NGOs and access to humanitarian crises

Well I thought i'd bite the bullet and blog a recent paper I wrote on NGO access during humanitarian crises. If you can make it all the way through all 3500 words without snoozing, i'd love to hear your comments and/or suggestions!

Under what circumstances are NGOs unable to gain access to vulnerable populations? What are the implications for aid policy?

Gaining access to vulnerable populations is frequently a difficult task. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) face many circumstances where they are unable to gain access to vulnerable populations, as well as fierce criticism when they fail in their relief efforts. As with much of aid and development, the story isn’t wholly negative and there have been significant technical innovations recently that have facilitated improved access for NGOs. NGOs continue to operate in remote, unpopular and hostile environments and the challenges they face should not be overlooked. The aim of this paper is not to criticise what is already widely regarded as a flawed sector within the aid industry; rather it is to constructively contribute to the debate on access. I will draw out two main thematic areas under which NGOs are unable to gain access to vulnerable populations, namely: technicalities and hostile conflict zones. Following on from that, I will explore the idea that these circumstances mask deeper factors in providing relief; strategic interest and convenience. These influences are indicative of a shift in aid policy which I will discuss in an analysis on the implications of ‘access’ on aid policy in terms of conceptual, political and practical implications.

At this juncture, it would be wise to clarify some the key terms used here. When referring to NGOs in this paper, I am largely referring to specialist emergency NGOs who relief agencies who provide assistance. Access applies both to NGOs in terms of their access to vulnerable people, as well as to people in terms of their access to assistance. This paper will only look at NGOs’ access to people, but it is still important to recognise the duality of access in understanding it as a concept. Access ‘enables an impartial assessment of, and response to, people’s needs’ (Mancini-Griffoli & Picot 2004:12). I have taken vulnerable populations to mean those that are prone to suffering conflict, sustained poverty or emergencies such as famine. For the purpose of this essay I will be focusing on access issues relating to man-made disasters and humanitarian crises as opposed to environmental disasters.

Under what circumstances are NGOs unable to gain access to vulnerable populations?

NGOs attempt to provide assistance and relief to any person who is in need of assistance and unable to receive it from their own state. The four Humanitarian Principles developed by Henri Dunont of the Red Cross; Impartiality, Neutrality, Humanity and Independence, form the modus operandi from which NGOs operate. In consultation with the literature, I have drawn out two main themes that occur in accounts of when NGOs are unable to gain access. Though there are different circumstances of denied access in the literature, for brevity’s sake, I will illustrate the thematic areas of technicalities, and conflict zones as the main overarching circumstances as to why NGOs are unable to gain access to vulnerable populations.

Circumstances of technicalities

NGOs often find themselves unable to gain access to vulnerable populations because of bureaucratic regulations and a lack of accurate data leading to ‘forgotten populations’. These circumstances represent challenges to NGOs and have important policy implications. The bureaucracy surrounding NGO registration in Bosnia and Iraq serves as a good illustration of where NGOs are unable to gain access to the vulnerable because of technicalities. Bolton and Jeffrey argue that NGO registration was a tactic employed by authorities to control relief efforts and NGO access, adding that ‘the legislation in Bosnia and Iraq acted as a barrier to entry to organisations that were small, underfunded, or had significant political differences with the international authorities’ (Bolton & Jeffrey 2008:604). The implications on aid policy of this was that the NGO registration process became a deeply political matter and NGOs found themselves having to either disregard the law or identify themselves with a ‘side’. Another illustration of bureaucracy came from the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) where it reported that in January 2000 there were ‘seventeen locations which were made inaccessible by air due to flight restrictions imposed by the government’ (Marriage 2006:481).

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) conducted a survey in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which was ‘invaluable for documenting the plight of forgotten populations … in desperate need of assistance’ (Herp 2003:142). Whilst it is true that these surveys are typically only conducted in broadly accessible areas, it is worth noting that there are regions so remote and rural in the world that many NGOs would be unable to gain access to the vulnerable simply because they did not know they existed. These ‘forgotten populations’ are conveniently identified through these surveys and NGOs are able to implement their programmes.

