Who Are We Really Helping?

"In most successful cases we know of, the efforts, resourcefulness, self-discipline, and latent management skills of have rural poor have initially been mobilized and organized by outsiders, overcoming the lack of experience and self-confidence among people who have only known deprivation, hardship, social and economic oppression, and a sense of powerlessness."
- Reasons for Success: Learning From Instructive Experiences in Rural Development

Most contemporary development literature emphasizes the the importance of grassroots over top-down decion-making. The idea is to implement a project that simultaneously pursues "development" while increasing the agency of those it seeks to "develop." Those who form projects are unlikely to succeed without including recipients in every stage of the process. International donors, looking to do good, build a safe water source for a village. But by forgoing consultation and focus group discussions with the community, the donors' project lack the support and enthusiasm of the village to maintain the project.

Here's an apt example: we discussed our project with teachers at a planning meeting with the Lata School staff yesterday for a lengthy exchange of ideas and expectations between Duma and the school. Toward the end of the meeting, the headmaster submitted that although we, the project managers, are ultimately responsible for purchasing animals and building materials, he wanted a representative from the school on hand to vet all our decisions. If we want to purchase a cheap section of iron roofing, for example, the headmaster wants someone to approve the purchase to ensure it won't rust prematurely. There is a precedent for this type of concern. On her own prerogative, one Duma volunteer recently purchased pens and paper to fill what she saw as a need among schoolchildren. She did not ask the teachers whether they felt similarly nor did she ask what kinds of products she ought to supply. The headmaster took issue with her assessment as well as her shopping skills.

The community goodwill we must generate as a precondition for the success of our project is contingent on satisfying a slew of stakeholders with specific expectations. We cannot afford to make these kinds of mistakes.

As such, we met with the Lata School staff to discuss the basic premise of the project and solicit opinions. Francis joined us along with a government agricultural extension worker who conducted an ad hoc feasibility test on the school grounds. According to his analysis, the school has enough room and fodder for two cows or eight goats. Since their meeting with Jake last year, the school had been expecting to receive cows, but budgetary constraints have made goats more appealing lately. Regardless, we intended the decision to be made as a group. Discussing the pros and cons of both animals (e.g. more/less milk, more/fewer animals), some staff preferred goats, others cows, and one triangulated these two positions to suggest one cow and a few goats.

The process of choosing animals required us to collectively reconcile abutting economic and cultural realities. The arguments in favor of goats are the relative ease of care, the value of goat's milk, and goats' ability to reproduce four times as fast as cows (they gestate for half the time and usually produce twins). But as one teacher argued, most people in Shimbwe keep cows and goats are less common. Thus, if the school houses cows, people will be able to genetically improve the local caste and learn advanced animal husbandry.

The school teachers calmed our concerns with specific plans for who would care for the livestock and watch over the shelters at night. While we have yet to draw up a contract (or memorandum of understanding as they say here), we were all able to agree on the basic parameters. Duma would provide funding for the shelter and lease the animals to the Lata School for a determined period of time. The school is responsible for feeding, milking, and otherwise caring for the animals.

The school teachers understood and agreed with our plan to loan livestock to community members. However, Francis, the Duma chairperson, offered to give a group of five teachers the first loan. They enthusiastically agreed. Without much consultation with us, Francis has been determined to offer teachers the first loan as an incentive to take on the project, even though they suggested the project sans loan in the first place. Here, we were unable to avoid what we see as undue favoritism. Perhaps Francis knows this population better than we do and this could grease the social machinery of success despite our reservations.

We left the discussion satisfied and optimistic that the school was ready for the program. All that was left was to determine what materials to use for building the shelter. The school teachers agreed to provide the labor for free (though we debated over what type of lunch we would provide: they wanted fois gras, we offered rice and beans. They assented). Walking towards the main road to catch a dala dala back to Moshi, we were happy that Francis saw so much prospect in the project.

We ended up back in Duma's office and discussed loans in more detail. Choosing a candidate for a loan is a politically-charged procedure. Duma members pay entrance fees and annual dues. The organization is therefore obliged to provide returns on what members see as investments. But our intention is to help the poorest of the poor and to use the school as a local educational center for those in line to receive animals. Alas, the poorest of the poor usually can't afford to pay membership fees. And to make matters even more complicated, potential loanees have to have sufficient land and resources to provide feed and build a shelter.

As outsiders seeking to assist the poor, we are not entirely sensitive to the needs of an NGO to placate its members. On the other hand, we are relying on the NGO to sustain the project after we leave. We are generally committed to common ground and compromise. Still, we feel a moral aversion to using grant money to improve the lives of those who aren't destitute. We don't want to use our resources to reinforce or stratify preexisting inequality. But if we cater too much to the institutional concerns of the NGO, we may end up with just that.

We acknowledge that the poorest of the poor might lack the resources to care for an animal and we do not want to make loans in vain. However, we would rather develop a plan that enables the poor to obtain inaccessible resources than ignore them entirely. Thus, we will suggest using three pilot loan groups: one with Lata teachers, one with Duma members, and one with poor non-member residents of the Sia district.

We will still require arable land and proper shelter but hope the poor will use their well-developed coping skills to meet the these criteria.

Next Tuesday, we are going back up to Sia to meet with parents and teachers to explain the project and our long-term goal of loaning livestock. We are bringing six Swahili speakers along to break up the parents into focus groups with the aim of having parents brainstorm ways for peasants with land but not capital to meet our loaning conditions.

Tuesday is also our target date for ground-breaking on the project site.