The “Decade of Building State Capability” podcast series features interviews with practitioners who reflect on their experience using the PDIA approach and their engagement with Building State Capability over the past 10 years. On today's episode, BSC Director Salimah Samji interviews Cara Myers. Cara is Co-founder and Director of Development and Innovation at the Mozambique School Lunch Initiative (MSLI). She is passionate about systems change to address complex problems, particularly among children and youth in Mozambique. In parallel to her work with MSLI, Cara has also held a number of other roles in the international development sector. She is currently a Program Officer for the Women's Economic Empowerment team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where her work focuses on generating data and evidence for increasing women's income and agency in sub-Saharan Africa. Previously, she has also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, specifically with the Global Poverty and Equity Practice in Mozambique and Uganda, where she contributed to the analytical work on poverty, vulnerability, and inclusive growth. She has also worked as a Research Associate for Innovations for Poverty Action in Kenya, led independent research as a Fulbright Research Fellow in Brazil, and worked on livelihood development programs for Samaritan's Purse in Mozambique. Cara holds a Master’s in Public Administration in International Development (2018) from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in International Politics and Economics (2013) from Middlebury College.
To learn more about Building State Capability (BSC), visit the website, access the PDIA toolkit, read BSC blog posts, and listen to the podcasts.
To learn more about Cara's work, visit Mozambique School Lunch Initiative, read this BSC blog post, or read this HKS magazine article.
Salimah Samji Welcome to the Reflecting on a Decade of Building State Capability Podcast series. On today's podcast, I have with me Cara Myers. We met Cara for the first time in the spring of 2018 when she took our MLD103 class as an MPID student at the Harvard Kennedy School. Welcome, Cara.
Cara Myers Thanks so much. It's wonderful to be here.
Salimah Samji Wonderful. So let's start. You know, you took this class and that was actually the first year we began MLD103 and it was very much an experiment that had come from this idea of how can we bring what we are doing outside the university to students who come here and teach them how to do PDIA.
Cara Myers Yeah, you know, I remember very clearly, you know, one of the first lectures of the class and Matt Andrews was just talking about how I mean, was calling it just getting things done. And I was like, wow, this resonates with me because, you know, you can have so many great ideas and there are loads of great ideas out there. And oftentimes having the great idea is actually the easy part, but getting it done and actually implementing in challenging contexts is so much harder. And so that really resonated with me from the get go.
Salimah Samji And what was that experience like? You know you had come in, obviously with your own experience and had started this work in Mozambique. Maybe you can speak to that and what you learned in this particular course.
Cara Myers Yeah. You know, for me it was very interesting because it was happening concurrently. So in 2016, right before I started at the Harvard Kennedy School, I had started this what I called a small project. I hadn't even called it an organization yet. And it was focused on providing school lunches to kids in drought stricken areas of Mozambique. The idea was that these kids were dropping out of school due to hunger, and we wanted to just do something to try to get them back in school. I had a history of working in Mozambique previously and had a couple of colleagues there as well, and so we just decided to try to do something about that. And so it was interesting because as this program was growing and becoming more established and we were seeing some positive feedback in terms of kids coming back to school, seeing those nutritional impacts, I was at the same time doing this course on PDIA and getting things done and starting to think about these things and reflecting back on the experience that I was currently engaged with in Mozambique. And so it was interesting because we were again, starting with a very small entry point in terms of providing the school meals, working with kids in rural primary schools and thinking about how this connects to a larger challenge, similar to how you can think about things under the PDIA framework and whatnot.
Salimah Samji Yeah. And then, you know, you took this, you graduated and you went back to Mozambique. And what did you end up doing there?
Cara Myers Yeah, it's been quite a journey. So we founded the organization in 2016. It's still running today in 2023, and it's just continued to grow. And I would say that it's continued to grow in a very measured way. So we haven't had this kind of hockey stick growth that sometimes you hear about with new startups or social enterprises. And from our perspective, that's been important because of a couple of things. One is because we're really focused on the local capabilities and building that foundation in Mozambique. It's completely a mozambican driven organization. And secondly, we really care a lot about our own sustainability and the fact that as we expand, we want to be very careful that that expansion is able to be sustained for the long run, because when we're entering new communities and working with new kids and teachers and parents and whatnot, it really matters that we have a longer term presence if we want to see longer term impacts. And so it's been really useful to have these tools with PDIA, kind of always in my back pocket, always as my frame of reference, because the challenges are always evolving and the organization itself has grown tremendously, not just in an expansion laterally, but also vertically. We have deepened our work, not just now working with primary schools, but also engaging with preschool aged children and also now working with adolescents and using the school lunch program as kind of an entry point to tackle wider challenges around education, nutrition and intergenerational cycle of poverty in rural Mozambique.
