Description
Lucie and David reflect on the 20th anniversary celebration of the West Africa Community of Practice (COP) in Niger, focusing on the broader context in which it took place. They discuss the practical and geopolitical challenges of working in the region, the importance of in-person engagement for building trust, and the contrasts between local and international ways of working. The conversation highlights the resilience of the COP and the deeper insights gained from engaging with complex, real-world environments.
[00:00:06] Lucie: Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. My name’s Lucie Hazelgrove Planel, I’m a social impact scientist and anthropologist, and I’m here today with David Stern, one of the founding directors of IDEMS.
Hi, David.
[00:00:17] David: Hi, Lucie. Really keen to have a discussion today. I’ve just come back from Niger recently, so I guess that’s what we’re going to be discussing.
[00:00:26] Lucie: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn’t there, which was very frustrating, so I would love to know more. It was a week-long celebration of the 20th anniversary of the research community of practice, with whom we work in West Africa.
[00:00:41] David: Yeah, and the fact you weren’t there is, I think, relevant because this is a very difficult environment to work in. You had an approval from actually the highest law in the land.
[00:00:55] Lucie: I know, I was so excited about that.
[00:00:58] David: To put it into perspective, our collaborators in Niger had to disturb the Minister of Agriculture on a big festival day.
[00:01:11] Lucie: The day after Ramadan, the Friday after Ramadan too.
[00:01:14] David: It ‘s the biggest celebration of the year and they had to disturb him and he called the Minister of the Interior who then arranged these laissez-passer to allow us to travel, and yours was not accepted by the airline.
[00:01:29] Lucie: In France, yes. Despite also having a signature and a visa number from the director of police.
[00:01:36] David: Yes, I mean, it is difficult and it’s not the airline’s fault.
[00:01:40] Lucie: Exactly, our partners thought that it was a problem from their side, and I was like, no, it’s a problem from the French side, really.
[00:01:46] David: It’s not that it is necessarily a problem from the French side. They said you have to have a visa and you had a letter which says you need to be let through to get your visa, and that was not accepted. So it’s these bureaucratic issues where normally this would not be a problem, but in that part of the world, there’s just different processes, a different way of working, and it’s not always compatible.
[00:02:15] Lucie: Doesn’t translate, exactly, yeah.
[00:02:17] David: Yeah. And so it was really, really disappointing that you were not there, for you and for everybody else, you were missed. But I think, in terms of actually our listeners, so to speak, for understanding the context, this is the realities, that, actually, working in Niger, Burkina, Mali, as we do, from the outside this is something which is unimaginable. It’s very difficult for people to relate to these countries.
[00:02:51] Lucie: Especially what you see on the news these days and everything.
[00:02:53] David: Exactly. And yet, landing in Niger, as I’ve done many times before, suddenly it was all clear that things haven’t changed, life goes on, there’s people working hard to make things better in their communities. There’s geopolitical games being played, which they’re caught up in, in different ways. But, on the ground, it’s the same peaceful culture which I grew up in. You know, that hasn’t changed. And the actual event itself, this celebration of 20 years of the community of practice, was really special, and it was really special to be there. The fact that so few people from the outside were able to be there, I have to confess, made it even more special for the few of us who were able to be part of it.
[00:03:48] Lucie: The McKnight Foundation themselves, there were meant to be representatives from there, ideally.
[00:03:54] David: They were planned to be there, but then there were issues about a certain president who decided that many African nations should not travel to the US and so those African nations have retaliated and said, well, then we are not wanting to issue visas to people from the US.
Now, actually, it’s not quite as simple as that because when I was there there were a few Americans there, of course, not as many as there used to be. But it isn’t that there’s no one there. In fact, one of the things which I was astounded by was the Italians. I knew nothing about this, but we were there and we were discussing, and then there was a set of Italians who walked past. And I found that surprising and one of our collaborators said, yeah, given the geopolitical systems, the French aren’t as welcome as they used to be, the Americans aren’t there, and the Italians have stepped in. And so there seems to be, and I don’t know much about this, but even the Germans, GIZ, which is the German development group, they’re still present in all three countries, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. But they’ve reduced. And it seems that the Italians are stepping into the void, at least part of it.
And so, again, this is very interesting in a way where I appreciate that Italians are sort of neutral in this. They are perceived more neutral and they’ve come in and they’re willing to work in these difficult places. And I know this from previous experiences where I’ve worked and collaborated with Italians in South Sudan and in Somalia, countries which are internationally perceived as difficult, you often find that there seems to be a mechanism.
So anyway, I was very impressed and pleased to see that the region isn’t totally abandoned. There are people who are working with them, collaborating, trying to find ways to continue to support the work that’s happening on the ground, which, as you know and I know from the work of our partners, is extremely impressive.
[00:05:54] Lucie: Yeah. And what I wanted to, while we are on this sort of subject too, what I wanted to bring up is, as we were discussing in a different meeting recently, the importance of being there in person. So, as you were saying, there’s ways of working in the region which are perhaps different to what we used to perhaps in Europe or something. And one of those ways of working is also just that in person things go so much easier, so much smoother, so much more collaboratively, I guess.
