What Would Be a Legitimate Role for Western Development Workers in Developing Countries?

There's an interview with Yash Tandon on Pambazuka.org that is well worth reading for people working in development or thinking of doing so. I find it relatively rare to hear what Africans really think of development. My aim in coming to East Africa to work in development was to find out from people working in development here what form development should take. Given that both recipients (as opposed to beneficiaries) of development programs and those working on the programs often agree that things have been going wrong for a long time, how should things be put right?

Tandon criticizes the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness on the grounds that it was "conceptualized by the donors, and not by the people that were supposed to be assisted". Which is little different from a lot of development decisions, before and after the declaration. Tandon goes on to say that "the so-called development aid never did promote development" and that " The result is that the aid industry has no longer any legitimacy."

It's ironic, considering how often people working in development use the term 'dependency' when referring to recipients of aid, how Tandon turns things around and points out that there are "at least a million people in the Western countries that live off the aid industry". Tandon feels that aid, or whatever term it goes under, was always intended to serve the interests of donor countries. I agree, and Tanzania, with its massive potential for gold, uranium, natural gas, arable land and other resources, is a case in point. The resources remain underdeveloped and underexploited until some wealthy foreign country comes to do the exploiting.

Tandon singles out Oxfam for criticizm as an organization that started out with good intentions but is now part of the very machinery that ensures the smooth operation of aid policies that are intended to benefit Western countries. And he raises a very interesting question: why do we call a lot of 'aid' programming by that name when it is actually just business? The Chinese and the Indians call it business, so why do many Western countries wish to dress it up as philanthropy? It must be a slap in the face to big Western donors to be told that the Chinese do it better when they seem hell-bent on persuading people here that the Chinese are only out for what they can get!

Another couple of sacred cows Tandon slaughters are the imposition of certain 'values', perhaps by church based organizations, which are dressed up as 'solidarity' or some other touchy-feely concept; also the assumption that Western aid agencies have the right to "encourage women who raise their voices against practices that violate their human rights" (for example). Tandon says the latter is not the business of outsiders, that "the initiatives of rural women in Africa against oppression are very strong and very strategic. They know what will work and what will not". I hope his last statement is right; I have not been exposed to initiatives against oppression that are strong and strategic, though I would very much like to be.

These are all perplexing issues for people who wish to work in development without becoming part of the problem, serving as mere instruments of the self-interested Western agenda. Much though I would love to follow Tandon's advice, I have not come across many people who say 'this is what we want and this is how we intend to achieve it'. Rather they tend to say 'how do we get some of this money/assistance/resources'? Perhaps they are now also mere instruments and are currently unable to serve the intersts of those they hope to serve. But how do they change course and set the agenda? If there is an indigenous aid agenda in East Africa, where is it articulated?

I wholeheartedly agree with Tandon's conclusion that "All development is self-development", but I want to work with self-development, with self-developers. I think that the development industry can do a lot more good in developing countries by advocating against certain things, such as land-grabbing, resource theft, imposition of genetically modified organisms and other inappropriate and failed technologies, Western use of cheap labour, exploitation of lax human rights legislation, commodity dumping, unfair trade agreements, etc, something I have called 'Development by Omission' for want of a better phrase. But I wonder if Tandon thinks there is a legitimate role for people who work in development to continue with, as long as they are committed to an agenda set by their adopted country, and if so, what is this role?

Next Year's Famine Victims Currently Being Groomed by Western Powers

If you look at the top 30 donors to the East African Famine, number one is the US. It is one of the richest countries in the world, although donations as a percentage of per capita income are nowhere near the highest.

But the US is also pretty good when it comes to land grabbing. This time it's Tanzania, where a substantial deal is being questioned by opposition MPs. But recently, it came to light that big, wealthy US educational institutions were snapping up land in various African countries that are, or have had, shortages of affordable food.

An estimated 162,000 Tanzanian smallholders stand to lose their land if the deal goes through. This means that more than half a million people would be impoverished as a result. And all so that some US energy company can produce what they refer to as food crops, but are much more likely to be used for biofuels.

'Affordable' food is the key term. There isn't a shortage of food in Tanzania as a whole (nor in Kenya or several other countries where people are starving). Indeed, some of Ethiopia's most productive land is also being grabbed, as millions there face starvation. Famines typically involve lack of access to affordable food, not lack of food.

One of the culprits mentioned in relation to Ethiopia is Italy, which also appears in the top 30 donor list, albeit at number 19. (The EC, number 2 in the list, is busy trying to ensure that India will no longer produce affordable drugs for HIV positive people by pressing them to sign an 'Economic Partnership Agreement'.)

