Journal Entry April 6

While we were hiking Mount Binga (pictures soon) I had and interesting discussion with J about development and aid. I forgot how we got on the topic – at one point she mentioned Jeffrey Sachs and when I said I liked reading his articles she was alarmed. His perspective, if I understood right (I know close to nothing on foreign aid), was that all underdeveloped countries and communities need is for us to pump money and effort into them. If you put in enough money eventually the people will bring themselves up. At least that is the idea. However, J argued, this does nothing to build the capacity of the people. If you give people new homes and schools and wells so people can get clean water that may be good in the short term. It may save lives. But if you come back 10 years later the community will look the same. There won’t be any new wells because no one can pay for it or knows how to dig one.

J’s view was that change must come from within the community. I played devil’s advocate and asked her to propose a project to develop a community if she were in charge. First she described the importance of assessment – not just a survey of HIV prevalence or literacy rates but an in-depth, multi-dimensional assessment of the level of development of a community which you could use to measure the community’s progress, understand inter-relations of different problems, and use to encourage inter-community rivalry and progress. This might take a couple years but it’s still an important step. The problem is that no sponsor wants to fund a 2 year foreign aid project that can’t claim to save a single life.

The next step is for the people of the community to elect a council. I missed the details of it (damn ADD I was probably distracted by some ant behavior I had never seen before) but basically the people need a place and organized meetings to report a problem. Example: is it difficult for the people on one side of town to get water? The council can add this problem to the list, decide to build a well on that side of town, and devise a plan to acquire money to do it. If this requires everyone in the community giving a little bit of money per week or giving up one chicken, apparently people are willing to do it. I imagine the council could deal with more abstract problems as well, such as giving a presentation or having a meeting to discuss domestic violence. That’s the just of the idea. However again, no one wants to fund this kind of project because when you compare the numbers it looks like an ineffective strategy.

In Peace Corps, sustainability is the magic word. It’s all about applicability, thinking small and building people power. However sometimes it can be hard to put a number on that type of progress. This seems to contrast other foreign aid which revolves around numbers (the type of aid Jeffrey Sachs supports): how many mouths did you feed and how many lives did you save? That’s where the money comes from. People like to give money and think that they saved a life. They probably did, and I’m not completely against that kind of aid. But a crucial part of the solution to poverty and underdevelopment is building the capacity of the people.

I got excited today when I heard my JOMA counterpart, Nelson, talk to the kids in our journalism group. He was obviously inspired by the training-of-trainers conference last weekend (completely organized, and temporarily funded – until grant money came in - by PCVs). He reminded the students that the province of Manica doesn’t yet have a newspaper, and that one day they might become journalists. He planted the idea of giving talks in all the churches in town about issues such as gender equality and domestic violence. We also talked about how to fund the group – after the aid money stops flowing. Nelson’s new attitude is the type of progress I like to see because the change is coming from within. It would be impossible to measure. It also may seem like a small difference in a country crippled by poverty. However it’s all part of the bigger picture. Maybe the kids in my journalism group will help pave the way to more jobs or increase the transparency of the government.

I’ve thought a lot about the amount of difference Peace Corps makes. Overall it would be really hard to say because the effects may not be felt until many years down the road (perhaps when my favorite students become teachers?). It can’t be accurately measured or estimated, not even to the right magnitude, so I have to go off of what I believe to be true to justify me living and working here for 27 months. And in terms of building the capacity of the people… well there aren’t many programs like it. Some days are difficult, and often times I can be pessimistic, but in the end I truly believe it makes a big difference and will change the lives of people for the better. I’m glad to part of it. It’s just too bad the entire Peace Corps budget is smaller than that of the Army’s marching band.