Development?

Here is a really interesting article I just read in the NYTimes on an apparently successful development project in Sauri, Kenya. Pretty awesome and inspiring!

My time here has given me a chance to really see and get involved in “development” in the field, and frankly I have yet to develop any solid opinions on the matter. First of all I haven’t seen very much yet, and my knowledge is very limited to South Africa. The project discussed in this article is really interesting though!

I don’t know too much about this “Millennium Villages” project, but based on the example of the work done in Sauri, it really seems to have been quite successful in implementing its goals. I like the idea of taking these 80 villages around Africa and using them as a sort of experiment in development to see what is really possible. And as this is part of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), obviously funding isn’t a problem.

But of course the question is is this really a realistic and sustainable project? I do like the idea that each village that is successful in these practices is used as an example to surrounding villages, but with all of the funding being used in each of the villages, it seems unlikely that other communities would just be able to “pick up” these great practices. I guess I just have a problem with the international aid community being so focused on highly-funded projects. Even in the Peace Corps, I have read statistics that there is no correlation between the amount of money put into a project and how sustainable or successful it turns out to be. In fact I have heard (though I’m not sure where so don’t quote me on this) that often the more money put into a project the less sustainable it turns out to be, as the funding will likely completely cease once the PCV is gone. Many PCV’s believe their work in the Peace Corps is much more about relationship-building than it is about actual development. Which in a sense is really true, because really I am only one person, and a foreign person coming from a very different culture… how is it that we are really supposed to “develop” our communities?

I suppose I’m a bit jaded on this matter because of my experience here. Everyone in my villages are soooo focused on just getting money and material items, which is really frustrating for me as someone who has devoted to years to solely HELPING and teaching them… something much more valuable than money or things in my opinion. Even just the other day there were some British missionaries in the Kuruman area, and my school was just about to freak out trying to get them to come here and “help” us. I kept asking them exactly what they did or gave and they just said “they give money to villages to develop them”. It was like nails down a chalkboard for me, as I am here giving MYSELF to them for 2 years but all they can think about is getting money - money does not equal development! It’s all about the immediate satisfaction, not the long-term process.

Of course you hear amazing success stories, maybe not quite to the extent of what happened in Kenya but there is still so much possible in what we are doing as PCVs. But then there is the corruption, which happens everyday here. I’m not sure if it’s quite as bad in S.A. as it seems to be in Kenya, but I know it goes on at both the large scale (government officials taking large sums of money for themselves) as well as the much smaller scale (NGO workers “skimming” money that should be going to AIDS orphans). You hear about it all the time. For example, South Africa spends more per capita on education than almost any country in the world, but where is the money going?! Obviously not to the schools (or at least not to rural, predominately black schools). This seems to be especially bad in this province, the Northern Cape, as the provincial department of education is quite bankrupt and oftentimes schools aren’t even receiving books they need for the curriculum. Much of this is due to corruption (as well as the astronomical salaries for the under-qualified teachers).

One thing that has really rang true with me here is that change on a large-scale has to come from the inside, from the people who are themselves affected. If the communities don’t have the drive to change, then it won’t happen... no matter how much money is put into it. Anyways, this was sort of a rambly post but I thought this little development experiment was really cool... you guys should go read it!