It's been a year since I moved to Ghana to set up AWASH, a charity working to improve farmed fish welfare. So this feels like a good time to reflect and share my experience in a way others may find useful.
I believe more founders should move to their country of operations, especially when operating in LMICs. I accept that many people have good reasons not to move, but the case for moving appears stronger than most think. When I tell people I've moved to Accra, they often assume it’s a big sacrifice or commitment. They’ve chosen not to move, or say they wouldn’t choose to move if they had the choice. From my perspective, many of these people have done more altruistic things than this in other parts of their lives, so I don't think willingness is stopping them from moving. My assumption is that the sacrifice looks larger from the outside than it has felt from the inside. I’m writing this to describe my in-country experiences in enough detail that others can compare it against their own context, and judge for themselves.
For context, I lived in the UK my whole life, including 12 years in London just before moving to Accra. Elements of my circumstances made the move easier for me, so please discount accordingly. I have no dependents, mortgage, or special medical needs. I moved to a capital city rather than somewhere remote, and to an English speaking country with a welcoming local and expatriate community.
I will admit that I’ve not conducted a comprehensive impact analysis across organisations where founders have moved countries vs those that haven’t. My cost-effectiveness comparison uses AWASH's actual figures, while the rest is based on my judgement and experience. This position is primarily derived from my own experiences. I am genuinely in awe of how much founders are able to achieve whilst not living in-country. It clearly works, given the number of successful organisations that do this. I hope this post can encourage conversation, especially from people who chose to stay in their home country. I’d love to hear where they felt this decision hindered and helped their project. That's where I’m most uncertain, and where I'm most likely to update. I’m also interested to hear from those who are currently thinking about whether to move.
The most measurable case for moving is financial. The difference between what I pay myself in Accra and what I would have paid myself if I lived in London is more than AWASH's operating costs to date.
Our first 11 months of operations cost about $30,000. Had I stayed in London, my salary alone would have been around $34,000 higher than my Accra salary[1]. Living in Accra has therefore funded over one additional year of the organisation. From my experience, the respective salaries would provide a medium quality of life in London and a high quality of life in Accra. Accra is also one of the more expensive cities in Africa, so the savings could be even greater in other LMICs.
Admittedly, I have dipped into my savings this year, mainly because of flights back to the UK for weddings. To account for this, my take-home pay in year two will increase by $2,700. Even with this increase, the cost-effectiveness argument holds. It’s also worth noting that, if I lived in London, AWASH would have to pay for regular flights to Ghana, which balances this out.
In Ghana, operations like bank account set-up, official registrations, procuring supplies, and liaising with farmers require (often repeated) in-person engagement. Speaking to those working in other LMICs, this is not unique to Ghana.
I recently left Ghana for two months (for conferences and weddings), and it was notable how much less progress we were able to make in that time. For example, we were setting up a bank account, and progress with that stopped completely until I came back. Ghana and the UK time zones are 0 to 1 hour apart (depending on daylight savings), so issues were not related to scheduling. If there was a greater time zone difference, the drop in productivity could potentially be even worse.
Founders who don’t live in-country often overcome this by hiring a local country manager to manage day-to-day operations. This person’s scope could be very wide, as there is so much to do, making the role difficult to fill. Or multiple people are hired, because someone who is good at operations may not be good at communicating with farmers. This means incurring the costs of hiring two people, including the additional time required and their salaries.
What makes it harder is that this hiring is done early, when founders have a relatively small local network, and know relatively little about the country, cultural norms and local hiring processes. This can reduce the pool of candidates you can reach, and make it harder to accurately judge the quality of the ones you do. This hire is likely to have a large impact on the success of the organisation and a lot of trust is put in them, so the risk to the charity if the wrong person is hired is high.
By living in Ghana, I was able to reduce this risk. I still hired one local staff member at the very beginning to be my liaison with farmers. But I did not have to trust them with the majority of operations. Over time, I’ve been able to give them more responsibility, rather than all at once at the start.
Living in Ghana has also allowed me to build stronger relationships with the farmers. It’s difficult to quantify, but when I initially met the farmers, I could feel an increased sense of trust in me when they heard that I had moved to Ghana full-time, rather than just staying for a few weeks or months. I believe this has helped with getting further introductions and partnerships.
These relationships have also helped me understand the issues they are facing better, which has made it easier to strategise and troubleshoot when issues arise. Without being in-country, I’d be relying primarily on my local staff to understand, communicate, and solve these problems. Because I’m here, we have been able to collaborate more closely to find solutions.
A year on, I’m now in the process of hiring more local staff, including for operations. This is proving relatively straightforward, as I now have an established network in the country, and a good understanding of employment and cultural norms. For example, many of the applicants are recent veterinary graduates, who have a one-year placement after graduating. From London, it would be less likely that I’d know about this placement, so I would be less able to adapt the role to their needs. This would reduce the size of the eligible candidate pool. A country manager may have known about this, but expecting them to have this knowledge adds further pressure and scope for this role, making it even harder to fill successfully.
Some of the value of being in Ghana was completely unplanned. In January, I co-founded EA Ghana. We've run an intro talk with around 15 people and an intro fellowship that produced 11 graduates. We're now planning the next fellowship and setting up new city groups. Co-founding a national group in Ghana from London would not have been an option. Although my EA Ghana co-founders would have successfully set it up without me, being in Ghana has allowed me to commit significant time to the project, which has increased our output.
EA Ghana has also widened my network in ways that have directly benefitted AWASH. For example, several of the people I've met through the group are applicants in my upcoming hiring round. Without this, I would have had to spend a lot of time doing active outreach, and potentially still reached a smaller candidate pool.
When evaluating whether to move country, it’s difficult to quantify this type of opportunity because you aren’t likely to know it exists beforehand. Although unexpected costs are also possible, the unexpected benefits I’ve experienced outweigh these.