Circumstances of conflict and hostility

Areas consumed by conflict and hostility are, by far, the most commonly cited circumstances of NGOs being unable to gain access to vulnerable populations. Conflict in the DRC, Iraq and Afghanistan are recent examples of countries where NGOs have repeatedly struggled to gain access to vulnerable populations due to hostility and insecurity. In 2003, NGO workers in Iraq were affected by a profound sense of insecurity and experienced numerous assassination attempts against personnel (Bolton and Jeffrey 2008). Rebel held areas in the DRC remained hostile to NGOs, and ‘between December 1999 and July 2000, MSF was forced to suspend activities in Kimpangu due to insecurity’ (Herp 2003:143). Even in areas not directly affected by the conflict, MSF found that in some provinces there were huge numbers of refugees but ‘roads and bridges throughout … have literally disappeared, making many areas practically inaccessible’ (Ibid.:144).

Under the surface of these circumstances lies a stark reality that in some (but not all) circumstances, insecurity can be linked back to the way that NGOs are operating. ‘They should be asking whether aspects of the way they are imposing their own formulae on the local reality could be leading to this kind of misunderstanding’ (Harragin & Chol 1998:37). Whilst this is not particularly constructive in the debate on terms of access for NGOs, it further iterates the point that NGOs consistently give reasons for not being able to access the vulnerable without studying the real causes of hostilities. Almost all circumstances, whilst often legitimate, are masking deeper motivations by NGOs for gaining access to and providing relief for vulnerable populations. Access based on strategic interest and convenience, provides us with two alternative explanations of why NGOs are really unable to gain access to the vulnerable.

Securing Strategic Interests

One of the biggest questions facing aid workers and policy makers alike is why NGOs push for access in some countries despite obvious security restrictions in order to assist vulnerable populations (such as in Iraq and Afghanistan) and why they remain apathetic to crises of monumental proportions (for example the famine experienced by the Dinka in South Sudan in the late 1980s, see Keen 1991). Indeed, during the 1980s there was little regard for the law or ‘hostile environments’ on the moral grounds that people were suffering and had needs that could be met.  Despite involving crossing into a sovereign territory illegally, in the 1980s, 200 NGOs were involved in a discrete cross-border relief operation carrying much needed aid into war-torn Afghanistan (Duffield 2007:73). Along with numerous unglamorous tales of taking risks, this is testament to the commitment of aid workers the world over to get access – and ultimately aid provision – to those who need it most. And those who need it most generally tend to be the least accessible (a logical deduction). However there is often more at stake than acting on what is morally ‘right’, and the pressures on donors to act according to their home political environment and ensuing strategic interests are great.  One study succinctly illustrates the importance of strategic interest and safeguarding regional security by comparing the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo (which resulted in a large scale humanitarian intervention), next to the relatively unpublicised and unassisted protracted crises in both Angola and Sudan (Olsen 2003:118).

As we can see from the following data, aid recipients are rarely the countries that need aid the most; instead countries of strategic importance to the big donors of the West tend to receive the biggest aid flows. The data was pulled from the OECD database, and to act as a useful comparison I have listed the ten countries with the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) rank. The data is illustrative for this purpose but a much more thorough analysis comparing the use of such different data sets is beyond the scope of this essay.

Figure 1. Top Ten Vs Bottom Ten

Top Ten Recipients of Gross ODA from the United States (USD million)			Ten states with  lowest HDI rank (ranked out of 187 countries)
Afghanistan	2 991		DRC	187
Iraq	1 985		Niger	186
Pakistan	906		Burundi	185
Sudan	840		Mozambique	184
Ethiopia	801		Chad	183
West Bank & Gaza Strip	783		Liberia	182
Haiti	714		Burkina Faso	181
Kenya	579		Sierra Leone	180
Colombia	539		Central African Republic	179
South Africa	527		Guinea	178

Source: OECD www.oecd.org/dac/stats & UNDP http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/

Furthermore, we can understand that ‘assuaging the conscience of the industrialised world’ (Harragin & Chol 1998: 60) is also important to agencies. In this way, NGOs are not targeting the vulnerable based on requests from the vulnerable themselves, rather as a way of proving to the world that they are assisting the needy (Ibid.:60). In this way, we can challenge the framing of the ‘vulnerable’ in the pledge of NGOs to provide humanitarian assistance by realising that the targeting of the vulnerable – though central to the self-image of aid – might not be the best way of reaching those in need, or of providing relief full stop (Ibid.:61).