[00:06:21] David: Yeah, and with trust. I mean, this is the thing, you know, you build trust in person in ways which are so important. You are absolutely right to bring that out. It’s ironic that it’s so difficult now to travel to the region and yet being there in person is so important, and creating those personal connections.
[00:06:42] Lucie: We might as well even say that it’s ironic because this time that we are using to record was actually meant to be with a meeting online with someone in Mali who must either have internet problems or something else came up in person.
[00:06:59] David: Yeah, and we’re taking advantage of it, we’re using this as time to record this episode, and it gives us an opportunity, but it just reinforces that the difficulty in those environments working with international norms in a way that, actually, to me, puts in question the international norms more than it actually is a criticism of the local norms.
There are things that we take for granted and are normal, you know. I have a pretty full calendar and everything if it’s not in the calendar, it’s difficult to happen. But that’s not actually the best way to do things. One of the things I loved when I was there was that I didn’t have a full calendar, I was present, I was in the moment.
[00:07:44] Lucie: But you had a full calendar on Friday when people could sign up to your sort of paper calendar.
[00:07:50] David: You are right, every half hour was taken. And even then, there were a few people who arrived 25 minutes late, and that meant we only got five minutes. So I took advantage of that extra time with other people, but it is something where even that was brought into the meeting, it was part of the meeting because it’s the realities that we live in, in a very time constrained way, but it isn’t the best way of doing things at times.
[00:08:15] Lucie: But this is one of the things I try to do with the West Africa RMS team, to enable them to go between the two sorts of ways of working.
[00:08:24] David: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Lucie: Because if they want to evolve and if they want to be able to connect with people outside of their region, then I think it is necessary.
[00:08:33] David: And there’s many people within the region who we work with who are these amazing bridges, I would argue, who bridge into the international world, who understand how to work within international spheres well, and yet when you see them in their element, it’s just a joy to behold. It shows that there is another way, there are different ways to live and to be, which are to be admired and respected.
And I suppose that brings us back down to, we haven’t actually discussed the COP meeting at all, which is what you wanted.
[00:09:08] Lucie: Yeah, I know. Should that be a separate episode?
[00:09:11] David: Okay, maybe we should do a separate episode ’cause we are running out of time here.
The one thing I will say just because it relates to this, is that this is the 20th year anniversary, and you were there last year when we had a really wonderful meeting and it was actually very well planned.
[00:09:29] Lucie: In Burkina Faso, yeah.
[00:09:30] David: In Burkina Faso.
[00:09:31] Lucie: And it was the first time that the TV showed up, I think, too.
[00:09:34] David: Well, and the TV was there again this year, and actually people who weren’t part of it, who I met later, commented, oh, we saw your meeting on TV, so it actually got quite a lot of publicity, locally anyway.
But the thing which I wanted to point out was that, compared to last year and some of the previous events, actually the planning wasn’t as smooth, wasn’t as, I’m gonna use the word, but it’s not what I mean, well organised. There were a number of things which did not go to plan, but I think that was appropriate for the 20th year anniversary. Because it went well, it was a great experience, and the fact that it wasn’t planned out and it wasn’t smooth, and it had its sort of moments in different ways, it didn’t detract. On the contrary, it felt very stressful, but real for the environment we were in and the realities that people face on a daily basis, where they’re having to reinvent and reimagine.
You know, they can’t do things according to plan because the environment they’re in is unpredictable. There’s regions that they can’t visit because of security issues in different ways, and they’ve had to rethink how to work with those communities because they don’t want to abandon the communities who are most in need, and yet there are genuine security issues in certain parts of the country, which are genuine challenges.
[00:10:57] Lucie: Well, just to say also that you found it a stressful week perhaps because you were one of the organisers, and the participants might not have felt that. And then the other thing to say too is that perhaps it also shows the maturity of the community of practice that it doesn’t depend on a smooth, well-oiled machine. It manages to create something because as a community it works. Because there’s the people there who share their voices, who share their stories, and that actually, that’s the important thing.
[00:11:24] David: Absolutely, and I think it is true that events, when they do run smoothly, can be really good for the community as well. But, as you say, it was very much an illustration of how resilient the community is to really making the most of what they have. It was an incredible privilege just to be part of it, and to keep coming back into such a special region, it really was particularly special for all sorts of reasons.
But I think the fact that this was the 20th year anniversary, it showed its maturity at times, which we’ll talk about in more detail in another episode. But it was such a privilege to be there to recognise the longevity and how mature the community has become. It was really a pleasure.
[00:12:19] Lucie: Well, let’s, yeah, let’s talk about that in another episode. And this one was much more about the general context and challenges and benefits of working in the region, I guess.
[00:12:29] David: Yeah. We should finish by saying how much, as always, I’ve learned coming out of the region. This is not a region that you go into just to contribute, you have to go in with the eyes to learn because there’s so much to learn. Let’s stop this for now and join people again for the next episode.
[00:12:49] Lucie: Great. Thank you.