Sylvia's Journal

With my long run at MSH ending my thinking about the kind of development assistance we provide is also changing, I am not sure what is cause and what is effect. I am acutely aware this time of what is wrong with the prevailing workshop-based and capacity-building approach of development. The many development projects do provide employment, even if it is often the elite that benefits most, aside from a few cleaners, guards and drivers. Development Business as an employment strategy – one astute Nepali observer wrote about this some years ago in an interesting article called Fancy Footwork – a Chris Argyris term.

Per Diem (called “Prise en Charge” here, or sometimes more blatantly “motivation”) is producing a perverse incentive for participating in development activities. And often because of that we are working with the wrong people. A workshop on Board governance with whole teams consisting of underlings? Of course there is fear in such cases – because the courageous change that is needed cannot be done by fearful underlings.

And so we keep on giving those who come, aside from their per diem, concepts and tools. They love these, they always ask for more. I think it is because they give the illusion of action and that is after all what the donors want: actions and results. People come up with indicators that suggest progress (‘document exists, document is validated’). But such things don’t transform. People simply check the boxes and stay in their comfort zone. They’ll go ‘till here but no further.’

This is not to say that people are not learning. I know they are. They are furiously writing down definitions (and get upset when no definition is given) as well as the quotes I insert here and there about transformation – it’s the Promised Land, a place they want to go but feel they can’t.

One participant has studied in Holland for a year, an agronomist. He can’t stop talking about the paradise he encountered in Holland – the food (‘we ate five times per day!’), the abundance in the stores, the way agriculture is done – the phrases tumble out of his mouth how great everything was. As he talks he looks for signs of awe or confirmation from the others at our table. I am sure they don’t like such stories, especially if they have never been sent on such an awesome trip. Most keep talking with each other or check their cell phones. He rattles of the names of the towns he visited: Deventer, Kampenoord, Middelburg, Wageningen and many more places that most American have never heard of.

But when I ask him what, of all the things he learned and saw that year, he could use in Mali, his face fell. “We can’t use any of that here.” I am sure his study was funded by an organization or church who put his trip in their Book of Good Deeds. He had a fabulous time and now has something that makes it easy for him to relate to foreigners, especially a Dutch one. He also perfected his English and I am sure he is a hero in his own town.  But maybe he is not also a bit more dissatisfied with life in Mali.