Salimah Samji You know, you talk about locally led and locally driven development, which is something that you hear a lot but see very little of. And you've actually done this, and I was wondering if you can share with our listeners the process by which you really, truly kept it. And I want to pick up on the thread of scale a little later, but I want to just stick with how do you create something that becomes truly Mozambican?
Cara Myers That's a great question. So both of my co-founders are Mozambican, Roberto Mutisse and Talvina Ualane and I have known them since 2013 when we all were working together in Mozambique. And while I spend as much time in Mozambique as I can, I fully recognize that they are from these communities and they have different relationships with the partners that I won't have the same understanding of. At the same time, I think it can be useful to have a bridge to other sources of external funding. And that's one of the challenges that I think a lot of locally led organizations face, is that a lot of funding organizations are not set up to be able to reach out to those really grassroots, locally led organizations. For example, a lot of these applications or proposals or whatnot are all in English. And in Mozambique, the vast majority of people speak Portuguese as a national language. Luckily, I speak both. And so that allows me to kind of play that intermediary role. But it is a challenge that locally led organizations face. From our perspective, I think it's really been important to ensure that the implementation and the partnerships development are all led by our Mozambican leadership. So Roberto Mutisse is our executive director. He's the one who holds all the relationships with government, with the schools and has a really intimate knowledge of the challenges on the ground and also what's working. So I think a really important thing there is to always ensure that the team has this kind of open communication that allows really honest feedback about things that go wrong. Because inevitably when you're working in these challenging contexts, like things are not going to always happen as you would like them to. And it's really important to create that space for somebody to tell you that like, Hey, we made a mistake with this or this didn't work, or we lost this money or whatever happened because inevitably that will happen. And if you don't have that open communication, you won't find out about it for a while when sometimes it's too hard to address or has become a much bigger problem. And so I think that's one thing that's really important to build in the beginning is having that sense of local ownership and freedom to make mistakes and that be okay. Like having that flexibility.
Salimah Samji I was wondering if you can also share some examples of how you've iterated as an organization from making school lunches to thinking about sourcing the food to cooking the food and looking at the entire chain.
Cara Myers Definitely. That's a great point and that's really reflected in how our organization has grown. So we know when we first started in 2016, this was in a drought year, so there wasn't even very much local production. That was one of the motivations why we first started and why we targeted certain schools, because they had high levels of food insecurity. And these are areas that have chronic food insecurity. So even when the drought ended, you know, the level of agricultural production was still fairly low. But we saw that as an opportunity to actually link the school lunch program to local production as a way to stimulate that agricultural base. And so, you know, we didn't necessarily have a ton of agricultural expertise ourselves, but that was an opportunity for us to bring in an agronomist to start working with farmer groups and seeing how we could connect those two pieces of the puzzle. And it's been again, even the agricultural part itself has been iterative in terms of figuring out, you know, what types of farmers to target, what types of crops to grow, how to manage risk. Agriculture, especially small scale agriculture, is a difficult business. And so it provides a lot of opportunity because it is the main livelihood for the communities in these areas where we work. But it also is challenging and so we have to be accepting of that as well in that it does, you know, change the business model a little bit and it affects the logistics. But iteration has been key to us, you know, continuing with that and not just trying to implement, you know, a cookie cutter solution or do something one year and then stop. I think we try to learn and try to adapt, but with a longer term goal and vision in mind.
Salimah Samji Great. I want to pick up on the scale thing that you mentioned that you were intentional about not scaling too fast because you did want to really keep the local ownership and think about these kinds of things. I wondered if you can speak a little more to how that worked out and also if you could speak to where you started in 2016 and where you are in terms of numbers so that our listeners can really get a sense of what does this look like?
