by Jeffrey Barnes, veteran aid worker
I start my day in World One, the world of international flights, business class lounges, laptop computers, four star hotels and Internet. Although power in the country is expensive and infrequent, the hotel management has installed stand up air conditioners in all the public spaces, including the hallways, to ensure that the temperature is always low enough so that clients with three piece suits are comfortable. The hotel generator run constantly to maintain the chill, but this is only noticeable to clients when they smell the diesel fumes in the parking lot
After breakfast, my driver is waiting for me and drives out into the midst of World Two, the bustle and struggle of the city streets. Our trip to my meeting can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours. We have allotted one hour. I admire the nerves of my driver as I watch him navigate around the potholes, the taxis, the bikes and the pedestrians who jump in front of us. The hawkers congregate at the traffic choke points to sell—kitchen appliances, toilet seats, bootleg CD’s, fresh fruit, clothes, plumbing, tool sets, furniture, toys, rugs and more. The guys selling cellphone recharges are everywhere, with their long strings of cards. My driver needs a recharge, but first insists that the seller open the recharge and enter the code. It works, but the additional time reminds me of costs of doing business in a low trust environment. “Low trust environment” is development jargon for “everyone for himself” that is the core principle of World Two.
I notice a huge cloud of black smoke in a nearby residential neighborhood. I ask my driver what he thinks it is. He hadn’t noticed it. Later, I hear that the fire was caused by the explosion of an oil tanker that shouldn’t have been in a residential neighborhood. Several deaths, homes destroyed. Apparently tanker explosions don’t merit special attention when you are working the streets of World Two.
Surprisingly close to our one hour estimate we arrive at our destination in World Three—a large ministry of the state government. Although it takes a while to attract the attention of the receptionist who is busy reading her newspaper, my obvious status as a foreigner gives me rapid access to World Three and she directs us to our destination without questioning our purpose or demanding any credentials.
The elevators are not functioning and apparently haven’t been for some time. As we walk up the seven flights of stairs to our destination, I notice that the walls are amply decorated with posters for every conceivable campaign, every vertical program, every pet donor cause—World AIDS day, Roll Back Malaria, Campaign for expanded vaccination, Women’s Day, World Effort against TB, Millenium Development Goals, World Population Day, etc.
When we arrive at our destination, our contact is not there and her secretary seems uniformed of our arrival, in spite of repeated calls to set up and confirm the appointment. When our contact finally arrives forty-five minutes later, she greets us warmly and we discuss the conference we attended together. We discuss another team building exercise for her and her staff. Our conversation is filled with development buzz words, “capacity building”, “leadership development”, “public private partnerships”. Ultimately, the deal we are discussing is about helping the ministry with their internal processes. I wonder what difference it will make to those people working the streets in World Two.
After the meeting, we plunge back into World Two. The traffic has become even more chaotic. Enterprising drivers have added two more lanes by driving on the sidewalk, but the four lanes still have to merge into one as we access the other road, so traffic has slowed to a crawl. A tall man wearing a dirty white boubou limps over to me. He thrusts out both his arms in my direction. His left arm is amputated below the elbow and his right hand is extended in anticipation of my charity. I have no change, and I don’t dare reach for my wallet while we are stuck in traffic with the windows open. I gesture with empty hands and apologize for not being able to help him out. Instead of moving onto the next car as the others have done, he glares at me and thrusts out his arms again. His eyes speak to me: “Don’t you see I am an amputee? Didn’t you come here to help people like me? Why don’t you build my capacity to eat a decent meal? When is World Amputee Day?”
I have no answers. The car finally lurches forward. I am thankful to escape back to World One, but the questions remain. Why are these three worlds so disconnected? Can we international travelers of World One really make the comfortable bureaucrats of World Three more responsive to the struggling masses of World Two? Or are we just making them even less accountable?
7 Comments
Perhaps the main problem is that aid workers spend too much time in World 1? I can’t imagine how anyone believes they’ll accomplish something on a “mission” (a short trip to the recipient country), rather than living and working there. They never know the context or the details well enough, and are always ready to push solutions discovered in other countries.
Why not have more aid workers firmly rooted in World 3, (where and when they are wanted)? When governments have competent technical assistance, especially the kind that answers to them (and not a country office) they are more likely to use that t.a. for positive change.
