So the essay was handed
in and we now have to wait for the lengthy marking process.
Apparently, we don't get the essay back, we just get a typed list of
comments. Bah!
Every week we are
expected to write a learning journal which we email to our main
tutor, who returns it with her comments … I find this quite a
useful tool to get ideas and thoughts out of my head and on to paper
where you can see if you really understand something or not.
Sometimes I use it to develop an idea within the readings or lectures
and sometimes to disagree with what has been said.
Here's the one I did
for last week, I have added a few comments n parentheses for clarity.
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There has been a thread
running through my thoughts these past few weeks that I've been
struggling to come to terms with, that is: how can you work in
development without being interventionist? We know that the most
successful projects are those where the community has a sense of
ownership; sets the agenda and takes control. The developmental
states we have been taking about; Singapore, Taiwan South Korea,
Botswana – and perhaps we should have included Kenya - all
progressed because they set a course and had, for the most part,
consensus. (A developmental state is one which has a more involved
government, possibly authoritarian, which takes decisions primarily
to move the state forward)
Yes, they had some
support. Open markets for Taiwan and South Korea in the US, and Hong
Kong obviously had support from the UK .. but on the whole it was
their own path. Even with participatory projects (projects where the
beneficiaries are involved in decisions that affect them), we have
seen those where it has been an organic development from the ground
up are more successful than those where the spaces are invited or
imposed. So it has made me think, how, as a foreigner, can I work in
overseas development when every project I run, is already at a
disadvantage because it has a foreigner running it instead of someone
local.
I don't have a skill,
I'm not a doctor or an engineer or an architect, I'm beginning to
think that the media is the only thing I have.
The Robert Chambers
workshop (an all day workshop with the participation guru the
previous Sunday) helped somewhat. He mentioned us working as
“facilitators”. Of spending more time listening and asking
questions. He gave that wonderful example of what did we think a
Kenyan sex worker would ask for to make her life better. We all
chimed in with noble thoughts; housing, heath clinics, respect,
schooling for children … when in fact, what they asked for, he
said, was swimming lessons. It's a great example as it really does
illustrate that while we, as outsiders, can have the best intentions,
we can get things so wrong because we do not listen or ask questions
or understand the context.
One of my last jobs in
Afghanistan was to help my organisation win a proposal utilising new
technology to improve the work of human rights groups. To get the
proposal, we needed several groups to agree to be our beneficiaries.
We chose women's rights groups and I was sent out to speak to several
of them to explain the project and get a signed acceptance of their
willingness to participate.
The idea of the project
would be that women could text in reports of attacks or domestic
abuse and this would go to a centrally held database from which maps
(like google maps) and reports could be drawn. The groups would be
able to see the locations and types of attacks and generate reports
based on this. I visited several different groups, including one
which provided refuge and shelter to battered or run away women, an
organisation supporting disabled women and FEFA, the Afghan free and
fair elections advocacy group.
In my very first
interview I realised how ridiculous our project was. The shelter
group told me that 99 % of the women who seek help from them are
illiterate. What good is a mobile phone?
The internet map was
also pretty useless as in the areas it would be most useful, the
south and east, mobile phone masts were constantly being blown up by
the Taliban, causing disruption to service. One group did not want to
work with us as it was a USAID funded project and they thought that
the link with the US would put their staff at risk.
Returning back to the
office, with only a few signatures of those I had managed to
convince, I learned that the project idea had been conceived in
California without a singe Afghan voice. I understand that this is
how it often works in the development world, but there's my problem,
I don't actually want to be part of a project that does work that
way.
So I think I came into
the Leftwich reading (about how those East Asian Tigers/developmental
states all developed) with this in mind, and was shocked to see his
abstract about the policy implications. (he said that instead of
trying to set up institutions in these countries, what donors needed
to do was find those elements within a state that appeared to be
capable of achieving development and support them, a process that has
worked so well in the past … not! AN argument I made in class)
I did actually find it
interesting, the reading, the seminar and lecture. I especially liked
thinking about Hong Kong as I grew up there, lived there pre and post
1997 handover and so it's probably the closest thing I have to a
home.
Hong Kong is an
interesting story. In my mind, the change from pre handover is
extraordinary. Hong Kong Chinese have gone from not caring about
their home … perhaps because it was never theirs … to being fully
involved. The last decade has seen an explosion of community groups
and NGOs. I like to think its because they have taken ownership.
