Mr. Fix-It

When you're going to be working in a country you don't know well, most journalists will hire what we call a fixer. I don't know how the term came about but I assume it's because they make stuff happen.

They are always locals who know the country and speak the language, and usually have some understanding of what's newsy so they can help. They do everything from use their contacts to find out how to reach sources to help you get a local sim card so you can do your job more smoothly.

I've had great luck with the fixers I've had on this trip.

Joachim, in Tanzania, does a lot of work with Farm Radio International and happened to be working with a colleague of mine from CBC News who was in Tanzania at the same time as me. Joachim is a young guy with big plans. I was told Tanzanians always have two or three jobs on the go, and he's an excellent example of that: he fixes electronics, as well as fixing for journalists, and he teaches Swahili. That was an excellent way to pass the time on our four-hour drive to an interview.

Marc, in Haiti, reminds me of one of my uncles - a tall, lean photographer with a hint of a smoker's growl to his voice. He was born in Haiti but spent years in America, so he knows a lot about his country, as well as having a sense of what I want to understand better about it. He also seems to know at least every third person we run into, whether it's at the Canadian embassy or out and about in the area around Port-au-Prince, and he's been a field producer on a number of documentaries and news stories so he's got deep knowledge about weirdly specific stuff.

Both Joachim and Marc have translated interviews for me, found me decent hotels outside of major cities and taken care of whatever snags come up (which has, of course, so far included negotiating with immigration officials.) Both have saved me money by knowing what to ask for and how to ask it. I really wish I could have a fixer for every-day life (I suspect in politics that person is known as a chief of staff).

A few people have asked how you find a fixer. I had no idea until this trip, but the Travers Fellowship website has a good article about it by the Toronto Star's Michelle Shephard (who has far more experience reporting outside Canada than I do, in that I had none until now and she is a superstar). I simply asked other journalists and they connected me with Joachim and Marc. And I'm happy to pay it forward: these guys are great, so get in touch if ever you need someone like them.

Haiti!

Well. It took a few days of phone calls, research and thinking, but after I realized Ethiopia wouldn't work for this trip, I decided to go with Haiti.

There are a few reasons for this, but primarily I think it'll be interesting to look at Canadian aid in two countries with totally different environments. In Tanzania, President Jakaya Kikwete has worked with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on making aid more accountable. Haiti, on the other hand, has had its share of political problems and Canada has looked at cutting back its commitment there. If I'm to examine Canada's aid effectiveness - an enormous proposition that makes me wonder why I so grandly pitched it - then these could be two extremes.

Canada has focused its maternal, newborn and child health programming in 10 countries. Any of them would make fascinating stories. Ethiopia, for example, has seen great results, in part because of the level of control its government exercises.

I only have two months away from my normal job to get this project done. I'll have all of my travel done within six weeks, which sounds like a substantial amount of time but doesn't feel like it when I look at my calendar. That includes a couple of days in NYC to do interviews at the UN, and leaves me two weeks to write and edit my work. Consider my nerves wracked.

The first snag

Reposted from an April 2 google+ post:

Planning had been going pretty well as I started the slow process of setting up visits to different projects in Ethiopia and Tanzania. I'm already a month or so away from my planned departure. But the past few days I started hearing a bit more about the problems Ethiopia's election could cause - difficulties getting a journalist visa, maybe some travel restrictions.

A May election and its travel consequences just weren't on my radar when I wrote my pitch in November.

Now it turns out it's likely there will be a travel ban imposed, possibly until the end of June. So even if I made it into the country before that happened, it could be hard to get out. Plus, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Development and Trade could put their projects on hold around the election, and some NGOs will place restrictions on their workers.

All of that means Ethiopia is no longer an option for me. I intend to be back in Canada by mid-June, writing and editing my work.

I'm now looking for a new country to visit. Back to square one after five months of research on Ethiopia.

My Travers Fellowship pitch

The following is an edited version of my pitch, which I submitted in November, 2014.

In January, 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a group of elite global economic leaders in Davos, Switzerland that Canada was going to make the health of mothers, newborns and children the focus of his time as chair of the G8 and G20.

Harper was more associated with Tim Horton’s and hockey - not to mention cold, hard political calculations - than with international development and multilateralism. He isn’t exactly known as a softie and he’d often criticized the UN. But there he was, telling an international audience that Canada cared about maternal, newborn and child health and that it was shocking how appallingly the world had fared so far in lowering deaths among the world’s poorest. Progress on those two Millennium Development Goals (reducing child mortality, also known as MDG 4, and improving maternal health, MDG 5) was slowest of the eight global targets, which were created in 2000 and aim to improve life in developing countries.

The statistics Harper cited were dire, even after years of slow improvement: more than half a million women died in pregnancy every year, while nearly nine million children died before their fifth birthdays.

(Those numbers have since improved: in 2013, an estimated 289,000 women died in pregnancy or labour and 6.3 million children died before their fifth birthdays.)

Later that year, Harper announced $2.85 billion from Canada, for a total of $7.3 billion in aid from countries around the world. The support for maternal, newborn and child health, or MNCH, would be known as the Muskoka Initiative. He also pushed for more accountability in how that money was spent, co-chairing a UN commission with Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Tanzania. Harper has since pledged an additional $3.5 billion for 2015 to 2020.

The money would go to everything from micronutrients and vaccinations to training health workers and educating women about their health: simple and often cheap ways to save millions of lives.

2015 is the deadline for those MDGs, and June will mark five years since the world, led by Harper, zeroed in on maternal and child health. I want to research and report on whether Canada has made a difference, both financially and through our attempt to take the lead, and look at what comes next.

In September, 2015, the UN sets its post-2015 goals. Negotiations are underway and have whittled down a list of 40 goals to 17, each with multiple targets. Many experts believe ending child marriage should be one of those goals, a push Canada seems primed to support: Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has already been advocating to end child marriage, something that would go far in helping improve a number of the MDGs. [APRIL 12, 2015 NOTE: Baird has since retired from politics. Rob Nicholson is now Canada's foreign affairs minister.]

This is the perfect time to visit some of the projects and countries affected by the Canadian funding to see whether the Muskoka Initiative has actually made a difference.