by Ed Carr, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina
A growing volume of critical writing on the Millennium Villages project (MVP) includes blog posts, journalistic pieces, scholarly works, and, recently, one partial social impact study. Nearly all point to project outcomes that could have been avoided had the project seriously engaged with the long history of field-based experiences in development.
Here, I will focus on just one example: Because the MVP did not critically evaluate the effect of its own assumptions about what works in development, a conflict between project goals and the needs of the villagers has emerged in at least one site.
The MVP is part of Millennium Promise, an effort to make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As a result, the MVP framed its interventions around the MDGs. For example, in 2005 the MVP website described community participation in this MDG-centric manner:
An open dialogue [between MDG-trained teams and villagers] will cover topics such as local problems as related to the MDGs, constraints and opportunities for achieving the MDGs at their village level, initial discussions on possible solutions and approaches for achieving the MDGs, and general impressions/consensus on being included as a Millennium Villages Project site.
The project’s founders have stated that the MVP was built on the “core truth” that there are “known packages of effective and generally low-cost interventions” that can address poverty. A review of the MVP described it as a pilot project seeking to “provide successful evidence of how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”. The project’s focus on finding “successful evidence” for the efficacy of these packages of interventions suggests that the project has an interest in validating the importance of the problems identified in the MDGs and justifying the interventions of the MVP.
This creates a conflict of interest for the field staff of the MVP: What if the evidence does not show success? And what to do when the local community’s concerns do not align with either these solutions or the MDGs?
Those familiar with the history of development work know that such conflicts of interest are chronic. Take the classic by Robert Chambers: Whose Reality Counts. He describes what happened when he examined a consultant’s glowing report on a World Bank irrigation scheme and found evidence that the conclusions were wrong:
My points were more or less accepted, but then the matter was consigned to an indeterminate limbo. Nothing was done. Far from being rejected or modified, the consultant’s conclusions were published unchanged, and without reference to the criticisms….The consultants knew that the World Bank, which had commissioned the study, was keen to justify the new approach. They knew what result was wanted. Supported by the consultants’ unchanged report, the new approach was implemented on a large scale. So, even if bad news is reported, it may be avoided, rejected or finessed out of sight. (p.82)
Another disconnect appeared in a UNDP/OECD evaluation of a project in Mali: “it has to be asked how the largely positive findings of the evaluations can be reconciled with the poor development outcomes (1985-1995) and the unfavorable views of local people.” (1999)
Similarly, a classic work by James Ferguson (1994) recounts a World Bank project to teach better farming techniques in a mountainous region of Lesotho, out of touch with local people who had long ago learned to abandon the poor soils of that region and work as migrants in South African mines.
There are the same significant pressures on the MVP field staff to press participants to conform to project assumptions and expectations, and to reject or finesse evidence and feedback that does not. Those designing and implementing the MVP should have addressed possible conflicts between their goals and those of the communities. They did not. As a result, I was not surprised to see this quote from a woman living in a Rwandan Millennium Village, from a recent study:
The MV has to meet with local community to learn more about what people really want because sometimes the MV brings things that the community doesn’t need or want.
This and several other issues with the MVP were easy to see from the outset (see here and here). But to recognize them required a familiarity with the history of development and a self-awareness that the Millennium Village Project itself has never shown.
–
Ed Carr is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of South Carolina. His book Delivering Development: Globalization’s Shoreline and the Road to a Sustainable Future was released by Palgrave Macmillan on February 1, 2011. He blogs at Open the Echo Chamber.
Read all Aid Watch posts on the Millennium Villages project here.
9 Comments
Solid account.
The next question is – where do the MVPs go from here??
Thanks for the excellent guest post.
What puzzles me about making village development an objective, in general, is that it is inconsistent with the momentum of rural-urban migration, and therefore on the wrong side of history. Eg Even in Ethiopia which is still a heavily rural economy with most of the population living several miles from the nearest road there is a relentless move to the towns. And for good reason according to studies of urban agglomeration which suggest that there are economies from urbanization up to quite a large size. The more specific problem is that this has been tried befoe in some form and failed. (Eg in Tanzania where development villages of the early 60s became the ujamaa villages of the late 60s.
