I spent this summer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia researching how to improve dairy sector functioning. My project studies how urbanization affects dairy value chain development – both pitfalls of current urbanization initiatives, and how these challenges may be turned into opportunities for sectoral growth. A value chain approach takes into consideration all of the different actors in the production of a good or service. Actors in the dairy value chain include small-scale and commercial producers, processors, wholesale retailers, and consumers, among other participants such as enabling government institutions, NGOs, and research institutes.
My research took me to small rural towns to speak with producers, processors, and union representatives about their needs and desires for expansion. Within the city, I visited wholesale milk shops and research institutes in order to understand, from all perspectives in the value chain, what is inhibiting current dairy sector development. While many supply-side and demand-side constraints exist to sectoral development, four factors in particular stood out to me: the country’s changing demographics from rural to urban populations; labor market friction between unskilled workers and specialized job vacancies; restrictive land tenure policies that discourage population movement and appropriate private land for development; a skewed import system that imports finished dairy products rather than inputs that would allow for future increased, sustainable dairy production. From this combination of research and field work, I identified specific points of intervention along the value chain that will be used to inform further development programs.
This summer taught me what it means to be truly generous, and showed me the limitless compassion that exists within the human heart. The people that I was lucky enough to meet are so full of love and a desire to give all that they can. And what may have lacked in physical accommodations was infinitely surpassed by a warmth with an intensity that I have never before experienced.
My research in Ethiopia has provided the inspiration and some of the research for my senior thesis. In response to the concerns of the families that had been pushed off their farmland, and to those who suffered from other detrimental development policies, I would like to further examine how to mitigate the unequal, and often detrimental, consequences of development policies in Ethiopia.
People who live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia, are often referred to as some of the world’s “poorest of the poor.” But still they have the most to give. It is this kindness that motivated me throughout my summer, and inspires me to pursue development work after Penn.
I spent this summer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia researching how to improve dairy sector functioning. My project studies how urbanization affects dairy value chain development – both pitfalls of current urbanization initiatives, and how these challenges may be turned into opportunities for sectoral growth. A value chain approach takes into consideration all of the different actors in the production of a good or service. Actors in the dairy value chain include small-scale and commercial producers, processors, wholesale retailers, and consumers, among other participants such as enabling government institutions, NGOs, and research institutes.
My research took me to small rural towns to speak with producers, processors, and union representatives about their needs and desires for expansion. Within the city, I visited wholesale milk shops and research institutes in order to understand, from all perspectives in the value chain, what is inhibiting current dairy sector development. While many supply-side and demand-side constraints exist to sectoral development, four factors in particular stood out to me: the country’s changing demographics from rural to urban populations; labor market friction between unskilled workers and specialized job vacancies; restrictive land tenure policies that discourage population movement and appropriate private land for development; a skewed import system that imports finished dairy products rather than inputs that would allow for future increased, sustainable dairy production. From this combination of research and field work, I identified specific points of intervention along the value chain that will be used to inform further development programs.
This summer taught me what it means to be truly generous, and showed me the limitless compassion that exists within the human heart. The people that I was lucky enough to meet are so full of love and a desire to give all that they can. And what may have lacked in physical accommodations was infinitely surpassed by a warmth with an intensity that I have never before experienced.
My research in Ethiopia has provided the inspiration and some of the research for my senior thesis. In response to the concerns of the families that had been pushed off their farmland, and to those who suffered from other detrimental development policies, I would like to further examine how to mitigate the unequal, and often detrimental, consequences of development policies in Ethiopia.
People who live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia, are often referred to as some of the world’s “poorest of the poor.” But still they have the most to give. It is this kindness that motivated me throughout my summer, and inspires me to pursue development work after Penn.