Musings on Development

A short preface for this essay: I just started reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs and will be reading Dead Aid when I receive a copy in the next couple weeks (thanks mom and dad!), so my opion here (and as the side bar says, MY opion, Peace Corps' it is not) may change and evolve, as perhaps this essay will as well as I shift through the thoughs even more. This is just my view at the moment as I exist here in Niger; West Africa. Enjoy.


Development in Africa - Big Men, NGOs and Money

I heard a book review on BBC a while back about a book by a Zambian author, entitled Dead Aid. It’s about development in the third world, or I guess more like what’s wrong with it and why development here in Africa lags so far behind. I’ve yet to read it, but a copy is on the way, and from what I hear, its themes tie in with much of my musings and conversations of the past couple months as I start to sum up in my head what I’ve done here, what I’ve seen, learned, and accomplished.

Up front, Africa is not the US, Africa is not Europe, not Asia, or anywhere else. Africa is a unique place (aren’t they all really?) and what works elsewhere will not here. Africans see the world differently, they value different norms.

African culture is centered heavily on Big Men, that’s to say chiefs (village, tribal, etc), governors, presidents, generals, dictators, even the local police sergeant. There’s a certain affinity to look to these people and to have a sort of patronage relationship where, if you just go along and support him, you’ll get something in return. In fact, glad handing to important types is so important, people will even allow themselves to be humiliated by Big Men and give no resistance. It’s why I have to inform the Inspector, the Mayor, the Prefet (like a local governor), the local counselors, and everyone deemed important before I so much as think of doing something.

This is a system and way of thinking that pre-dates the arrival of white folks (read Europeans). I just read Things Fall Apart and the first section is pre white arrival and one can clearly see these themes expressed. Colonization only played into and upon this system. Europeans appeared and became the Big Men of Big Men through intimidation, violence, and lots of nice, shiny things to sell and give away. All these being acceptable ways of becoming a Big Man, Europeans were easily integrated into the social hierarchy in Africa as the Biggest Men without altering society at all. In fact, supporting this system just helped Europe maintain its control. What use would encouraging democracy and civil equality have to six white guys trying to maintain control and dominance over 3 million black people?

Maybe you can see how, after Europe pulled up stakes and left following World War II, there was a sudden power vacuum for the new Biggest Men. Europe said, “Now that we’re gone, you should have governments like we do,” but it was a concept without foundation in Africa, even under European rule. Sure, people could understand the concept, those with high levels of education could even cherish the idea behind it – equality – but without an anchor in social life, democracy is a concept like quantum theory, to be taught in schools, to profess knowledge and acceptance of, yet, secretly at night, in bed, to admit to oneself that there’s something that is floating just out of conceptional reach, making the whole thing sort of alien and unreal, unnatural.

Can we superimpose a vision of social order upon a culture that has historically been arranged around another, almost opposite, concept? No. At least ‘no’ in the short term. Culture change usually takes a long time, something America and Europe are learning the hard way in other places where we’ve tried to ‘encourage’ democracy.

And even in our own past we can cite examples of change occurring at a slow pace. In the United States, where ‘all men are created equal’ is the most basic concept professed in our culture, it has taken hundreds of years to progress to the point where in reality men and women of different color really do have equal rights and there’s still room to move forward. How long will it take for this to happen in a land where ‘all men are not created equal, some are Big and many are Small’? It’s no wonder that half a century after African ‘independence,’ countries are still trying to figure out what their society represents and where it is going.

Like America and European societies, development, economically and in terms of health, wellness of life, must be tied to ‘development’ socially. Perhaps it is better to term it as a ‘move’ toward more liberal and humanitarian thought, a more just, equal, and predictable society, since some may not view this as ‘development’, but social change, for good or for bad (development would imply ‘good’ and many people see African society as just fine where it is). In the West this social ‘development’ (or ‘change’ or ‘move’, whatever) started with those on the bottom, the farmers in colonial America, the proletariat in France, the serfs and indentured servants of the world raising up to demand their place at the table and their piece of the pie. The idea that development only really occurs if everyone gains benefit, all boats rising together, as I recently found myself explaining to one Nigerien colleague with whom I was having a conversation about the topic.

In Africa, development has been mostly done backwards. The influx of big money in the 80’s and 90’s just went, for the most part, to support Big Men and the Big Man mentality. Instead of helping, this money has been a hindrance in many ways.

During the 60’s and 70’s there wasn’t really that much in the way of aid going to Africa, and I think Africa was actually more firmly on the path to development than it is now. Speaking for Niger at least, I can say for certain that education and infrastructure were better developed than how. I have to clarify though, that’s to say they were better developed for those with access. Yes, those living in the bush still went without, but those educated were well educated and those living in the cities had well planned and modern cities. From this start, which was largely funded by the governments and private enterprise of the countries themselves, the road to development, as happened in the US and in Europe, runs from the cities outwards to the ‘bush’ or ‘countryside’. And this is where Africa lost its way on the path to ‘development’. The West, I think rightfully, thought that they could provide money and help rural Africa develop, but instead of really helping, we just gave tons of money to allay our guilt at seeing starving children on the news.

