At the end of September a discussion with a team from the Vanuatu Ministry of Trade and EU consultants launched me into an exciting project that overlaps substantially with my own Coconut Industry R&D. This flowed into October and a need to fit in with the EU timeline that is tight. Meetings in Port Vila were followed by a Coconut Industry Focus Group presentation with me as Mr Facilitator/Presenter. It was successful – there was agreement to establish a private sector Coconut Industry National Coconut Association (“NCA”). This

leads into an expanded Validation meeting in Port Vila on 5 November and doubtless, more work to follow. The hope is that by taking a central part in the Vanuatu/EU Partnership’s coconut industry development work, I can access external consultants and fast track some of the research I was going to have to do solo. That’s not to mention the funding that has been allocated to the sector. On the right you see Mr Facilitator in his work gear.

Early on I found that pursuing one main line of enquiry or work proved too slow with whoever one was engaging with failing to show up as arranged or taking an absurd amount of time to respond. This is Vanuatu. So instead of working on various work avenues sequentially, I set off on a handful concurrently. This got things moving but recently a few of these avenues became fruitful, busy or both – all at once. Examples of ‘work avenues’ include (i) an early report on VARTC to its Heads of Divisions and then onto the Board; (ii) a review and modification of the financial reporting configuration; (iii) Cocoa Diversions – covered below; (iii) upgrading the coffee labelling and looking into branding options; (iv) sourcing an urgently needed irrigation scheme from NZ and (v) exploring different Virgin Coconut Oil (“VCO”) processing equipment and methods. It’s all most entertaining. Hopefully there might be some valuable ‘outcomes’ of a sustainable nature before we leave in July 2017.