Eileen Knowles

Country: Ghana
Partner: District Government
Placement: Developing the leadership and management skills of District Directors.

Eileen Knowles is no stranger to the field of international development. She has lived in India, Zambia and Costa Rica, worked for a World Bank-led youth initiative, and even founded her own registered Canadian charity focused on promoting education in Kenya and Zambia countries.

Yet even with her extensive experience, Eileen was unsure about the impact she was having as a development worker.

“I was moving forward in my career with pressing concerns about how my work was furthering the interests of those living in rural communities.” she says.

Eileen volunteered with Engineers Without Borders while completing her undergraduate degree at McMaster University, and as a result, knew that EWB focused on addressing the root causes of poverty in rural African communities. Eileen was confident that EWB was the best place to explore some of the tough questions she was asking herself about development.

And now she is doing just that, living in Tamale, Ghana working with EWB’s Governance and Rural Infrastructure Team. Not unlike the rest of Ghana, in the Northern region critical infrastructure such as water, roads and schools, is not planned based on data and analysis. Here, many rural families are without the public services they need to live prosperous lives.

EWB’s Governance and Infrastructure team has identified that in addition to planning infrastructure based on evidence, fostering strong management at the district and regional government levels is critical to ensuring that district planners can implement public services where they are most needed.

Recognizing this, Eileen is leading a six month fellowship program to improve the leadership and management skills of District Directors. These are important managers in Northern Ghana, as they are responsible for the planning and delivery of public services, as well as overseeing the district as a whole.

The fellowship program will provide this critical group of government leaders with one-on-one consulting to help improve their problem-solving skills. It will also ensure that, in addition to improving the overall administration of the district, they can better manage and incentivize district staff to meet the infrastructure needs of rural communities.

“I am really enjoying getting the District Directors motivated about this opportunity, while also better understanding how they can learn in different environments,” she says.

In six months, success for the fellowship program will mean that District Directors are better able to support and motivate their staff to design and implement beneficial public services in line with the needs of Northern Ghana’s rural communities.

More than ever, Eileen continues to challenge herself and those around her to think critically about development work. However, she is doing so now with a renewed perspective about those whom she works so passionately to impact.

“Living in a rural community and putting names and faces behind poverty has helped make certain that I have a deepened respect for their challenges,” she says. “Now, I can better understand and address these challenges through my work.”