Assignee - Case Studies
African Assignments - Zambian case study
by Phil Radcliff
Introduction by Sandra Marshall
In November 2008, Phil Radcliff, formerly Organisational Development Director of Diageo, found himself in the city of Ndola in the Zambian Copperbelt. Situated in north central Zambia on the border with DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), the Copperbelt is (not surprisingly) the main copper and mineral mining area of the country. With over 70% of Zambia’s export earnings coming from copper the Copperbelt and Ndola, which until fairly recently was its main commercial and administrative hub, are of vital importance.
In the region and in Zambia in general poverty abounds, exacerbated by the prevalence of HIV/Aids and its knock on effects on entire families and communities. With 59% of people in the Copperbelt living below the poverty line and with an HIV/Aids rate hovering above 20%, the social challenges are vast.
Phil’s task was to advise the Catholic Diocese of Ndola on how it could improve the organisation and governance of its social programmes. The programmes currently span a wide range of activities including healthcare, livelihoods and education and, having grown from small beginnings, these now encompass over twenty programmes including hospitals, schools and the vitally important Integrated Aids Programme. Hosted in the Diocese guest house, Phil found himself working closely with the Bishop and a number of priests and community workers to quickly understand their issues and how the organisation might be restructured to better address these.
What follows below is a report from Phil about the first two-week visit of his experience. As Phil is using the ‘Pulse’ assignment model, a future report will follow once Phil has made a second visit later this year.
From Phil
On arrival at the provincial airport in Ndola, I was greeted by the news that my schedule had been altered resulting from the arrest over night of the director of the local community radio station. Not only was he a Priest but the radio station was one of the over 20 social projects which the Diocese runs and on which I had been asked to do an organisation analysis and suggest a new organisation model which could improve the governance and overall effectiveness.
Early discussions with the Bishop, the legal holder for the projects and the sponsor of my assignment, confirmed their breadth (which ranges from education, health, including the largest Aids project in the region, to paralegal and research/advocacy work). It also highlighted a number of other things like some of the issues around the opportunistic and entrepreneurial development of the projects (involving a myriad of charitable and governmental funding streams) and the urgency of the Bishop’s need to establish a better organisation model which would provide greater financial control and provide more focussed strategic direction to the multiplicity of activities covered.
An early priority, personally and professionally, was to see as many of the projects as possible to see how they operated on the ground. This involved visiting the townships on the outskirts of the mining towns and going into the very scattered rural communities where people would walk hours to access medical and educational services. Both sets of communities inevitably walked miles to access water and where possible to sell their goods at roadside markets.
Personally I was struck by the conditions in which people existed and, this being the beginning of the rainy season, how vulnerable these fragile life styles were to changes in the elements even over the course of a few days. I was deeply emotionally affected by the amazing contributions being made within the communities by staff and volunteers, many of whom continued their own battles with HIV/Aids. Professionally, I was able to identify the sheer stretch on resources, the lack of synergy and coordination and the huge opportunity to impact peoples’ livelihoods when combined services could be delivered at the point of use.
The unifying mission across the range of activities is to raise individuals and communities out of poverty and, in the Bishop’s eyes, to unite this with the pastoral work which is delivered through the 69 parishes. In addition a more professional approach to the attraction and nurturing of funding sources is required to meet this long term objective.
The organisation design work called upon a broad range my experience, with the additional challenge of relating it to very different stakeholders, the demands of a community at risk and the shortage of resources and expertise in building an organisation. I found myself having to trust my instinct, be more direct in my style and thinking ‘out of the box’ to find solutions, while under a huge personal pressure to feel I was making a worthwhile contribution to those who were already committing so much.
The Diocese now has a way forward and I am expecting to be back within a few months for the second phase of implementation.
Apart from getting an enormous learning from the experience, I came away more deeply convinced than ever that the managerial and leadership skills we possess in corporate life can have a meaningful and lasting impact on the challenges faced by organisations in the developing world, about which I hope to say more when I return after the next phase.