This new influx of money went first to the governments, where, being of the Big Men mentality, everyone skimmed a little off the top as it made it’s way out to the bush. Africans expected this to happen, they still do really, but now it’s usually written into a budget as ‘per-diem’, what people are paid daily to just come and do what they should come and do anyway. However, Africans also expected governments to actually do some development, and this is the normal path of the farmers, the workers, demanding of their government an equal chance in life. What changed was that money began shifting more and more to NGOs and away from the government exclusively as the West saw the graft and waste governments were creating and instead of demanding better accountability, they just tried to work around the problem, hence the birth of the Non-Governmental Organization as imputis for development.

Two things happened with this development on ‘development’. First, governments got a ‘get out of jail free’ card to play on actually having to do any real development. NGOs were now the real face of it, not government Big Men, who were now just supporting actors allowing them to hold power and profit, but show even poorer results. Second, NGOs started throwing money into one project after another as budgets grew and grew and grew through the last two decades of the 20^th century. But this money came with no long term support or coordination within the country, what should have been the role of government and local actors, meaning that many projects that had cost much to start ultimately failed due to a lack of oversight and long term vision.

In the 1980’s in Gaya, for example, some NGO came in, saw the river, saw the climate, and thought ‘this area could do really well if we brought in fruit trees and planted orchards here.’ GREAT idea. This area is ideally suited for mango, orange, lime, grapefruit, banana… So the NGO built workers’ housing, irrigation, provided transport, seeds, and know-how to the initial workers, and then they left. No real thought was put into what happens next. The government took over for a while, but the money was never the same and everything began to fall into disrepair, disarray. Eventually, maybe some four years ago, the government finally just said ‘enough is enough, we’re done, we’re outta here.’ Luckily for Gaya, fruit orchards, once started, are a pretty easy thing to keep up. I’m not sure entirely how they were divided up, but now they are all privately owned and in addition to the fruit trees most private spaces also sport vegetable gardens thanks to the proximity of the river and some wells long ago dug by the NGO. The buildings, buses and farm equipment are still here, but they’re falling down or rusting hunks of scrap with no use. Gaya’s biggest development story has a happy (enough) ending since it transitioned easily into private business, but what if this had been a story of school buildings or material, or a water pump for a village (as opposed to an open well – both time/energy saving and more hygienic), or a hospital? The NGO’s pull out, and then the government’s, would have meant the whole thing would have collapsed, a waste of time and money in the end.

So now money has corrupted an already corrupt system. Aid money has, I dare say, set Africa back on the path to development. It has become, as Reagan era reformers would say, a hand-out society, where, at all levels, from small villages to Presidents, everyone just expects some fund, foreign state, or most likely, some NGO to come in with a bunch of money, spread it around, and then leave, probably leaving some new shiny stuff behind as well. ‘Development’ has become about overseas Big Men bringing stuff and money to those in need and after twenty, almost thirty, years of that, it has become the new standard and expected by all.

Being a Peace Corps volunteer, I get the bad end of that standard. I’m not a big NGO (or even a small one) with money or stuff to give to people. The idea is that, unlike many NGOs, I integrated into my community, became a part of it, while the Swiss NGO in Gaya, of which I never see the two white guys running it, hunkers down in their big beautiful house with guards, a cook, and air conditioning. Fairly enough, they work mostly in the bush, not in town, but why do I never see them in market or even just walking around? Because they are money and stuff and I am community and integration and an attempt to understand where I live.

As a volunteer, I’m more about connecting with people to exchange ideas and culture. And, really, that is what development in Africa needs the most: Guidance and ideas, not money. A road map on how to move forward, not the means by which to do it. It needs people willing to go live in a village for a year or two to teach them about desertification or nutrition or clean water or the importance of sending their children to that brand new shiny school the government or some NGO just built next door, instead of holding them at home. Sounds like Peace Corps, I know, but what needs to be different, is that these people should really know what they’re talking about. Peace Corps trains volunteers for two to three months before they head out to post, that’s not sufficient to really provide knowledge on many subjects. It’s lucky for us that, being Americans, and highly educated Americans for the most part (it’s not easy to make it into Peace Corps without higher education) we already have a head start on most villagers so we can fake deeper knowledge than we have. It’s not a stretch for us to know hand washing is important, but for an African villager….