Cara Myers Yes, definitely. So in 2016, we started with three primary schools serving about 350 primary school students. Within about a month we actually expanded to a fourth school because that fourth school was close enough to one of the others that the kids were all dropping out of the one school to go to the other school where there was a school lunch program. So there was kind of an immediate need to make that expansion. Today we are now in ten primary schools as well as two preschools and also two secondary schools. And this evolution has been very iterative, as I said, because it's not just that we expanded all two primary schools, but now we've kind of deepened our level by addressing other age groups. And for us, this has been an interesting way of looking at scale because it's not just expanding our breadth, but also expanding our depth. When I think about sustainability, I also think about kind of the long term impacts that you're having and how you can create fundamental changes so that you don't have this perpetual need in a community to always do the same thing. So on the preschool end of things, we saw that, you know, kids were arriving at the first grade and a lot of times they already had the impacts of poor nutrition. They were, you know, at a disadvantage in terms of schooling compared to their urban peers because they didn't have any Portuguese exposure prior to going to school, even though the curriculum is in Portuguese. And then most importantly, we actually had a ton of these pre primary students who would show up every day at the primary school to get a free lunch because they would just tag along with their siblings knowing that there would be food there. So we were like, Well, that's clear demand, you know? And so why not kind of formalizes if we already had those students implicitly included in our numbers. So that was how we expanded into reaching the preschool students. And I would say that this has kind of a compounding effect. And so it's not just, you know, additive. It's not just, you know, one plus one equals two, but it's greater than that because as the students enter the primary school, a better foundation, the impacts and the gains that they'll see in the primary school level are higher. So then on the other end of the spectrum, when we saw that the school lunch program was pretty effective at keeping the students in through the end of the primary cycle. And this is notable because two thirds of students in Mozambique drop out by the fifth grade. So the fact that the school lunch program was keeping the vast majority of the students in through the last year of primary school was really great to see. However, we also saw that there was a sharp drop off after that. So after the seventh grade, most students were dropping out of school and not continuing on to the secondary level. And that was discouraging to see. But, you know, it also was it was when we think about the long term vision, you know, threatened some of the sustainability in the sense that, okay, if these students are dropping out at seventh grade, what are they doing next? Are they also entering early marriages, having adolescent pregnancies and having children that will then just kind of reenter that school lunch program with the same sorts of needs. And so we really then started to look at, you know, what are the challenges that adolescents face and why are they not able to continue their education and access better opportunities? Because there's a very high returns to higher levels of education in Mozambique. But the one challenge is that a lot of the secondary schools in Mozambique are very far away from the rural communities. And so there's a big funnel effect. Whereas you have a primary school in almost every village, there is about 1 or 2 secondary schools for every 10 to 20 primary schools, then those are often very far away. And so just a matter of logistics and a matter of access, students would be dropping out. And so that's kind of what caused us to see how we can address that issue. And we actually started a school bus for those students and have seen huge impacts from that and that whole adolescent program has evolved as well, and we're continuing to iterate on it. But that's how we think about expansion and sustainability from a depth perspective and not just a breadth. Because we want to make a long term impact in these communities. Like we want these communities to look different after we're gone, or if we end up, you know, at some point, not just to have to have this perpetual same kind of service delivery.
Salimah Samji What I really like in this story of yours is, you know, you start with a program that delivers food to children in schools. And one could think, okay, that's, you know, just about food security, etc.. And you go from that to thinking about the whole child and thinking through their entire progression from early childhood and what that does to education. So you're moving from food security, health to education and then moving on to adolescence. And like, if they don't have a place to go, what sorts of things happen to them and how do we think about that? And I think it's a really beautiful example to me when the work that is done is driven by problems and not by solutions that are just looking for, you know, it's that hammer looking for nails everywhere. It's allowing the learning to happen based on the experience and these ideas to emerge. So I think it really is beautiful to hear how that has actually come into play for you.
Cara Myers Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, even when you think about some of the tools from PDIA like the Fishbone diagram, for example, a lot of times you won't even know what all the problems are when you first get started. Right? A lot of those problems or challenges only emerge after you've already started tackling one. And you know, the school lunch program is a great example. You know, we were tackling one area of getting kids back into primary school, seeing the effects of that. But then, you know, that uncovered another challenge, which is on kind of the secondary level and you know, what happens next and where do students go and that kind of thing. And so I think that that approach is really important, is to recognize that you oftentimes need holistic solutions, but you might not have that holistic view at the get go. And so it's really important to kind of continue asking those questions and to continue iterating and not always just kind of expand the one thing you have, but continue asking the questions to see where things can be changed, revised, improved upon.
Salimah Samji So, you know, you've been there. You're a co-founder of this organization. What are some of your hopes and wishes? As you know, it's already survived from 2016 to 2023, where we are today. What do you hope for in the future for your organization?
Cara Myers Wow. So many things. To be quite honest. I mean, there is so much potential in Mozambique and I've seen so much potential in the communities that we work in, and I'm really excited to bring that to more communities, but also to see what happens in the areas that we're currently working in. So, for example, we have this adolescent program that's been going for two years now, but because we started with kind of students that were just finishing the primary level, this means that we're now you know, we have a pretty big cohort of students who are in eighth, ninth and 10th grade. And I'm really excited to continue supporting those students up through the 12th grade but then really see what happens. Because at this stage right now, we've had to do a lot of work in the communities to kind of demonstrate why or to kind of convince parents why education is important, why it's worth making this investment in higher ed, you know, the secondary level education for their children, even convincing some of the students themselves why continuing to study instead of going to South Africa for work or getting married is important. But I really think that we're going to reach an inflection point when we get past the 12th grade, because we'll start to see very different outcomes for those students and they themselves will be the example for their communities. They will have a reference point now because right now it's so hard. They don't necessarily actually even see others or peers that have had that journey. And so I'm really excited to continue. That's one of my big wishes, is to see what happens with these students and to see them actually access better opportunities after they complete their education and be able to use that as its own case to show this for other communities as well. Another big wish for me is to continue just building out our team to do this work in other parts of Mozambique. And that's really important because having the right people on the ground is essential to growth and sustainability and being able to take the work forward. And I think that means, you know, identifying the right people who are committed and there for the long term. But it also means investing in their skills and being able to learn together because there are so many things that we have learned jointly where we're trying new things that nobody really knows the answers on. But we have the mindset of being able to learn and grow together. And so that's another big wish for me, is to see the team continue to grow and then have the capacity to work in more communities.
