Message-ID: <199612291617.LAA20339@jericho.american.edu> Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 11:17:48 -0500 From: Yvonne Sobers <mailto:asante@COLIS.COM> Subject: Re: Pumps that don't work To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
At 10:16 AM 12/28/96 -0500, David Johnson wrote:> On the other hand, some efforts to help people do seem to help
>and be appreciated.
I observe at first hand that "help" from developed countries has widened gaps between developed and developing countries. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)includes the major donor countries and has recognized errors of past relationships with developing countries. OECD has devised strategies for less paternalism and more partnership, less top-down directing and more lateral facilitating. The efforts shown to be best appreciated are those in which:
1. The helpers are clear about their motives. The more successful helpers see themselves as stakeholders in a process of mutual transformation for mutual benefit. The helpers who have found their way South, today as in the time of Columbus and Cortez, have proven to be energized by the need to: - demonstrate superior skill and knowledge - provide answers without finding out the questions that need to be asked - exercise control over people and resources, to the benefit of the developing country - establish dependency and retain a hierarchy of power relationships (however benevolent!) - expand an economic/political sphere of influence by dismantling local culture, aggravating local divisions, and coercing/manipulating loyalty from the weak, disaffected, or power-hungry - exercise the power of withholding benefits or otherwise inflicting punishment, if the recipients are ungrateful enough to question the form of the help, or to challenge the motives of the helpers - ferret out information that can be used for intelligence purposes and for ongoing under-development
2. The dynamic between the helpers and recipients needs to be based on:
- Trust. The experiences of minority groups in the US - in particular native Americans and African Americans - do not generate trust between the US and people of colour outside of the US. The US, as the remaining world power, seems intent on solving problems in developing countries - drugs, poverty, violence, ethnic conflict - that the US is still to solve within its own borders. Past and present North-South relationships (colonial, imperialist, capitalist, state capitalist) have also not created trust between those on different sides of the divide.
- Respect. Helpers are most likely to meet frustration when they impose their ideas of the help that is needed. They are most likely to succeed when they seek to understand the needs, values, aspirations, and circumstances of the potential recipients; and when the help offered is the help that is sought.
- Growth. Helpers and recipients who come together as stakeholders can be partners in a process in which the growth is mutual. All parties can experience personal and collective growth when they learn from each other and from the actions that they take to bring about change.
- Openness. Helpers and recipients gain when they gather data about each other and with each other on facts, beliefs, feelings, perceptions, attitudes and cultural norms. Helpers need to realize that age, status, money, race, gender, colour, class, education, country of origin are among factors that can cause data to be distorted or concealed. Sometimes programmes fail because recipients withhold critical data. In addition, helpers overlook or misinterpret vital signs because they do not give or receive feedback.
- Shared problem-solving. Helpers contribute to their own frustration when they diagnose without examination, or judge issues as obvious defects with obvious remedies. Helpers and recipients need to share insights, define the problem, collect and analyze data in relation to the problem, and explore and assess alternatives. Together they benefit from selecting, implementing, evaluating, and (as necessary) modifying solutions.
Results of actions of helpers in developing countries lead me to have grave reservation about helpers from the North, especially those as zealous as David Johnson appears to be. I have learnt that the I can better live with pumps that don't work than with helpers who expect me to worship at the shrine of their uninformed advice.
I strongly suggest a two-way partnership approach, as a relief for those who have been helped into persistent underdevelopment. The partnership is marked by communication strategies that focus less on fixing pumps (or whatever)and more on clarity of motives and on increased trust, respect, growth, openness, and shared problem solving. The goal is to strengthen the capacity of all stakeholders to do better what they need to do.
The OECD has documented strategies to prevent further tilting at developmental windmills by helpers with noble intentions. I have found OECD document titled "Developing Environmental Capacity - A Framework for Donor Involvement" (1995) to be particularly instructive.
Let's see if we can narrow some gaps and build some mutually beneficial relationships in 1997. Peace.
Yvonne mailto:asante@colis.com ============================================================================ ========