Peter Foo '07 in Afghanistan to Promote Business Generation
01/28/2010
Shannon Cummings,
Peter Foo ’07 is experiencing international development first-hand while working in Afghanistan as the Grants Manager and Military Liaison for the Afghanistan Small and Medium Business Enterprise Development Project/USAID. Foo arrived for a one-year stint in Kabul in October, 2009. His organization’s function is to help establish associations and increase production levels in multiple sectors of the economy. More specifically, Foo focuses on assessing the type of projects to fund and advises on ways to better the program. He is currently in the midst of an exciting program development from which disabled Afghans will be provided with vocational training. The goal of the program is to partner with several private sector businesses and other NGOs to help train and employ the disabled.
“Honestly, this is what development is about. Yes, there are some academic elements to what we do, but rather than sitting at a desk crunching numbers and thinking about how to do things…it's better to actually implement programs with my local staff who has local capacity,” remarked Foo. He went on to say, “the beauty of Afghanistan is that not many people know what can actually work, because the country is basically starting a lot of things from scratch. The unfortunate thing about it is that unless corruption is controlled, things will move extremely slow.”
Foo has also been in touch with Tim Fox, a fellow ’07 alum also working in Afghanistan in the field of sustainable energy, and the two hope to partner their organizations together in the future for special projects. He also recently ran into two other familiar names, Matt Lauer and Al Roker. Follow the link to check out his pictures on Facebook.com
