Arrival in Yenagoa, Bayelsa, Nigeria

Theme of the week: Making progress despite security challenges

Week Ending July 18, 2010

This week was moderately productive.

For those of you who haven’t spent time in the Niger Delta, it’s a part of Nigeria that has experienced near constant conflict. The country’s vast oil wealth has lead to conflicts over community compensation, marginalized groups, pollution, distribution of wealth, and many other issues.  Few foreigners come here because of the risk of being kidnapped, and during the election season even well placed Nigerians face similar risks.  With the help of the President of Nigeria, an Ogbia man from the ‘South South,’ there is an Amnestyin place and some peace.  The peace was established by his predecessor, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, but has held during Yar’Adua’s long illness, death and subsequent power vacuum because the then-Vice President Goodluck Jonathan stepped in and became President Goodluck Jonathan.

As the Presidential elections get underway, local communities are waiting to see how that will impact their situation. While, observing caution and care in all of my movements is very important, I continue to make progress!

On Tuesday, I met with the Commissioner of Education and got her on board with the Advisory Committee(to promote inter-Ministry collaboration for the savings pilot), and met most of her staff.  She seems helpful, and expressed her support of the program. Since the program involves the school system, especially state schools, the Ministry of Education is a critical partner in the success of this program.  They understand and manage the school system and can provide us with information about the schools.

On Wednesday, I had a meeting over the phone with a USAID representative who works for its MARKETS programand has experience with financial education.  She is very excited about our project and thinks that most Nigerians never learn to save.  Her recommendations included references to helpful resources, contact information for their partners in the Delta, experiential/examples for the financial education curriculum, which should be a combination of lectures as well as simulations of market-cycles.  I have a follow-up meeting with her in Abuja during the first week of August.

Saturday was the most productive day. I met with the Commissioner of Finance and answered numerous questions:

• The Commissioner contacted the Governor about the office (they are still debating where to put it—either in the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education or in Due Process) and the assistant, which should probably come from the Ministry of Education.
• Finance says they’ll arrange for meetings with the bank managers that we the government might partner with to deliver the savings services.  We’ll likely meet with them as a group.  
• I need to submit the new draft of the Memo about the Advisory Committee and the launch event to the Commissioner of Finance. 
• Two Ministry of Finance aides, Paul and Tubo, will look into my visa issue on Monday with NIS.
• The Commissioner gave me the contact information for the Governor’s Chief of Staff, the Commissioner of Youth and the Commissioner of Information.

Dynamic Duo:

I am now in contact with my counter-part, Tonbofa Ashimi.  She has been appointed by the Governor, to be the program head after my contract ends in December.  It is very important to work with a good counterpart as early as possible, otherwise the program is less sustainable.  I don’t know a lot about her, but she has a background in both law and finance.  A graduate from, Harvard University,  she has published a number of very balanced news articles and seems very savvy about electoral law (always useful since Nigeria has some big elections coming up).