More importantly than training Americans, or whatever other foreigners may chose to live as Africans in Africa (JICA!!! Japanese are awesome!), development in this way, that is, community based, should really be done by, what Peace Corps terms as, Host Country Nationals (HCNs) – people who live in that country. Training them for three months is different than training us. Language – not a problem. Cultural integration – not a problem. Just get them trained on the information; how to plant fields more efficiently, how to fight soil erosion, how to rehydrate a baby with diarrhea. To employ HCNs in this way would provide much needed jobs and would help develop, not just knowledge at the village level, but social development – Imagine a woman trained and sent by the government to help farmers farm better, that would turn some heads. Even just a man would mean stirring the pot a little and that’s something that’s need to create social change.

A teacher and a community development agent in each village!

This type of agent wouldn’t be something for Peace Corps to train, don’t get me wrong. That’s not Peace Corps’ role. But the ultimate goal of PC is for us not to be needed anymore for development. I would love to see one day where PCVs are cultural ambassadors, who may work with HCN development agents on projects, but whose real ‘job’ is just to integrate, spread good will on the behalf of Americans and to take home an understanding of foreign culture to share with others.

Being an education volunteer, that’s the area I usually focus on the most when I think about development. Education, though, really is the base of development. Education in the ABCs and in soil restoration are equally important and both are sorely neglected, but formal education, schools, as I mentioned before are, unfortunately, worse now than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago. That’s entirely true, from a matter of perspective. Let me explain.

Starting in 2000, Niger launched a ten-year education plan to revamp a system that stagnated through the late 80’s and 90’s. The goal was to bring a school within reach of every child. Admirable. Problem was, who’s going to teach in this school? Under 14 years old is the fastest growing population group in Niger, so that means not only ‘who’s going to teach this year’, but ‘who will be the teacher that we will need to add to that school in two years and then again another the year after and then again another new teacher two years after that’. Niger started a crash course program to train teachers and send them into the bush, which unfortunately has just produced many poorly trained and underpaid teachers. So education may be more widespread than previously, but on a whole it’s of poorer quality as compared to the 70’s, for example, where schools may only have been found in the big towns, but they were funded, equipped with books and university educated teachers, not only from Niger, but from other West-African countries, in other words, a quality education, though limited in its access.

This is nothing to say about the lack of funding the program has received from Niamey. Months will go by and teachers won’t be paid. No wonder they go on strike what seems like every other week (though something must be mentioned about the French influence here…). I just recently read a manifesto published by the biggest teacher’s union in Niger, the Société National des Enseignants du Niger (SNEN). The manifesto demanded that the government immediately produce the promised money for the ten-year plan that has been undistributed for almost a year now, amounting to billions of francs CFA, millions of US dollars. That’s money, not just for teacher’s pay, since that tends to be the first thing paid, but for also for books, school buildings, everything within the educational system. The manifesto warned of an implosion of the education system if nothing changed and I’m not sure that was just tough language. Would you do the hard and all too often thankless task of teaching for free while you see members of government getting acquitted of embezzlement charges and drive home in their brand new Hummer? What kind of future teacher will a student who receives a sub-standard education make, and what kind of downward spiral in educational quality does this mean?

Africa is a land of Big Men and the Big Man mentality. The Big Men drive hummers and send their kids to private school and the rest of the country watches and says nothing, or says very little because the squeaky wheel gets greased in Africa, but not usually in a good way. The sudden influx of money and NGOs in the 80’s and 90’s just increased the monetary power of the Big Men while letting them shirk many of the responsibilities of doing the actual development work. That’s not to say things haven’t progressed in the last twenty years at all, they have, just horribly, horribly slow when it comes to government services. Private sector has boomed in Africa. Even in small and remote villages one can often find cell phones, and when standing on a certain termite mound, facing east at 4:30AM, a network signal. Buses now criss-cross the country, meaning (more) reliable transport of people and goods, though roads remain questionable. Even in the public sector, education is more widespread, though not of an acceptable quality and health ‘huts’ are a common feature in most moderate sized villages, though, again, adequate training of employees is sometimes lacking. One just needs to look at Ghana or South African to see true democracy on the march.

What is needed to put African back on the path to true ‘development,’ both in the terms of services and socially, is a little tough love. The money needs to be harder to get, it needs to be given only when appropriate accountability can be shown. NGOs need to stop spending and giving blindly with their hearts and work with local actors to create long term vision and development. A lot of that will require more people like Peace Corps volunteers, people who can help create links between local communities and NGOs, between communities and government. These facilitators don’t have to be Peace Corps, better even if they’re HCNs, but they have to be someone integrated, trusted, and respected by a community, but not a Big Man with money and power, someone normal, someone anyone in the village could become, someone who just knows people and things, someone who embodies knowledge for development’s sake. Whether Nigerien, American, or Japanese, people in these type of positions are the way forward to drive change, call it ‘development’ if you think it’s good, both in terms of society and services rendered and knowledge gained.