The most generous also stand to reap far more than they sow. The UK is number 5 on the list and their history of land grabbing, which is still a huge contributor to the country's wealth, is legendary. They are one of the biggest grabbers in Africa, though they are more likely to boast about how much they 'contribute' in aid. Another big and long running land grabbing incident in Tanzania involves a British company called Sudeco.

It's interesting how a lot of the land being grabbed is being used for sugar cane. This can conveniently be referred to as a food crop but is far more likely to be used these days for biofuels. Western powers spend decades driving African sugar producers out of business by subsidizing their own producers and dumping their surplus on African markets. But now they seem to want African sugar again.

Canada is number 6 on the list. Much of Tanzania's gold, much of Africa's gold, is extracted by a Canadian company, which pays little or nothing in taxes or royalties. The US, UK and even South Africa, number 28 on the list, also extract gold at massive cost to ordinary Africans. Gold extraction puts huge tracts of land out of use, though direct contamination, water contamination and through forcibly excluding indigenous people, often people who once made a living from the gold.

Make no mistake, famines like the one currently developing in East Africa, are generally not 'natural' disasters. They occur and last because they are a consequence of large scale theft, government sponsored, multinational sponsored, philanthropic institution sponsored, even international institution sponsored, theft.

I don't wish to suggest that contributing money to the current famine is wrong, I would encourage people to contribute. But, bearing in mind what we are 'contributing' to next year's famine, giving money is not the only thing we can do. We can also ask public representatives tough questions about things that are often presented as 'business' or 'aid' or 'partnership', especially when they involve land and water use.

The majority of people in all East African countries depend very directly on land for their food and income. If that land is taken from them, or even if its use is dictated by those whose sole aim is profit, their lives and livelihoods are threatened. A famine is not an 'act of God', it's a consequence of human activities.

Philanthropic Tokenism

Apparently Zanzibar succeeded in eradicating malaria in the 1970s, but it returned. Now they are about to eradicate it again, or at least, rates are far lower than they have been for a long time. However, there seems little chance that they will succeed in keeping malaria down for good.

Zanzibar, like many places in Africa, has problems with garbage disposal, sewage disposal, water, hygiene, infrastructure, especially roads and electricity, education, housing, poverty, health and many other things. These are the conditions in which a disease like malaria thrives. It is fairly certain that unless Zanzibar tackles these problems, malaria and other deadly (though preventable and curable) diseases will continue to be endemic.

The world was told that polio had been all but eradicated in the last few years and in a short time there would be no further cases. But polio has returned, partly because of a boycott on vaccinations in Nigeria due to rumours about their safety. As a result, there is talk of changing the polio eradication campaign from its present 'vertical' strategy to a more 'horizontal' strategy.

A vertical approach takes one disease and aims to vaccinate everyone who may be infected and, if possible, treat those who are already infected. A horizontal approach aims to provide health services for everyone and sees all diseases as being in need of prevention and/or treatment.

Realization that vertical approaches are not working and that horizontal approaches don't carry the kudos of being able to eradicate a whole disease gave rise to talk about health system strengthening and even 'diagonal' approaches, that would combine the horizontal and the vertical. Unfortunately, much of this has remained just talk.

There is even talk of Bill Gates taking a less vertical approach to polio eradication or risk seeing hundreds of millions go to waste. But I find that hard to believe. I don't think Gates lacks understanding of why polio (and other diseases) elude single disease approaches that involve some kind of expensive, technical fix. All he has to ask himself is why people are being infected by a disease that is spread through human feces. To put it another way, why are people drinking contaminated water?

Gates is fond of talking about water and sanitation but most of his money goes into things like vaccines. Indeed, much of it goes into US institutions and US citizens working on vaccines. Very few broad-based water and sanitation programmes, aimed at preventing all water borne diseases, are being financed by Gates.

Gates can spend his money and fail to eradicate polio or cholera or malaria or any of the diseases that he wants to be associated with eradicating. But as long as the water is contaminated, all his programmes will fail. As for his ideas on how to make the polio programme more 'diagonal', all that's mentioned is "training for health workers on topics such as hygiene and sanitation". Hygiene and sanitation are not just things people need to know about, they are things people need access to. It's no use health workers telling people to wash their hands and dispose of their faecal waste properly when they don't have clean, running water and adequate sewage disposal systems.

Maybe Gates will get involved in genuine 'health system strengthening', but just paying a few professionals more to work in his funded institutions is not going to help. That has just increased the brain drain from indigenous health institutions and taken attention away from health in general to concentrate on his favourites. But it seems more likely that he will continue to do what he is doing and put even more money into spin. After all, he has his agenda and evidence from the field has never affected that.

