post-harvest processing is a critical step. Mercy Corps is showing farmers better methods of fermentation and drying that yield higher-quality beans.

We’re teaching farmers how to build solar drying sheds, using a special kind of plastic sheeting, where the beans dry faster and more thoroughly than they did the old way, simply laid out in the sun. Before the introduction of the solar sheds, residual moisture in the cocoa beans kept farmers from getting top prices for their crops.

Mercy Corps also is working with vendors of tools and seeds to make sure they’re able to provide cocoa farmers with the supplies they need. In some cases, this involves building roads so that both farmers and vendors can get to the rural markets where buying and selling takes place. We’re also teaching the farmers how to get the information they need to obtain a fair price for their crops.

Mercy Corps’ long-term aim is to help the farmers become fully independent members of a smooth-functioning agricultural “value chain” — the entire growing, processing and sales cycle — without outside assistance.

Sharing learning and labour

On our recent visit to Grand Bassa county, we talked the women and men who are participating in our programme. A first group of 25 farmers has already graduated, and a second group of 25 farmers is now underway. These farmers are sharing what they’ve learned with their friends, neighbors and family members to establish new cocoa farms on their own land, traveling to each other’s farms to share labour and put the new techniques into practice.

“When the farmers work together, it’s better — and faster,” notes Mercy Corps programme coordinator Emmett Freeman (pictured here talking to a Mercy Corps client). Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

“If you have 600 seedlings, you cannot plant them all by yourself,” notes Mercy Corps programme coordinator Emmett Freeman. “When the farmers work together, it’s better — and faster.”

Connecting to buyers

While not all the cocoa trees are mature yet, the Mercy Corps programme is already bearing fruit. We have helped the farmers organise into cooperatives that now have access to credit for seedlings, fertilizers and solar plastic. The coop is building a central warehouse to properly store — and preserve the value of — the dried beans. Most importantly, the co-op now connects directly with buyers to negotiate fair prices.

Cocoa exporters, who sell directly to chocolate manufacturers, are now willing to make the long trip over bumpy dirt roads to visit the farm and to grade and purchase the better-quality cocoa. That means farmers no longer have to carry the heavy bags of beans to market to meet with buyers.

And of course, they’re earning more. Before the Mercy Corps training, area cocoa farmers earned £27 per 50-kg bag. Now, they’re receiving £33 per 50-kg bag.

“If the cocoa is not graded, the farmers can be cheated,” says Kiadii. Before these relationships were established, all the beans were considered to be of a single (low) grade.

Looking ahead, Mercy Corps hopes to see Liberian cocoa farmers take the final step and turn their own cocoa beans into the powder that’s used for chocolate manufacture. Keeping the added value of a finished product in-country will provide another much-needed boost to the recovering cocoa industry.

In a country that’s in genuine need of sustainable businesses that create living-wage jobs, developing a complete seed-to-powder cycle will be a sweet finish indeed.

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Hello, my name is Fatou Ali, I'm in Central African Republic.

Today, I found economic independence by getting credit, which allowed me to start a business.

Previously, I led a quiet life with my husband. He had a garage (car repair shop) which allowed him to care for his household by buying food and clothing and paying for health care and schooling for the children. But then life got hard because the repair shop failed. With the little money I had, I tried to start a business, but it didn't work because I lacked the capital I needed. With the advent of Mercy Corps' programme here, I discussed our situation with my husband who allowed me to join one of the Village Savings and Loan (VSL) groups.

Thanks to Mercy Corps, I received a loan that has allowed me to trade. Now I sell corn flour and sugar which provides me with an income.

Today I can support my family by providing food for our table, schooling for the kids, and being able to pay for their health care and clothing.

This experience has given me the courage to speak with other Muslim women and encourage them to discuss their business ideas with their husbands. Other women that join VSL groups can benefit from credit like I did, to develop an income generating activity for the good of their household and the future of their children.

I strongly urge other Muslim women to join community groups and enjoy benefits such as the credit I received which has served me well. Thank you.

My name is Fatou Ali, I'm in Bouar in Central African Republic.

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Altone Ibrahim, 19, works as a finance assistant for a local Chamber of Commerce through a Mercy Corps-facilitated internship. Photo: Mercy Corps Kosovo

Kosovo is the youngest country in Europe, both in terms of its statehood and its demographics. Half of the country’s population is under the age of 25, and many of these young people depart for work abroad or are supported by relatives. It’s not easy to get a job here: in 2007, the unemployment rate hovered around 43 percent.

Nineteen-year-old Altone Ibrahim is a young woman from the ethnically divided municipality of Mitrovicë/Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. She recently graduated from a high school specializing in finance and accounting, but she has been unable to find opportunities to use her professional skills. There are very few chances for youth like Altone in Kosovo, which continues to emerge from the shambles of a war that happened a decade ago.

In response to this growing youth unemployment crisis, Mercy Corps recently launched a USAID-funded initiative called Supporting Kosovo’s Young Leaders (SKYL). The SKYL programme, which began last year, supports young people from diverse communities to gain the job skills, experience and support they need to find future employment. Youth attend a variety of trainings and workshops, and are then placed in internships or apprenticeships with private, public or civic institutions throughout Kosovo.

Altone found out about SKYL in her home village of Kcic, applied and was accepted to be a participant in the programme.

Initially, Altone attended SKYL negotiation trainings aimed at developing problem-solving skills among youth, giving them strategies to deal with differences and handle difficult conversations.

“Before the training, every time we had a problem, we reacted with a hot head,” Altone said. “But after the training, we understood that problems cannot be solved like that, and we have to see problems from the other person’s perspective and come to a solution that satisfies all parties.”

After that, Altone attended job skills training, where she said the most important bit of learning was how to write a resume. ”We had only heard that resumes exist, but we had no idea what it looks like and how to make one,” she said.

After the completion of trainings — and writing a resume for the first time — Altone began an internship with the Chamber of Commerce in Mitrovicë/Mitrovica. She was placed as a finance assistant, a role closely connected to her future dream of becoming an accountant.

Each day, her mentor guides her and provides the information and knowledge needed for her chosen line of work. In addition to technical advice, Altone’s mentor also advises her on career development.

The SKYL programme has changed Altone’s life — and she’s eager to share that success with others. “I liked the programme so much that I also convinced my two sisters to join,” she smiles.

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