Whilst this could easily lead us on to a more considered discussion of the motivations behind the giving and receiving of aid and the framing of access, this will not be done here. What we can conclude though is that the moral basis for gaining access to vulnerable populations is not a good enough method by which to understand access; whether or not a donor country has strategic interests in an area is more indicative of whether or not an NGO will then gain access or not (Herp 2003; Whitman 2005; Olsen 2003; Hendrickson 1998). In their paper on the determinants of levels of assistance, Olsen convincingly argues that the degree of political interest can help explain why NGOs gain access to some humanitarian crises and not others (Olsen, Carstensen & Hoyen: 2003). 

Convenient Access

The idea that NGOs find themselves unable to gain access to areas when it’s inconvenient is a strong claim to make, but one that is increasingly compelling. In many instances where inaccessibility is claimed, NGOs could well have gained access. Firstly, concerns with getting relief to a defined ‘accessible’ area based on official government definitions are limiting (Keen 1991: 159); secondly inaccessibility can often be overcome – for example – with relief flights, as was the case with the town of Abyei in South Sudan during August 1988, which received no aid despite the existence of an airstrip that was used to deliver relief months later (Ibid.); and most importantly there are a number of examples of ‘donors assisting rebel-held areas without the consent of a sovereign government’ (Ibid.:160). Keen explicitly lays out the contradictions of NGOs providing relief to vulnerable populations, something which reveals the reality that NGOs gain access when it’s convenient to do so. A lack of explanation for many anecdotal examples of ‘claimed’ inaccessibility demonstrates  that NGOs do not endeavour to access all vulnerable people universally (which may not be empirically surprising, but conceptually this tells us that the very foundations of NGOs and their claims to rights and principles are not followed).

Implications for aid policy

In order to properly evaluate and assess the implications of the aforementioned issues on aid policy I will look at conceptual, political and then finally, practical implications.

‘Rather than moral terms, the need for post-interventionary development is now based on security grounds’ (Duffield 2007:81). A key impact on aid policy is revealed here; we have entered a new era of conceptualising humanitarianism whereby security factors must be taken into account when considering access and assistance. Though these sorts of shifts are not new (example: the shift in aid policy in the 1980s that saw a diminished role for the state and a new powerful role for NGOs; Duffield 2008), they are dually significant; intra state conflicts have risen in the past 20 years, and, the distance between military and relief responses has shrunk considerably leading to combined efforts in humanitarian crises. This does unfortunately come with its own set of problems, though there is not space to explore these here.

Another conceptual implication which consistently links back to themes discussed here and elsewhere in the literature on access is the framing of access, and the role of denial in sustaining assistance; facilitated by a language of rights and principles (Marriage 2006:479). The ‘responsibility to protect’, for example, and the authority that NGOs have claimed without any real legitimacy is an illustration of this. Unfortunately there lies a large gap between the conceptual universalist claims proclaimed by NGOs and relief agencies, and their practical failure to provide assistance in accordance with their defining principles. Marriage uses the example of OLS to highlight this gap, and the practical challenges that NGOs encounter in trying to relieve humanitarian crises whilst also trying to maintain funding and favour.

In the Save the Children study on vulnerability in South Sudan (i.e. a reputable agency and a widely cited publication), the authors explicitly describe Western agencies presenting themselves as the ‘solution’ in situations requiring humanitarian assistance, framing the situation from a Western perspective. ‘Overseas aid is a western solution, but the problem lies as much in its being seen as a ‘solution’ as in its being ‘western’’ (Harragin & Chol 1998:33). These issues have an impact on aid policy in the sense that NGOs feed on rhetoric and labels, framing humanitarian crises in terms that favour them and their ‘solutions’. These actions go on largely unchallenged by governments or authorities and so continues to shape aid policy as NGOs exert significant influence on future policies on how to manage and respond to humanitarian crises.