Ranting aside, to answer Barnes’s final questions:
1. They are disconnected because aid agencies support a culture of perks and comfortable living, and still shell out money for ineffective consultancies and missions rather than more long-term experts. 2. No 3. Yes
The author thinks of a Nigeria solution in terms of aid workers coming together with the government to solve the problems of the teeming masses. There is no “world 4″ showing experiences working with the fledgling private sector. They seem to have no place in his narrative.
My issue is that the solutions that have had the greatest impact on Nigeria in recent times are private sector driven solutions, but aid workers seem to be resistant to embrace that view.
Let me address his questions.
1) the worlds clearly are not as disconnected as he thinks. After all he is going to conferences with the senior government bureaucrats, though I suppose his lifts work.
2) External calls for accountability work when there is pressure to apply. Nigeria’s governemnt is funded in a way as to avoid such pressures
3)They generally have no impact either way
I think the problem isnt to foreign aid workers only. What Barners explains, I as development workers ask myself, isnt the life am living and most of elite people in many African cities? That we so comfortable in our World One(which in this case our good homes) we drive in the roads with pots meeting amputee, going to attend meetings and workshops in World three goverment buildings while doing so because at the end of the meetings there will be an envelope with money? Am not saying all doing so, but unless local development workers change our attitude toward World Two, it will take to long to develop our countries.
Its high time for delopment workers to work with World two to make World three uncomfortable and accountable.
Adam Foya
A few quick responses:
Matt: I completely agree about Aid workers spending too much time in World 1. But it is not the perks and the hotels that is the problem, it is the fact that the major development institutions are based in Washington, New York and Geneva instead of in developing countries.
Snazzy: Private sector is the high end of world 1 in my narrative, but I do think its hold more potential. My work focuses on private sector solutions, but i can tell you that there is often a culture clash between the development way vs. the private sector way of doing things.
Adam: I think you are right that Aid should do more to make World three more accountable. The opposite seems to be too often the case, with some happy exceptions. The big constraint is that so much aid is given in the context of bilateral diplomacy and no government will invite foreign aid which makes its own life more difficult by increasing the demands placed on it by its own citizenry. No donor government will support activities which create diplomatic problems.
thanks for you feedback
“The big constraint is that so much aid is given in the context of bilateral diplomacy and no government will invite foreign aid which makes its own life more difficult by increasing the demands placed on it by its own citizenry.”
I work for a bilateral organisation, and this simply is not true. We have many programs that are agreed with the local govenrment, as all programs must be, and that seek to boost civil society structures of acountability.
I’m not really sure what the purpose of the article is. Are you based in a developing country? Or have you been for considerable periods in the past? That’s the only way, in my view, one can even begin to understand the complexity of development and aid.
Government paid-for aid is like war. It costs money, but it cannot be justified by any financial calculus; and it is always a loser for the people who actually pay for it. It may, in some ultimate sense, be justified by the good it does; but that good is a byproduct. What keeps the game going is that aid is a clear winner for (1) the people like the Gates who want to be self-righteous about their private wealth while avoiding death taxes and (2) for the hundreds of thousands of people whose academic pedigrees do not qualify them to do anything remotely practical but whose snobberies demand that they be given ample salaries and pride of place as the people who are “helping to save the planet”. What these people share with planners of all stripes, public health officials (those who never do anything so mundane as actual nursing or dispensing of medicines and care), and the millions of regulatory bureaucrats who can prescribe rules for actions (driving a truck, digging coal) that they themselves never do is the ability to produce a prose so deadly that even Jesus would find hard to forgive. “We have many programs that are agreed with the local government”, indeed.
To Adam Jackson– Actually I have spent 15 years working in developing countries and 10 working in Washington in support of developing countries. While working in the countries (Mali, South Africa, Niger, Ivory Coast) I had much greater confidence that I was making a difference and could see positive results. However, I often felt that those results depended rather artificially on me as an individual and the degree of control I exercised over my work. Since I have been in Washington, I feel my supporting role is more appropriate, but I have a lot less confidence that I am making a difference. I think what I have struggled with as an individual is something the aid industry as a whole has not gotten right– striking the right balance between supporting and driving. I hope the article will provoke others to think about this dilemma.