There were times when I wanted to give up and go home. This was most often caused by administrative issues, particularly banking. For example, under our fiscal sponsorship with SHARED Africa, the bank wouldn't give me direct access to funds. This meant I had to ask every time we needed to make a transaction, adding delays each time. I have to thank Emmanuel Awuni, director of SHARED, for his continued patience during this time.
To register AWASH as an independent organisation and then an NGO, I had to get so much information from our board members that I could probably steal their identity with relative ease now. It then took months to set up the independent bank account. In both situations, they kept adding information and documentation that they needed, which they would only share one after another, rather than all at once. This not only resulted in repeated visits to various offices, but also protracted the whole process. For context, I registered as an independent organisation in February, and only opened my account in August.
In January, the Bank of Ghana introduced new restrictions preventing most USD transactions within Ghana and transfers out of Ghana, meaning I could no longer pay myself in USD, and had to pay myself in GHS. Whilst I was in Ghana, this was ok. But anytime I travelled for conferences or holidays, it meant that I would lose a lot of money from the conversion and fees. Through lots of negotiating and learning more about banking than I ever wanted to know, next month is looking like the first month when I can finally pay myself in USD again. But I’ve said this before, so I’m not holding my breath. This may be very Ghana-specific, but other countries may have some form of analogous currency restrictions, which makes operating in-country more difficult.
If I were living in London, perhaps I would have registered my organisation in the UK, which would have likely had its own set of complications. But I expect the communication would have been clearer, and it would have required fewer in-person visits to various offices for no apparent reason. The fees for converting USD to GHS through the likes of Wise and Monzo are much lower than Ghanaian banks’ fees.
The time and cognitive load I’ve spent dealing with these issues could have been spent thinking about how to alleviate farmed fish suffering. If I were living in London, many of these challenges would be faced by my country manager, rather than me. This is a real downside to moving that has to be considered.
As someone who has never lived outside of the UK, naturally there was a lot to get used to, ranging from the food, the heat, travel, and local customs. I was used to walking, cycling or taking public transport everywhere, so it was difficult to accept taking taxis. As someone who loves London for its fast pace and efficiency, you can imagine how hard it’s been to adapt to Ghana’s more relaxed pace. Although this adaptation has been hard, when I returned to London for the first time, it was very apparent that I had become a much more patient person. These are all legitimate concerns, and the amount they affect you will be person-dependent. But, prior to moving to Ghana, I expected to find this part of the move harder than it was. Within four to six weeks, I started to have a semblance of a routine. By four to five months, I felt like I had become quite comfortable with Ghanaian life, complete with a small community and hobbies.
I have to give special thanks to Sofia Martinez Galvez. She had spent six months in Accra before, so she was able to recommend conveniently located and reasonably priced accommodation, as well as a few groups where I could meet expats. The 30-minute call I had with her a few weeks after moving to Accra legitimately transformed my Accra experience. For anyone who does plan on moving, I recommend trying to speak to as many people as possible who have moved to your destination country before.
Perhaps this adaptation and discomfort is a contributing factor to why founders don’t move, even if they don’t fully articulate it. Not everyone will have the good fortune of a transformative conversation with a knowledgeable expat. But despite this, humans are very adaptable, so I believe many people can overcome it. The other benefit to overcoming these challenges is that you gain a better appreciation for things that actually matter and things that don’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about comforts anymore, just that I know which comforts actually matter to me and which are optional.
Despite these benefits, I don’t expect to live in Ghana forever, though I plan to stay for another few years. By then, AWASH should be stable enough to run without me in the country. Hopefully I will have hired and trained sufficient leadership to manage this transition. Most of the benefits of being in-country are front-loaded e.g. administrative set-up, network building, and hiring. So being in-country at the start of the charity’s lifecycle is likely to be most impactful. Perhaps framing the move as a two to three year move, rather than a long-term or permanent move, may make people more comfortable with it.
Alternatively, founders can spend a significant proportion of their time (e.g. 50%) in the operating country without moving completely. I think this is likely better than not moving at all. This may carry the costs of both options, since you would probably still need a country manager, a higher salary than if you were there full-time, and regular flights to the country.
Fewer, longer stretches would probably work better than many short trips. That’s because things often need repeated visits. If you aren’t in the country for a prolonged period of time, you’re likely to miss the second or third visit. Starting with a longer first stretch in-country, then hiring the country manager near the end of this stretch mitigates that hiring risk. And, although the salary is higher than being completely in the LMIC, it’s still going to be lower than being completely in the higher-income country. Flights are a predictable and measurable cost that can be factored into your calculation.
Overall, moving to Ghana has been the right decision for me and for AWASH. The financial benefits are the most measurable and obvious, being able to fund an additional year of the organisation with the salary savings. The operational benefits are harder to measure, but indicators that I do have, like being away for two months, suggest meaningful benefits here too. Being here also let me delay making a critical, risky hire. When I make it, I will have a network and more local knowledge to help me. From London, I would have had to make it in my first month with neither.
Most of the costs have been administrative. Many of these would have been avoided if I was registered abroad and operating as an international organisation. But that may have produced another set of hurdles. The personal hurdles were real and not to be ignored. But most of them were resolved in the first four or five months. Personal circumstances will genuinely rule this out for some people. For everyone else, I suspect the sacrifice is smaller than it appears, and worth working out for your own situation rather than assuming.
Hopefully this post helps others to consider the costs and benefits of moving country for their own contexts. I’d be interested to hear others’ opinions and start a discussion.
AWASH's operating costs and my current salary are actual figures. The London salary is an estimate. However, I lived there for 12 years, so I'm confident about what I would have wanted to be paid. Other people’s comfortable salaries may sit differently from mine.
