UN-NGLS Publications: Development Dossier

We have met with them all, up and down the line, and we know that their story, in spite of its collaborative cohesion, is literally unreal; but there is no gap through which we may penetrate the madness. They all appear utterly convinced, their statements reverberating off each other as if we are all caught in a gigantic echo-chamber. Together, they represent the whole chain-from the local NGO responsible for the project, to the expatriate technical advisors and the national government's departmental officials and extension officers, through to the foreign donors and their own governmental backers. For all of them this project is almost a talisman, a repository of meaning and purpose, a self-evident truth. Their easy belief causes us to doubt our own questions, their purpose and their efficacy. But we have been there, and we cannot doubt what we have seen. Or not seen.

Not that we can claim to have really spoken with the people, with the community for whom the project has supposedly been created; we do not speak their language, and our conversations have been frustrated and sullied through broken English and mediocre translation. Also, we come from such different worlds-we from a South African city, they from deep in the African bush. But we do have a limited ability to cross those borders; it is our work, after all, and we take it seriously. So we can at least identify their bemused confusion, their lack of interest, at this strange "development" project in the bush, even though it is tempered by generosity of spirit towards those who have come to "help them", and by the inevitable glimmerings of avaricious desire at the prospect of the resources which may offset their very real struggle for survival.

We have just completed an evaluation of a rural development NGO, and have submitted our report. The impact of the report hinged on the exposure of the flagship project of the NGO-a cooperative farming venture situated some kilometres from a tribal village which traditionally practised subsistence agriculture from individual homesteads. The evaluation report was, we thought, an attempt to report as honestly as possible. It had not been appreciated. We sat now with a sullen and angry group, representatives of the NGO, of the donors, of government. All were equally distressed. All were at pains to have us retract, or at least amend, our report.

We cannot allow this report to be circulated in Europe, rumbled the donors, we have raised millions on the basis of this project. And we, murmured the NGO, have been doing the best we can; you indicate now that we do not know what we are doing. And the government representatives bleated as if they were lambs being taken to the slaughter-would you destroy our attempts to modernise our people and our economy, they demanded?

Look, we replied, an evaluation is not a judgement, it's a tool with which to learn. There is much that can be done, but not the way you're going about it. Assist the people to increase the yields from their homestead gardens, and build slowly from there. But what you have done strikes us as somewhat absurd. The thing is, none of the villagers asked you to do what you have done. They wanted help simply with increasing their yield. But this was not enough for you. So now, deep in the bush, unconnected by road to any source of supply or marketing outlet, one and a half hours walk from the nearest village, a 30 hectare plot of cleared ground stands fenced and empty. You have put down two bore holes, and this together with the fencing and some unused machinery lying about has cost you 50,000 dollars.

You have provided the "cooperative" with two weeks training. When we visited the project, at 11:00 in the morning, no one was working on the plot; actually, no one was there at all. The two cooperative members who accompanied us-one of whom is the chairperson-appeared to understand nothing about cooperatives, economic agriculture, or the project as an entity. No one is taking responsibility for, or displaying any commitment towards, "their" cooperative. One of the members stated that unless some form of salary was forthcoming soon, from the NGO, he would leave. Apart from calling in question the very concept of cooperative, this clearly, at best, is a long-term venture which will only realise "profit" some years down the line. He wants a job; other villages simply want to continue farming as they have in the past, although better. There is, we put to the circle of staring faces, simply nothing there to speak of, apart from the ruins of your own activities.

But don't you see, they responded, we need a project of this kind to change a way of life which is going nowhere.

We sat back and looked at them. Yes, we were thinking, clearly this is their need, but what does it have to do with the reality of the community? At the same time, we realised that we were falling into the same trap which had snared them. They were our clients, and they had not asked for an opportunity to learn. They had asked for an evaluation report which they could use to raise further funds. We could not alter the report, but we saw that it had indeed become simply a judgement, not a developmental tool. The circle had not been broken; it had simply wound in upon itself, and become stuck in its own grooves.

For many, many years now, for longer than many of us have been around, the concept of development has been with us. At least, development as it is generally understood: as a political-economic project which is intended to assist "under-developed" communities and countries to "become developed", in the sense of "catching-up" with "developed" countries. Development has thus been understood largely from an economistic perspective-as the eradication, or at least the reduction, of poverty (and therefore, concomitantly, development has implied the building of-or entry into-a modern economy). More recently it has also gained a political overtone-"developed" is often synonymous with democracy, pluralism, justice, equity and respect for a universal code of human rights. (Moreover, it also often promotes a normative stance-for instance, the promotion of gender awareness as an intervention into "traditional" culture.) When coupled with each other, the political economy perspective attains a social dimension: in some form or other development has implied modernisation-the transformation of "traditional" society (characterised by dependence on particular social forms and cultures, as well as on the whims and dictates of nature) towards "modern" society (characterised by control over nature, by individual free choice, and by independence as freedom from given social and natural reality).

