Message-ID: <3.0.4.32.20000103123435.006a5aa4@mail.francomedia.qc.ca> Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 12:34:35 -0500 From: Hubert Duvieusart <mailto:duvieush@FRANCOMEDIA.QC.CA> Subject: one-way traffic? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
At 22:35 01-01-00 +0300, Rose Mulvale wrote: >Please forgive if this subject has been thrashed to chaff here already, but
>I'm new and
>a couple of questions have just reared their curiously convoluted heads in
>my mind ...
Rose,
First of all, welcome on the list !
I just read Douglas answer to your message, and I would like to add a few comments from a different perspective.
As you mention, DEVEL-L is about "Technology transfer in development". It is actually an open forum, provided by VITA, intended to promote the exchange of ideas about technology and development. There is no reason to look at it as a one-way trafic : the list is used by people from all over the world, from emerging as well as industrialized nations, and we have had very fruitful exchanges over the last few years. As is the case with every discussion list, there is a constant succession of active periods followed by weeks of nonexistence. Furthermore, this list is not moderated, and it is not unusual to find off-topic and even offensive postings.
As you can see from my signature under this message, I am a development consultant (this sounds bad to some), and as such I am one of the first people to benefit from the discussion : I have understood many things through this list that I would not have learned otherwise. Because of that, I feel that I have a fundamental duty to integrate that knowledge in my professional work, whether among colleagues in Canada or abroad or in the field somewhere in Africa. In UNDP (United Nations Development Programme)parlance, I am what is called an immediate beneficiary of the list. People targeted by the projects on which I work are the ultimate and real beneficiaries, provided I do my job responsibly.
If I understand correctly your Golden Arches metaphor, you are wondering if we are right in bringing new technologies to populations living their own life since the origin of the world. Actually, it is much too late to even ask the question : it should have been asked before the Phoenicians settled in North Africa, or even before the first "Homo Sapiens" left his African savanna (if that is really where he comes from)to roam the world. Most people who say that the world is a global village probably do not realize how true this is : very few places on earth, if any, have never been in contact with modern technology, and I have not seen one village so remote that you could not find a box of matches, a torchlight, aluminium cooking pots or an oil lamp (yes, this is all part of western technology, at the beginner's level.)It is too late to tell these "bons sauvages" that it would be bad for them to rely on our implements to improve their daily life. (Some dreamers will tell you that life in communion with nature is what humanity is made for : they have never been overwhelmed by a blizzard or a storm at sea.) Technological progression (I don't dare to say progress) is irreversible. It should thus be a major objective of development workers to do what they can to:
-ease that transition;
-help people to appropriate the technology, not just import it: they will never become "developed nations" as long as they rely on industrialized countries for their everyday needs (this should not be seen as a plea for total self-sufficiency in every country;)
-protect cultural identities in a framework of mutual respect.
As for your second question ("What do these...mis-understood cultures have to offer us in return for our overwhelming generosity..."), I would like to give you a very blunt answer : the industrial nations badly need these people more than their natural resources; they need them as customers and buyers of their goods. And there lies the catch: a poor customer is no customer, and the only way to get those people as buyers is to help them to get rich enough to spend. Economic development of the "Third World" is unavoidable if the well being of rich nations is to be maintained. Only an economically balanced world can support the expansion of our material civilization.
This expansion is not development, which is the fulfillment of mankind's objective: religious, social, cultural, integration of all in a unified, peaceful society... (look at the evolving definition of the "Human Development Index".) Human development, however, is utopism if money is not available to provide for food, health services, schools, research and culture. It is our responsibility to ensure that human and economic development advance together.
How we can go from here to there might be one justification for the existence of lists like DEVEL-L
Greetings (with apologies for a long post)!
Hubert
Hubert Duvieusart, agr. Montreal, QC, CANADA mailto:duvieush@francomedia.qc.ca agro-economiste - agronome conseil Agro-economist - agricultural consultant Conseiller en developpement rural Rural Development Adviser