Is it time for us to rethink our community development models and related project interventions, particularly in relation to Africa?
Aid effectiveness
Over the past decade or so there has been increased focus on the whether or not development aid has delivered on its promise. Sadly, Africa has remained the only continent where the past 20 years have not seen significant reductions in the numbers of people living in poverty. The statistics are shocking when compared with Asia. While Africa has increasingly recorded high economic growth rates, the growth is not translating into poverty reduction. On a per head basis, Africa receives more development aid than any other region of the world. True, a key factor in stagnant poverty rates is the high rate of population growth. However, a shared concern for development practitioners has been how to get more results out of the development aid.
We have had an interesting scenario in which we have tagged corruption, poor governance, lack of donor coordination, and weak stakeholder participation among other factors. We have questioned the volume of aid and called for adherence to agreed commitment levels. We have even questioned the need for aid and its role in weakening local institutions and governance.
The missing link?
What is curiously lacking from our discussions is a focus on the model used to translate aid investments into social and economic outcomes. We have simply embraced participation and 'local ownership' as desirable in development interventions without thorough analysis of how realistic our proclamations and expectations of participation and ownership are.
My fellow Africans will agree that today Africa has fewer dictators but is not necessarily more democratic. The simple reason is that today's rulers have simply learnt the language and symbols of democracy. They deliver these and we have elections which can only be won by a particular candidate. Is it also possible that in development work we have a powerful industry that has mastered a language and symbols and appears beyond reproach? Any observed failures are blamed on individual agency shortcomings and not on the overall model guiding what is done. With this approach we have more and more guides on how to work with communities. Unfortunately, poverty reduction remains elusive despite our ever increasing arsenal of guides and toolkits. Could it be that we need to rethink the model?
Provocation...
Some years back I provoked my colleagues in a UN agency by asking the question I pose below:
Why do we not give control of aid money to communities and let them choose the services they want as well as the providers?
The reactions ranged from 'trust villagers with money!' to 'no donor would ever agree.' What was evident was that it was difficult for most to imagine a situation where power is shifted from development agencies to communities. A situation in which development agencies would need to compete for community recognition and contracts. What no-one dared say out loud but was most likely being expressed indirectly was an attitude of 'we know what is good for them, and, what do they know about development anyway'.
The reason such debate does not occur is that the current community development model has placed power in the hands of a particular group. That group, like many a government on the continent will find fault everywhere else except within and will not give up power.
Mark K. Smith (1996, 2006) http://infed.org/community/b-comdev.htm reminds us of the historical links between colonialism and community development in the global south. Particularly interesting, especially for those that only think of colonialists in a negative sense, should be the good intentions of the British Colonial Office that offered a concept and definition of community development that is difficult to fault. Unencumbered by the political correctness of today the Colonial Office defined community development as:
"active participation, and if possible on the initiative of the community, but if this initiative is not forthcoming spontaneously, by the use of techniques for arousing and stimulating it in order to achieve its active and enthusiastic response to the movement.' (Colonial Office 1958:2)
The question is whether or not our approaches today are any different from the 1958 understanding of the Colonial Office of community development. The actors have changed. The methods lack brutality. Are we however not imposing our own 'development' and arousing and stimulating initiative through funding? And like, the governments of years gone by, are we not going in with an agenda and requiring comunities to enthusiastically embrace our agendas to access the funds we control?
Sure, we are well meaning. Do our community partners truly share our agendas outside matters of life and death? Or, have they too, over the years learnt to be all things to all people so that they can hopefully get something and in the process further their true agendas? What would happen if the tables were turned the communities controlled the resources? Which projects would survive? What choices would development agencies make differently? True, communities are not well versed in our language (development speak) and are not familiar with our processes and ettiquette. But then, we have had fifty years of refining our system of delivering community development and we still have endless excuses for not making the kind of impact expected for the level of resources we have received. What would happen if comunities had control and were granted the same lattitude to experiement, make errors and hopefully learn?
Community development, colonialists, the United Nations and modern day development organisations
Smith points out that the concept of community development previously defined by the British Colonial Office increasingly featured in United Nation's deliberations leading to an understanding of the concept as consisting three elements:
- a concern with social and economic development,
- the fostering and capacity building of local cooperation and self-help, and
- the use of expertise and methods drawn from outside the local community.
The first element carries the possibility to expand opportunities. The second, driven from a policy agenda, goes contrary to the purpose it seeks to address as only those capacities and initiatives in keeping with a pre-defined agenda can be supported. The third element entrenches external control of the development process. From the Colonial Office to modern day development sector agencies, the challenge remains the same. How can external agents arouse and stimulate the initiative of the community without introducing distortions?
Questions
Questions that we need to consider include:
Given the three elements we need to work with, is there a way in which the development model can be reshaped to achieve social and economic development while fostering local cooperation and self-help without placing power over communities in the hands of external agents? What are the models? Do they work and why? Are they common? What factors hinder or support their adoption?
Perhaps another way to look at the issue is to begin by visiting the wisdom of our elders. My one-time boss at a UN agency used to caution against partenalistic attitudes towards communities by reminding us tha 'People cannot be developed. They develop themselves.' I am not too sure if that was an origional observation or a quote of Julius Nyerere or Professor Goran Hyden. Nonetheless, starting from this position: What is Africa's experience with supporting people's own development initiatives? What have been the factors enabling and/or militating against what seem to be appropriate approaches? What needs to be done better or differently?
Let us talk. Any recommended resources to help the discussion will be publicised here and posted on a resources page at http://www.ndas-africa.org/ .
Bye for now.
Sifiso