Thanks for the excellent post. I think you really hit the nail on the head with this:
As you suggest, this flaw was evident from the very early stages of the MVP. Although they’ve since toned downs much of their literature and rhetoric, anyone who was paying attention 5 or 6 years ago will remember that MVP was very much conceived in the spirit of “all these nuanced debates about aid effectiveness are a waste of time. We KNOW what works, we’ve got the money, and we’re charging ahead to prove just how right we are!” Dr. Sachs’ insistence on questioning the motives and commitment to poverty reduction of those who made these critiques did nothing to bridge the divide between those responsible for carrying out MVP and those who thought such a huge project ought to be a bit more careful in its design, implementation, and evaluation.
This article points out more examples of a theme seen throughout development-beauracratic planning vs. field work.
The MDG’s are a broad set of idealistic goals that apply a certain solution to a array of problems. The people in charge of the MVP have a set of results that want to see even if the results do not really achieve anything. The planners think their solutions are infallible and do not seriously consider the feedback from workers on the ground.
Folks, a quick comment on independence. I have no connection to Bill or Aid Watch, except that I am familiar with the work of both. I’ve never met Bill (except virtually). The post is part of a larger argument I wrote in 2006 about why the MVP would not work – it was published in a Progress in Development Studies in 2008 after a fairly contentious peer review process that I am going to assume did not involve Bill or anyone at Aid Watch. In other words, if there is convergence between my opinions and ideas and those of Bill or other Aid Watch contributors, it springs from independent observation, analysis and thought. Period.
Incidentally, while my observations and opinions largely converge with Bill and Aid Watch on this subject, there are other areas where I diverge from them (I think development needs a more fundamental rethinking, I suspect, than has been evidenced in Bill’s formal writing). This did not dissuade the owners of this blog from running this post.
I agree that the failure here is clearly a planner vs. searcher scenario. However, sending supplies that a poor developing village does not want or need seems pretty hard to do, but they found a way to do it. My question then is when can the MVP just get up and leave if the goals aren’t aligned. In the conflict of interest situation, should the workers just stop their plan and let the village try to use its limited resources. I feel like it is important to have local input and guidance, but we can’t discard the fact that the hundereds of academics and “planners” have been studying development processes for decades. If it were you, who would you ask to LEAD your village’s development out of poverty , a local villager or a trained development worker with large amounts of finacial and research backing.
The MVP seems to still believe that their predetermined solutuions are what’s best for the villagers in these different countries. Instead they should take some time and observe these countries and actually see what problems are plaguing these different countries. This type of approach along with realizing that you don’t have to hit a home run every time up to bat, because a steady flow of small but needed changes will better in the long run.
Watching this blog evolve feels strange. I’m familiar with projects that are mis-planned because inadequate community research was done, but please tell me, those of you who know the MVs better, whatever happened to “adjustment” to the reality on the ground once the gap between what is given and what is wanted has been detected?
I agree with what Joseph is saying, while we need to listen to what is wanted and needed by the people of these villages, it is still hard as a financial backer to just completely send the resources to the villages without any say in the matter. It is this ongoing conflict of “planner” vs “searcher” in which my recommendation is have the “planner” send out a “searcher” and then start planning from there. This way, you know what this village has tried and what has failed and you can provide these villages with resources for what they know works. However, it is hard to say that it is best to just let them tell us what works, give them the resources and then back out completely. By doing that, you are essentially saying “here, continue what you’ve been doing with more resources to do it. If it brings you out of poverty then hooray but if it doesn’t, you can’t point the finger at us.” There needs to be a common-ground where the villagers and MV staff meet in order to gain the best resources for the village but also for the village to listen in what may be the best way to utilize what they have.
3 Trackbacks
[...] this article: Why development history matters for the Millennium Villages Project AKPC_IDS += "11083,";Popularity: 50% [...]
[...] my guest post on Aid Watch yesterday, I argued that a basic familiarity with the history and philosophy of development, and [...]
[...] Why development history matters for the Millennium Villages Project – Aid Watch – Looks at how the MVP faces the same problems that have been faced in the past in other development projects. [...]