Diseases are not trophies and global health is not a matter of having a wall covered in certificates for attempting to eradicate a small number, or even a large number. Health depends on other crucial rights, such as food food and food security, water and sanitation, adequate living conditions and good education. Without these, throwing money at a handful of diseases will have little impact. Maybe some disease will be wiped out, or as good as, but people will continue to die of other preventable and curable diseases. Gates should work for human rights, any human rights or even all human rights. Instead, he's just wasting his money on philanthropic tokenism.

Stop These 24 Crimes Against Humanity

Perhaps people in rich countries like to believe that some of their country’s wealth supports people in developing countries. They may think too much money or too little money goes to developing countries and they may approve of development aid or they may disapprove. But they are less likely to realise that rich countries extract exponentially larger amounts of wealth from developing countries than they give in aid.

So instead of arguing for more aid money or less aid money or different ways of distributing it, people who feel strongly about development could lobby their governments to consider how rich countries could reduce the extent to which they impoverish poor countries. Below, I’ve compiled a list of 24 ways this could be done. This is what I call ‘development by omission’ and it will be noticed that every item in this list represents highly unethical behaviour, perhaps even criminal behaviour.

1. Stop grabbing land in developing countries for food, resources, biofuels, etc, and return the huge tracts of land that have been grabbed during previous imperialist regimes.
2. Stop growing biofuels, which only benefit rich countries (if they benefit anyone at all) and effectively steal water, land and other resources from developing countries. Biofuels mainly use food crops, so this also drives up the prices that people in developing countries have to pay for vital goods.
3. Stop using developing countries as sources of raw materials and natural resources. Monocultures such as coffee, tea, cotton, sisal, cocoa and others keep people in developing countries in penury. They also waste land that should be used for food production.
4. Stop trying to palm off genetically modified (GM) crops on developing countries, especially under the pretext that this will make them more food secure and will solve food shortages. GM crops represent higher costs and lower profits for farmers, even in the rich countries for which they were originally developed. They also make farmers less self reliant and more vulnerable to various hazards, natural and otherwise.
5. Stop using developing countries as sources of cheap labour, especially in the growing of monoculture crops, non-food crops and crops intended for export. Export Processing Zones (EPZ) have been set up so that foreign companies can avoid meeting even minimum labour regulations, as well as avoiding paying tax.
6. Stop allowing foreign companies tax holidays and other benefits that are not available to people in the developing country in question. Tanzanian companies that wish to exploit the country's rich reserves of gold, for example, cannot compete with foreign companies.
7. Stop dumping cheap, subsidised goods, such as sugar and cotton, on developing country markets. Rich countries need to remove subsidies and allow developing countries to compete.
8. Reverse unfair trade agreements, especially bilateral agreements, that allow rich countries to extract goods and services from developing countries so cheaply that the developing countries lose out.
9. Stop aggressively recruiting skilled employees, such as doctors and nurses, which are in very short supply. Compensate adequately the countries who have lost most of their skilled employees over the years.
10. Repeal the various structural adjustment policies and similar World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) strictures that reduce developing countries' ability to develop. Get rid of conditional aid, especially where those conditions are purely for the benefit of rich countries and are harmful to developing countries.
11. Change the terms and conditions for loans so that repayment does not mean that the borrowers are barely able to service the debt each year and will not be free of debt for the foreseeable future.
12. Get rid of ghost aid in its various forms. Much aid never reaches developing countries, some is a de facto subsidy for rich country products and services and some is debt cancellation or some other kind of expedient that makes it look as if aid is much higher than it really is. Get rid of purely supply led aid and interventions that are designed to benefit wealthy companies and NGOs.
13. Stop huge capital projects, such as hydroelectric dams, which cause more damage than good and usually only benefit some western companies who build the structures.
14. Where foreign companies are operating in developing countries, ensure that they pay proper wages and develop good working conditions. Also, ensure that they pay tax, at least at levels paid by people and companies from that company.
15. Stop aid programmes that simply increase dependency and do nothing to improve conditions. Also, aid that destroys local markets, such as food aid that consists of donations in kind from rich countries.
16. Stop selling unnecessary weaponry and other technologies, especially out of date technologies that are no longer of any use. Far from protecting developing countries from this kind of exploitation, many Western governments have been party to the exploitation. Also see ControlArms.org.
17. Stop setting up and supporting puppet regimes and undemocratic, corrupt governments. Stop interfering in the running of countries purely for the benefit of rich countries.
18. Stop encouraging developing countries to privatise public services and public utilities, especially where that involves those services and utilities being taken over by foreign companies.
19. Stop exporting pollution by producing the most polluting products in developing countries, for example, force growing fruit and vegetables in Kenya and flying them to Europe.
20. Stop dumping toxic waste and any other kind of wastes in developing countries, where they are unlikely to be treated responsibly. Stop dumping computers and other used goods where there is no demand for them and no capacity for processing the resulting waste.
21. Stop stealing indigenous knowledge and indigenous crops, genes and plants. Stop putting patents on things that have been stolen from developing countries.
22. Stop using developing countries as military and geopolitical pawns and pretending that this is a form of development.
23. Stop using developing countries as markets for products that are difficult or impossible to sell elsewhere. Stop forcing products on people who can't afford the consequences, such as GM crops, baby milk formula, etc.
24. Stop rich 'philanthropists' from using developing countries and their people for their experiments and their expansionist aspirations.