Salimah Samji Wonderful. I really like this idea of giving examples to those children of what the return to education is, right? And seeing that all the way through starting in primary, but going all the way to the end of secondary school. Earlier you talked about how one thing that you did bring to your team of co-founders is this bridge to funding. And we hear from a lot of small organizations that dealing with the donor and finding funding for things that aren't scaling so rapidly is a challenge. How have you thought about this issue?
Cara Myers That's a great question and it continues to be something that we think about a lot and is always kind of changing. And so a couple of things. You know, there will be donors who have their own priorities out there, and there can be a lot of pressure to kind of shapeshift to meet different donors priorities. And you have to really be able to understand, you know, where you can kind of change your messaging, but stay true to your mission versus where you're being asked to go through hoops or do different things that are not really what you're trying to achieve. So, for example, you know, we target the most vulnerable children, and these are inherently children who cannot pay for the school meals. And we have a lot of donors who in the past have asked like, how are you going to make this self-sustaining? And I'm like, well, that's not the point. Our whole target population is most vulnerable. And so I think it's important to stay true to that. But it does make, you know, the funding landscape is difficult. It's not like we have just one funder. And so we do have to think about how we meet different funders priorities, but also stay true to ourselves. And the hardest thing is also having kind of that long term funding because it takes time to build that capability. It takes time, and you want to be consistent as well with the populations you serve. And that's why we're fairly conservative when we expand our breadth in terms of reaching out to new communities because that is kind of a longer term investment. We're not just going to show up there for a year and then the funding is gone. Now we have to leave. That would be a that would be a pretty big failure from our perspective. And so it's challenging. And I think that what we've managed to put together is kind of a mix of, you know, foundation or specific donor funding as well as individual contributions. And those individual contributions just from crowdfunding or what have you, provide kind of the flexibility that we need to be able to have long term engagements and build the basis that we can then use to show results to other funders and be like, hey, we're doing this great work, you want to, you know, fund us to expand. And so it's challenging because I think a lot of funders, they want to see how you're going to have a quick fix or how you're going to reach a million people. And that's not really how change works when it's locally led, when you're dealing with big, complex challenges and multifaceted solutions. It's not like a technology that you're spreading to 100,000 people in a month. It just doesn't work that way. So it's the communications challenges and it's also sticking true to your own values. That's super important.
Salimah Samji You know, in this podcast series, I've been asking people as our final question, words of wisdom they would want to share with either other PDIA practitioners or people who are just trying to get things done. What would you ask be?
Cara Myers Yeah, there's been so many things that we've learned in this journey. As I said earlier, I think one key thing is to create space for communication when things don't happen according to plan, because they will. That will happen and you're going to want to know about them. You know, I'm always so grateful when my team members tell me about something that didn't work or something that failed because otherwise we won't be able to address it. And so I think really being, you know, honest and creating that space is super important. The other thing I'd say is that it's really important and one of the things I've most cherished about continuing to work with this program is having that direct connection with people in Mozambique and with the people that we're partnering with. You know, having kind of those direct insights into the challenges in the community, spending time there, even if you're not there full time. I think it's really important to maintain those linkages because that gives you ideas. I mean, a lot of times some of the ideas that we come across are literally just from walking out into a farm and saying, Wow, this person has really giant beets, maybe we should grow beets for the school lunch program. Let's try this out. And then we do it and it works. You know, these things come about very organically when you have those close connections. And it's also one of those things that helps you stay motivated because this is tiring work. And I think for you to have the motivation and you to have the energy for the long run is important to continue to have those moments of inspiration. And that really comes from being connected with the people that you're working with. And, you know, we care a lot about numbers and trying to reach, you know, have been measuring impact. But a lot of times it's also seeing the changes in individuals lives that gets you inspired. And so that would be, you know, a key thing that I would also recommend for others is to stay connected and to ensure you have those points of engagement.
Salimah Samji Moments of inspiration come from being connected. What a wonderful piece of advice to be able to give people. Well, thank you so much. This has been a real delight.
Cara Myers Likewise. It's been so wonderful to share. And thanks so much for this opportunity.
Kathryn Lang Thank you for listening to our podcast today. If you liked it, please check out our website bsc.hks.harvard.edu or follow us on social media @HarvardBSC. You can also find links and other information under the description of this podcast.