This is a radically simplistic rendition of a highly complex concept, particularly today, when much that has passed for development lore has become contested and contentious. We are living in what is often described as a post-modern era, in which ambiguity, uncertainty and contradiction have replaced former certainties. Many feel that the development project has failed; the gap between rich and poor has increased rather than decreased, and ecological and social problems begin to render our world, in a very real sense, unsustainable. Development theory has undergone many transformations over the years, and today there is a growing body of thought which is beginning to question not simply the various theories but the very validity of the development concept itself. And further, not simply the concept, but the integrity and intentions of those who presume to practise and promote development.

Questions abound, but the mainstream of development practice, polluted though it may be, continues on its inexorable path to the sea. There is little change. For underlying the various theories of development which inform practice, there are certain paradigmatic assumptions which are largely unconscious, and to that extent hold practitioners captive. We will attempt here to describe these assumptions and practices. Readers may resist recognising the operation of some or all of these assumptions in their practice, and they may in part be right-yet all of us have had our sensibilities marked by these assumptions. They may not describe what we all think-development theory no longer conforms to this simplistic modernist paradigm-but despite the new perspectives which are becoming available, what follows does to a large extent describe what we all do. Thereafter we will contrast these with another possible set of assumptions, which may take us some way towards the transformation of practice.

The dominant development paradigm is then, by and large, made up of the following assumptions and practices:
--    Development can be created and engineered. Indeed, it must be. It does not exist in and of itself. Interventions, projects, are designed specifically to "bring" development to those amongst whom it is lacking.
--    Development, then, is something which is brought, to and for some, by others who presumably are more developed.
--    Development is done on behalf of third parties. In other words, the development practitioner brings development interventions which are designed and financed by third parties, not by the communities and clients who are the "subjects" of the intervention.
--    All of the above constrains the development practitioner to work primarily out of the specifications of the world from which he/she has been sent, rather than out of an accurate and sensitive reading of the particular situation with which he/she is actually faced.
--    Development is linear and predictable. Put another way, there is a direct line between cause and effect, between input and output. So long as we have made the correct assumptions initially we should be able to predict output based on input.
--    This gives rise to the concept of the "development project" which is generally short-term, time-bound, limited in terms of resources and both limited and finite (predictable) in terms of output. The development project, which is the primary vehicle for development intervention and finance, presumes these assumptions to be true. Development can be said, in fact, to be defined and framed by the concept of the development project-development begins and ends where the particular project begins and ends. Development itself, then, has a beginning and an end; and the assumption is that the end can be defined and provided for at the beginning. (It is also remarkably difficult, in terms of donor demand, to change a project substantially once it has started, in response to what has been learned about strategy and methodology during the early implementation of the project. Despite the rhetoric, real learning is not high on the agenda.)
--    Development presumes a particular perspective on human nature-that understanding will generate change. (Hence the emphasis on training and technical assistance in development interventions.) It does not take much account of unconscious factors, of processes of change, of culture, tradition, or the human heart.
--    Concomitantly, development places far more emphasis on technical experts and "advisors", and on trainers, than it does on change facilitators. This emphasis expresses itself in terms of project specifications, in terms of relative positioning within NGOs and in terms of remuneration.
--    Development assumes a preferred culture or value system. This presumption is denied by most development pundits, yet it remains true. The presumption is that there is something wrong, and we intervene to change it. We judge the results according to our own norms.
--    As an ironic addendum to the two preceding points, development practitioners are not required to pay attention to their own development as human beings, as part of effective development practice. The development practitioner's own development and processes of learning are entirely removed from the picture. There is thus little or no reciprocity in the relationship between developer and "developee".
--    Development has come to accept that the "subject's" participation in the development project is vital, but it sees that participation as a means, not as an end in itself.
--    Development assumes that a successful development intervention, or project, is replicable; indeed, this is one criterion in judging its success. If it is not replicable elsewhere, it is lacking in value.
--    Likewise, the successful development project is sustainable, both in terms of financial resourcing as well as in terms of continuity of the effects achieved. If the effects of the intervention are not sustained, the project will be deemed to have been unsuccessful.
--    The evaluation of development interventions-which tells us much about the underlying assumptions-is generally performed in terms of the ends stipulated in the project document, not in terms of the myriad other outcomes which may (or may not) have been forthcoming in terms of the individuals, communities or organisations with whom the development intervention had been entered into.

Generally, the underlying paradigm which characterises a "conventional" development approach is fundamentally about the delivery of resources. These resources come in various guises-they may be finances, equipment, technical know-how, skills, political clout, even a particular approach to life. The point is, those who are under-developed lack certain resources; development (at its best) entails the effort to transfer those resources from those who have to those who do not have.