Development???

Last week I went on my first UN mission as the gender expert for a joint program on wealth creation and economic empowerment. I was basically the annoying one who always asks, "What about the women?" "Can we hear a woman talk?" "Where are the women!?!?!" and then some. It was a very rural, very beautiful region on the border of Mozambique. We had our convoy of white Land Cruisers speeding past curious communities at 130km on unpaved roads with our high frequency radio antennas flying in the air. I learned a lot and I'm questioning the existence of development even more. My two biggest observations...

1- The UN has its role in the world and implementing projects is not one of them. A development practitioner cannot implement agriculture programs while sitting in his or her air conditioned office in the mega city of Dar es Salaam. If I had a project fail stamp, it would have been plastered all over everything. Cassava processing plants in an area where cassava doesn't grow, cashew processing plants that exploit women's labor and permanently damages their hands, importing chickens from Europe because they are supposed to be superior to local breeds (ummm sounds like colonialism chicken style), giving power tillers to farmers who don't have a license to drive them nor can they afford the petrol, building a sesame processing plant only to have it put to a stop because the location is not good, youth platforms that are pointless, tons of workshops and capacity building for the government only to have them transferred immediately after, etc. etc. etc. The UN is good at policy and working with national governments. They should stick to that instead of wasting millions of dollars on projects that don't work. The good thing is everyone on our mission agrees and told me that the UN is slowly moving in this direction. My only request is let's stop strolling over there and start running.

2- Tanzania is aid dependent. Not everyone, but at least the parts of Mtwara region I saw. I couldn't help but compare my experiences of visiting communities in India and visiting communities here. I will say in India I was with an NGO and here with the UN which definitely influences the community's reaction, BUT I've never encountered communities that stare blankly at you when you arrive and always always say "We need more money." There is little intiative to take ownership and to contribute to projects. The women I met usually walked around with haughty attitudes and the children looked absolutely miserable. They didn't find imaginative things to play with, they weren't running up to us, there was very little curiosity displayed. My theory is they are jaded by seeing development workers and would rather get straight to the point and ask for more money. There should be a time limit to giving development assistance, but who sets that limit and how is it enforced? Development workers should work harder to development community driven, managed, and owned projects. I think that's the best way to prevent dependence, but that would put development workers out of work (which I still hold is the goal, but obviously we all watch our back first, but in this case at the expense of others). I have so many more thoughts about this...will try to continue to process and share.

Though many mistakes have been made, I'm sure everyone will find a way to make the few positives seem like amazing feats, while the mistakes are a work in progress. After all nobody wants to lose their job. Why do we do this thing called development? It's full of greedy pigs. Just finished reading Lords of Poverty...also contributing to such depressing development thoughts. Perhaps I should just go and take photos and forget all this. Speaking of photos...captures from the trip