Working in international development is a rewarding experience, whether it is for a brief time as an intern or as a life-long career.

Brianne Peters is leading the next generation of development professionals at the Coady International Institute.

Peters, 28, is already of veteran of international development field work.

Her expertise is sought after around the globe: by rural farmers in Africa, by leading development organizations like Oxfam and by Canadian military leaders.

Peters first became interested in international development work while still in high school, participating in a student exchange in Mexico while in grade 12.

Peters with a local boy at Mount Barak in Ethiopa.
At 28, StFX grad Peters is already a veteran
of international development field work.

She came to Nova Scotia, from her native Ontario, to begin her undergraduate degree at StFX.  To improve her Spanish language skills, she returned to Mexico with the North American Mobility Exchange Program, a program available to all StFX students.

She followed that up in the summer after her third year by going back to Latin America with her mentor and professor, Dr. Susan Vincent of the Anthropology and Development Studies department. Vincent brought Peters along as a research assistant on development work in Matachico, Peru.

As Peters moved into her final year at StFX, she began her involvement with the Coady International Institute, serving as the Student Union liaison for the Coady and later taking the Coady’s certificate program in Asset-Based Community Development.

In fact, Peters' graduation was a milestone at StFX: she was the first graduate of the university's new Development Studies program in 2004.

Peters expected her focus to remain on Latin America, but an internship position with the Coady Institute took her to Bungoma, Kenya. By this time, Coady senior staff members had identified her as exceptional, both academically and personally.

“We saw a real opportunity with Brianne Peters to move her forward from the intern position and into progressively more important roles in our organization,” says Gord Cunningham, the assistant director of the Coady International Institute.

The Coady Institute has been working in Ethiopia in partnership with Oxfam Canada since 2003 and Peters is now the Coady’s main operator in the area, a job that takes her back and forth to east Africa on a regular basis.

Her work in Ethiopia with Oxfam was so substantial that she put the completion of her Masters degree in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs on hold, finally completing it in June of 2009.

Mengitsu Gonsamo is Oxfam’s senior program officer in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and has worked alongside Peters since March of 2008. He says “she loves her work.”

“Brianne has been a person who can adapt to different environments and people easily and open and respects people’s views and thoughts,” he says. “She is both a student and teacher.”

Peters says that working with Gonsamo and others offers her an opportunity to share in their success in Ethiopia.

Brianne was one of the first students to participate in the StFX Development Studies program:

“The program started in my second year and everyone was taking it as an elective.  By the time, I got to my third and fourth year, some of my classes were actually one-on-one with my profs, which is definitely a quality of education you wouldn’t get anywhere else, that’s for sure.  I would agree to be their 'guinea pig' (as they now call me) any day. My very first Development Studies prof, Alison Mathie, is now coincidentally my supervisor and good friend.  Everything seems to have come full circle.”

Peters discusses GPS coordinates with a local
government official in Ethiopia. GIS technology
allows a new approach to asset mapping with the
Coady’s partners in eastern Africa.

Peters says the groups they are working with are really starting to organize and work together to stand on their own as demonstrated by the increase of more formal community structures like dairy associations and tree nurseries.

As in many of the worlds poorest countries, deforestation is a problem that is quick to identify, but not quick to fix.

Peters says development is an evolving field and she has no regrets about the paths she has taken.

“Through the Coady Institute, I was given the opportunity to see if my choice to focus on asset-based approaches for the last five years, academically and professionally, had been a good investment. Not many people get to do that so deliberately. I’ve also had the opportunity to try out some pretty innovative tools to influence practice.”

“For example, through Michael Martin, an intern with our partner Agri-Service Ethiopia, I’ve learned about how we can use Geographic Information Systems to improve planning to help communities to come up with some pretty neat virtual maps of their assets.”

See the video of Michael Martin demonstrating GPS and GIS mapping at the Coady International Institute in Antigonish.

GIS training with Oxfam Canada in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Peters says the high tech approach has helped in the understanding of complex issues like finding the best route to channel water to irrigate fields without negatively affecting other users of the watershed.

On average, women walk four miles to carry an average of 44 lbs of water to meet their family's needs each day and the World Health Organization estimates that over 40 billion work hours are lost each year across Africa because of long distance water gathering.

Indeed, her problem-solving in some of the most difficult environments in the world has earned Peters a reputation at the Coady International Institute as someone on-track for future leadership roles with the organization.

“She has outstanding relationship building skills, a sense of humour and can communicate effectively on many levels,” says her supervisor Gord Cunningham, noting that she speaks English, Spanish and French fluently and then adding, with exuberance, that she also plays several musical instruments.

“What can’t she do?” he exclaims

Piece by piece, Cunningham has been expanding Peters' role in the Coady Institute's work in east Africa and hopes to have her join him in South Africa in the spring to begin new ABCD training in Port Elizabeth.

For Peters, her hands-on experience is being noticed by leaders who are trying to make a difference in other countries.

With Coady colleague Behrang Foroughi, Peters recently conducted a workshop on asset-based community development for Canadian military leaders who hope to use the information to help with their rebuilding work in Afghanistan and to engage local people in their efforts.

Peters and Cunningham discuss the Coady’s
approach to development at the Toronto offices of
major program funder, the Comart Foundation.

The training was intended to help military personnel understand the kinds of work and methods NGOs use at the grassroots level as well as to help them better understand what works in development at the community level in places where it is too dangerous for NGOs to enter.

“These officers in particular are charged with distributing small funds to help rebuild some of the communities that have been badly hit so we were looking at ways to do it so that the projects are more inclusive, locally appropriate and community-owned,” says Peters. 

“The officers really just want these projects to work over the long-term so that their presence will ultimately no longer be necessary – so the weekend was spent discussing some of the best practices that we have learned through partners and our work in the field.”  

Peters acknowledges that development work is a long-term struggle with often frustrating setbacks.

“The work that is done today often can’t be measured for years to come,” she says. “The pay off is in the long term, making life better for the next generation.”