The growing body of literature on access and emergency relief is indicative of the influence that academic research has on aid policy. That is to say, as NGOs have historically failed or succeeded to gain access to vulnerable populations, academics have increasingly researched on the whys, hows, and whos, of emergency assistance and access. ‘The study has shown that it is possible to do [anthropological] research in a war zone and that has practical relevance for relief programmes’ (Harragin & Chol 1998:60). The studies and literature inform policy makers directly; when it is funded by official bodies such as the Department for International Development or Save the Children (as with the South Sudan Vulnerability Study), and indirectly; by informing future leaders and policy makers.

In terms of political implications, the sovereignty of states has historically been absolute, but a growing number of armed interventions into sovereign states such as Iraq in 1990 and Kosovo in 1999 are indicative of a shift in sovereignty. The erosion of state sovereignty as a principle that is no longer absolute happens at a time when the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ is becoming a normative feature of aid policy. ‘If a State fails to protect its populations or is in fact the perpetrator of crimes, the world must be prepared to take stronger measures’ (RtoP www.responsibilitytoprotect.org). The idea of ‘contingent sovereignty’, which emerged through the practise of negotiated access in the 1980s, has implicated a shift in aid policy; ‘humanitarian emergency demanded of Western politicians new ways to act directly in support of civilians, irrespective of their location or side in a civil war’ (Duffield 2007:75). The idea of contingent sovereignty therefore is important to understanding the political implications of NGO access to sovereign states, and how these changes have resulted in changes in aid policy. This idea can be developed and further understood in terms of practical implications through the militarisation of humanitarian interventions.

The growing involvement of the military in relief activities has led to a tangled web of government, military and aid agencies, making it unclear whose means and what ends are being pursued; not to mention the moral dilemma imposed from working in collaboration with an agency so close to the armed forces (as with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq), and the ‘growing tendency of key donor governments to manipulate relief aid in pursuit of narrow military objectives’ (Hendrickson 1998:283). The experience of NGOs in Iraq represents a shift in the way that relief work is carried out and by whom.

Western military operations in the twenty-first century are largely strategic in securing Western interests (Iraq for securing regional security and oil interests, for example) and by looking at the militarisation of humanitarian interventions we can understand why NGOs are sometimes unable to gain access to vulnerable people. We can see that NGOs – when backed by a military mandate – are able to access areas of extreme insecurity[1]. As NGOs were able to gain access to displaced Kurds in Northern Iraq in 1999 with the help of a 20,000 strong US-led coalition force (Bolton & Jeffrey 2008:594), we can also understand the broader context of NGOs failing to gain access to vulnerable populations in Rwanda and in the DRC because there was no military support (and minimal strategic interest) in providing assistance. So not only has increased involvement of the military impacted aid policy, but it has helped NGOs to shape their future responses to humanitarian crises to include an unprecedented role for the military.

The rights and principles that define NGOs (to be universal, to provide assistance to all and to protect the vulnerable) tell us how to interpret what is wrong and right. It follows then that the reasons given by NGOs for not being able to gain access are likely to shape aid policy so that NGOs are enabled to gain access in the future, based on the logic of right and wrong and learning from previous shortcomings. Further to this, Slim describes four areas of moral value for NGOs and relief agencies; the preservation of human life itself, human rights, justice and staff safety. Staff safety, (necessary in the context of NGO operations in hostile environments) obfuscates the first three as it appears to value the particular lives of some above all other lives (Slim 1997:248). The implications on aid policy here are clear: in prioritising the safety of staff to enable access, NGOs face a challenge to their moral values and universality.

