SWARM INTELLIGENCE AND TEAM SPIRIT

Six countries, seven projects and 23 colleagues – we invited the teams of BMEL-funded bilateral cooperation projects to a workshop in Berlin to connect and exchange together with the project managers from AFC headquarters in Bonn.

On January 18, 2023, fifteen team leaders and project staff from Kazakhstan, Morocco, Thailand, Ukraine, and Zambia met in Berlin for an internal networking event and technical exchange. The experts had two common denominators – all projects are funded by the same donor, the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), represented by its general mandatory GFA. Moreover, all projects are affected by the current political situation, characterised by the Russian war against Ukraine with consequences of food systems worldwide. The topic of food security matched the main aspect of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), which started the next day (see p. 20).

The motto of our workshop was “The wheel does not always have to be reinvented, and what has been successful in one project or country can also be useful to others.” Consequently, the experts shared ideas and experiences in the first part of the meeting. They were encouraged to try new approaches technically as well as in administrative aspects and got to know different perspectives for common challenges in daily project life. Thanks to interactive discussions, the participants benefited from swarm intelligence and team spirit.

Then, Dr Olga Trofimsteva, country representative Ukraine for AFC and IAK with focus on agricultural economy, food security and reconstruction of the agricultural sector, referred to the global impact of the war in Ukraine on food security and effects on AFC’s ongoing projects. She pointed out global domino effects. On the one hand, acute food prices have tremendously hiked in 2022. On the other hand, Ukraine’s prominent place among agricultural exporters to the EU remains significant. Regarding projects, short-term priorities are measures to improve

• food security and food accessibility,

• humanitarian aid,

• local small-scale production systems (a topic which deserves a lot more political attention then it currently receives) as well as

• immediate access to the financial resources for SMEs.

Long-term post-war assignments in our projects are

• Building of resilient agrifood systems

• Sustainability and climate adaptation

• Infrastructure and logistics development

• New technologies, including vertical farming

• People & human capital development

As the agriculture and food sector belongs to the promising sectors related to the future of foreign direct investment inflows for Ukraine, the importance and relevance of AFC’s projects rises in the view of reconstructing the country as well as of global food security in general.

The project meeting finished by a joint dinner with stories of and behind the daily project lives.

AFC implements the following BMEL-funded projects:

• German-Zambian Agricultural, Training and Knowledge Centre

• German-Ukrainian Cooperation in Organic Agriculture

• German-Kazakh Agricultural Political Dialogue

• German-Moroccan Technical Dialogue on Agriculture and Forestry – Component 1 Organic agriculture

• German-Moroccan Technical Dialogue on Agriculture and Forestry – Component 2 Professionalisation of agricultural and forestry cooperatives

• German-Thai Cooperation Project, Promotion of Sustainable Development of Cluster Farms in Thailand

• German Food Bridge Ukraine

Stefanie

Senior Consultant

AFC’s strategy workshop and Green Day

AFC’s strategy workshop took place on September 19 to 20, 2022 in Altenahr, Germany.

In July 2021, a severe weather depression caused continuous and heavy rain in the region neighbouring to Bonn, whereupon the river Ahr rose sharply. Several districts were devastated by the floods. In addition to the confirmed fatalities, the flooding led to widespread power outages, forced evacuations and damage to infrastructure and agriculture in the affected areas.

To support the tourism sector in this region, AFC decided to organise the annual Strategy Day and excursion called Green Day in Altenahr. On the 19th September 2022, all project managers exchanged in different sessions on how to improve our internal organisation and how to prepare for upcoming markets. In the evening, all colleagues from Bonn arrived at the hotel for a joint barbecue.

After another strategic session on the following day, our excursion started. For our Green Day, we booked a guided tour in Altenahr. The former touristic town is famous for its beautiful landscape inviting for hiking tours through the vineyards. The town was almost entirely submerged in 2021. A year after, it is still suffering from the natural catastrophe. Several streets and bridges remain damaged. Many destroyed houses, wine bars and restaurants, especially in the lower part of the village near the river, stay uninhabited and abandoned. Not all businesses will return and become up running because former citizens lost their motivation to resettle in an area, which might be hit again by climate change. Financing reconstruction is slow or missing because the municipality waits for the state, but bureaucracy hampers the state, our guide explained. The owner of the houses count on insurances that refuse to pay as natural catastrophes are excluded. Some achievements have been made and progress is ongoing – our hotel was rebuilt and could reopen.

After the guided tour in town, we hiked through the vineyards and learned about the unique agro-climatic conditions of the valley allowing the cultivation of grape varieties for red wine, while in other regions only white wine production takes place. The day ended with a wine tasting and a “wine Olympiad”.

Daniela Böhm Senior Consultant

Safety first

2nd security training for AFC staff

September, 6 to 7 2022, 13 employees from AFC have successfully completed a Travel Security Training carried out by Krisenwerk. The trainers, both former police officers, guided us through diverse challenges concerning our everyday business and the respective dangers when traveling to medium risk countries.

In several group sessions, we discussed our own experiences made in these countries and displayed delicate situations occurring within backstopping missions. We learned many tools to prevent incidents and to remind on how to behave in highrisk situations.

However, studying the theory and discussing certain situations is far apart from experiencing them in reality. Therefore, our trainers simulated realistic scenarios such as a car jack, where one group was driving in a car on the training perimeter and were surprised by the other group masked and armed jumping out of bushes. In another scenario, three group members surprised the rest of the group and staged a hostage situation. Lastly, two group members entered the room stammering about an incident on the market and the group had to react and to take care of the shocked colleagues. It turned out that some AFC employees could also successfully pursue a career as actors!

The exercises and training situations helped us to evaluate risky situations properly and to pay attention to our surroundings even in unsuspicious situations. Luckily, security incidents are very rare in our daily business and we hope it stays that way, but with the security training, we are well prepared!

International Cooperation Cup Christmas in summer

Because of the pandemic, our annual Christmas cooking had to be cancelled in December 2021. But as flexible as consultants can be, we simply postponed the event to June the year after and invited all colleagues to our “Christmas party” on the 23rd of June 2022.

Guided by professional chefs, we prepared this time a barbecue together and had a fantastic event – just in summer sweating at 35 degrees in front of the grill.

On September 9, 2022, the International Cooperation Cup took place in Bonn, Germany organised by GIZ. Trained by the GOPA Group’s Africa Director Houseine Diabaté, football players of the companies GOPA Worldwide, Infra and Intec from Bad Homburg, B&S Europe from Brussels and AFC from Bonn formed the GOPA Consulting Group team. Twelve teams working in the international development cooperation competed in this event. We were in third place and are very proud to bring home the corresponding trophy of the tournament! db db

AFC’s CURRENT PRESENCE IN THE WORLD

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