If rich countries stopped doing all or even some of the above, developing countries would be a lot better off. The paltry amounts of money spent on ‘aid’ would probably no longer be necessary. The number of people who live in poverty, suffer disease and other harm and who die unnecessarily as a result of rich countries’ practices of extracting wealth from developing countries could even seem like genocide. The list is by no means exhaustive.

Headline Grabbers and Land Grabbers

It's been a couple of years now since Bob Geldof made his injudicious pronouncements about biofuels. He should have known better and given the matter some thought. A little research wouldn't have done any harm either. Scepticism about biofuels didn't just appear recently. The environmentalist George Monbiot argued very cogently against biofuels nearly five years ago and has written many more articles on the subject since then.

But now the issue of land grabbing is being discussed more frequently and the part that biofuel production plays in land grabbing is clearly significant. Many of the claims about biofuel crops, such as jatropha, being productive even in marginal lands, turns out to be lies. Biofuel crops can be either non-food crops or food crops that are just not being used for human consumption but they all need good land and good growing conditions. So in the Tana River basin in the East of Kenya, sugar is being grown on an industrial scale in an area of great ecological importance while millions in the country starve. There is even a shortage of sugar in some areas!

Food prices have been rising for some time but producers of biofuels refuse to accept any responsibility for this trend. Good land is also in short supply here and in other developing countries. And many areas are facing drought, so growing crops that are subsequently used for biofuel production means the country is effectively exporting much of its scarce water supplies as well. It's not even as if poor Kenyans are benefiting from this, either. Many small farmers are displaced by the biofuel growers, who are all large-scale operators or connected with large-scale operators. They use factory scale production methods that require very few employees. People who formerly owned or farmed the grabbed land have either been bought off for a pittance or squeezed out some other way.

Governments of developing countries usually connive with the various multinationals and rich countries who are looking for cheap land. They are of little help when it comes to protecting ecologically important areas from being destroyed. And they seem happy to allow overuse of destructive artificial fertilizers as long as that gives big landowners and users increased crops, at least temporarily.

This land is also being destroyed because biodiversity is wiped out by large scale production. In the near future this land will simply be useless. If biofuels don't take off, the areas will probably be abandoned, as some operations already have been. And even when these multinationals and other parties use the huge tracts of land they 'purchase' for food production, it is produced for export, with bugger all in taxes or wages or anything else going to the developing countries. It's hard to estimate the numbers of people who have been displaced, dispossessed and otherwise abused by land grabbing, biofuel production and food production that is exclusively produced for export to rich countries.

Most farmers in developing countries are small farmers. They have never made a decent living from contributing small amounts of cash crops to big operators, and they never will. They need to concentrate on producing food for themselves, their families and the local market. People such as Geldof, with little or no knowledge of the conditions under which people in developing countries live, should do some research. The man has tens of millions of dollars, he could even afford to pay someone to do the research for him. I hope in the future he will admit his mistake and campaign against land grabbing in all its forms and especially against biofuel production.

Geldof and other 'philanthropists' may well boast about all the money they have raised for the developing world but they seem to have little idea of how much is being extracted from these countries. The money they claim to raise is puny compared to the amounts of money being extracted by food companies, biofuel producers, mining operations, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare companies, textile companies, sweat shops (or whatever they are now called) and just about any multinational you can name.

Instead of ranting on about things they don't understand, these people could try concentrating on some of the areas where vast amounts of wealth are stolen from developing countries by multinationals, rich governments and even some of the very people who think of themselves as philanthropists. It's time for some development by omission: development through reducing the exploitation of developing countries by the rich.