Conclusion

Access and assistance to vulnerable populations by NGOs is a contested area for debate, with many interrelated issues which demand closer attention. I have used two thematic areas to illustrate some of the key issues and circumstances that prevent access; firstly, lack of data and bureaucracy from local authorities prevent NGOs from accessing the vulnerable because of technicalities; secondly, operating in areas of conflict and hostile environments prevents access and this is illustrated with the examples of the DRC, South Sudan and Iraq. This paper has analysed the underlying explanations for accessing the vulnerable; assistance according to the strategic interests of donors (and the sources of NGOs’ funding) as well as convenience for the NGOs themselves. We can draw conclusions that NGOs often claim reasons for inaccessibility because it suits them, in addition to the alarming correlation between assistance provided to crises in areas of strategic interest (like Iraq and Kosovo) versus a lack of assistance provided in areas of minimal strategic interest (as in South Sudan and Angola). The implications on aid policy are complex and best understood through conceptual, political and practical terms. Conceptually, we can understand that firstly there has been a move from moral responses to security based responses and secondly, NGOs and the West conveniently frame themselves as providing the ‘solution’ to crises. Politically, implications stem largely from the erosion of territorial sovereignty in favour of contingent sovereignty, and practically the implications of the militarisation of humanitarian interventions on aid policy are substantial.

There is need for further discussion as to how aid policy might shift in the future, and how the global community will continue to respond to humanitarian crises; according to need and/or according to strategic interest. It will take many more years for us to see the true successes and failures of humanitarian interventions in remote, inaccessible areas and for that reason conclusions cannot be drawn definitively.

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[1] Though this isn’t to say that the NGOs receive protection, rather, in conjunction with coalition forces they are able to gain access to set up their own relief operations.

Green beans and flowers from Kenya, who benefits from Africa’s agricultural exports?

Green beans and flowers from Kenya, who benefits from Africa’s agricultural exports? A look at rural agriculture in Africa.

Last night I went to a debate in a committee room deep in the Houses of Parliament hosted by the Royal African Society jointly with the London International Development Centre. Richard Dowden, director of the RAS, moderated discussions with a panel including Christie Peacock (former CEO of FARM-Africa, now chair of Sidai Africa Ltd), Mark Thomas (Director of Food Retail Industry Challenge Fund DFID and manager of rural development at Nathan Associates) and Karima Ola (managing director of the African Development Corporation).

The debate focused on some issues that I see as key in Africa’s sustainable development. The big question was framed as ‘who benefits from Kenya’s exports of green beans and flowers to the UK?’ which throws up some interesting ideas about Africa’s export industry. Lots of people have argued that Africa needs to stop focusing on exports, and strengthen its own internal, domestic situation before looking to trade with the world market. Without wanting to identify too strongly with neoliberal ideas of times gone by, I think that the strengthening of exports and trade between Africa and the world can ONLY be a good thing – it can and does lead to growth. Countries like Zambia are pretty switched on at the moment and getting their balance right. Likewise, Ghana is arguably doing very well also. It’s hard to comment on all the successes though given my limited knowledge of every African country’s agricultural industry….

So, we’re looking at agricultural exports from Sub Saharan Africa to other countries (note that this can mean exports within the continent – something that should be very strongly encouraged in light of current Horn of Africa crisis), the potential problems with standards such as fairtrade, and the positive potential that there is for African agriculture.

The facts (with some help from the RAS)

Africa’s main agriculture export products are well known; tea, cotton, tobacco, cocoa and flowers. Cotton production in the region has multiplied by five since the early 1970s; about 95% of the regions cotton is exported. Kenyan horticulture exports have grown at over 6% a year for the past 30 years reaching 13.6% of export revenues in 2003.

However, mono cropping is potentially dangerous for economies and makes Africa vulnerable. 8 countries in Africa incurred 65% of the $300 million loss in potential revenue in all of sub-Saharan Africa in 2001 due to the poor cotton prices. Diversification is recognised by many leading agronomists as the key to a successful agricultural industry, particularly in Africa where instability of weather, prices and technology put crops at higher risk of failing than in European agriculture where these factors are slightly more stable/manageable. This is significant for both large scale commercial farms as well as the smallholder farmers that make up the back bone of African agriculture. SIMPLY PUT, if farmer X is growing only maize on his 0.25ha plot, and there is poor rain fall, he will get a very low yield on his crop or it will fail altogether. However, if farmer X was growing a combination of maize along with a sturdier crop such as chillies, then at the end of the growing season he would not be quite as bad off.

