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Independent consultant believes there is much to take away from session on rural enterprise in Africa

A former Wall Street trader has revealed to Salzburg Global why she decided to switch her career focus to rural development in Africa.

Fatima Bousso, now an independent consultant, spoke whilst attending the session, ‘Africa's Growth Engine: Partnerships for Rural Enterprise and Impact at Scale’.

Bousso said: “Every summer I used to go to Africa to one country. I was like, how can I work directly with these people? How do I help them develop?”

One of her first projects in development work was to assist rural vegetable growers (of onions and hibiscus), a move away from being a quantitative analyst. During one of the workshop sessions, Bousso talked about this experience, which was based in the Senegalese village of Potou, part of the Millennium Village Project.

“We were trying to make the onion producers of Senegal be able to meet the market demand because the market demand is quite large for onions in Senegal.

“We trained them to be good negotiators with the government, which they have done and had an agreement (put in place) to close the borders for eight months so that we don’t have any more imported onions.”

Effective from February 2013, the government of Senegal introduced a temporary ban on onions in order to promote local production. But this measure has also included unwanted side-effects.

“It has not worked quite well because they are now doing a lot speculation and playing with the market when the border is closed and trying to sell their onions five times more expensive.”

Participants debated what role each sector could play to scale up small rural businesses.

Discussing the situation in Senegal, Bousso said: “It’s the government who should step up. They regulate the price, so they should regulate the market and make sure those prices are respected, which is [currently] not the case.”

Bousso praised the session for affording her the opportunity to learn about a number of areas in rural development, from gender education to market development.

“The legal framework: I did not think about that. Things that I thought would be really accessible for example for the private sector and development people that are here, it has been a hassle for them.

“It’s been very difficult. It’s something that I didn’t think about until they explained to me what they go through for years for just one paper, a label for example on their products.”

The discussions that took place brought forward a number of experiences, some relevant to specific countries. Despite this, Bousso believes there is still much to take away from the session for all of the countries represented.

She said: “There are a lot of concrete steps that can be taken, working in partnerships with governments, creating cooperatives for [rural entrepreneurs] and making sure when they are trying, they respect the standards of the market and they are able to export their products.

“What I want achieved is the government to be able to give [rural entrepreneurs] information – reliable information – so that they have access to information and can play a greater role in the market.”