African agricultural production is struggling, and a key question that I am interested on getting answers to is how do we increase productivity in African agriculture? It’s well known that most farmers in Africa farm for subsistence and on very small plots (between .25 and 3ha). Africa produces less food per capita now than in 1960 (interesting correlation here with the rise of development and aid flows to the region?) About 16% of Africa’s soils are classed as ‘low nutrient’ compared with Asia’s 4% (poor soil quality is a common but not impassable problem), yields generally are lower than the rest of the world and similarly fertilizer input is substantially lower but hectare than the global standard.  (9kg in Africa vs 100kg in Asia and 206kg in industrialised countries).

But the story isn’t entirely negative! Agriculture in Africa is buzzing with potential at the moment, and it’s important to bring this to the fore in the debate on aid and development (which I find immensely frustrating in its continuous bashing and bitching and lack of constructive suggestions of how to improve things). Of the fastest growing agricultural economies 17 are in sub Saharan Africa (thanks in large part to exports of cash crops like tea, coffee, cashews etc). 60% of the arable land available in the world is in Africa. Long gone are the days of stereotypes of Africa consisting of cracked earth in Ethiopia, Africa is a rich and diverse place with some amazing land that is more fertile than you could imagine. Anecdotally, I remember the most delicious and biggest carrots I have ever eaten, coming from Molo in South Eastern Kenya, where the soil is rich in nutrients and the idea of ‘organic’ is laughable when both the quality and quantity of produce is so exceptional!

SO what of this debate, on exports in agriculture? I see them as being vital for several reasons:

1.       Exports such as green beans typically come from larger commercial farms which have the ability to provide better job security to farmers than subsistence farming, and they also have the ability to connect growers to markets (big issue which I’m very interested in having worked for a commercial farm in Malawi doing precisely that). In that sense, the money we spend on green beans in Kenya is doing more for ‘development’ in Kenya than donating to some WFP sponsored agricultural programme, because it is directly supporting agricultural industry in Africa.

2.       Markets like China are increasingly feeling the pressure to find new sources of food to import (given the poor quantity of arable land in China and the growing population, China is having to look overseas for its food). Brazil and other countries in the America’s are not always going to be able to provide the quantity and quality of food, and this is one big part of why China has invested so heavily in Africa. So from the perspective of the Chinese, African agricultural exports are definitely a good thing.

Problems with fairtrade

Christie Peacock brought up an increasingly controversial problem; that farmers are increasingly dissatisfied with ‘Fairtrade’ and its standards. One tea factory in Kenya, we were told, was refused fairtrade status since its drinking water tap was not correctly labelled as drinking water despite all workers knowing that that was its purpose. I have been aware of this for some time, and was surprised that so many people were shocked to hear this. Fairtrade is not the be-all-and-end-all, in addition to the difficult and rigorous standards that they set, there is also the problem with Fairtrade’s main ethos – how much of the extra cost is being passed down the supply chain to the farmer? Isnt this the whole point of fairtrade, I can remember being told about the break up of profits in a regular banana vs a fairtrade one back in Fairtrade’s heyday, but now retailers are increasingly absorbing more of the increased charge on fairtrade goods, whilst the farmer is advertised as receiving a better price for his crop. Fairtrade is a great principle, but these problems question how accountable fairtrade is and if there standards are perhaps too rigorous and unflexible.

Duncan Green says “Ethiopian women sorting through the coffee beans will have to work for 8 years to earn what I get from Oxfam in one day”. Interesting point, but what about like for like costs? Producing a pound of cotton in Burkino Faso costs 21 cents compared to 73 cents in the US itself. The value of the fairtrade market in the UK reached £493 millioin in 2007, a staggering sum of money.

Of course there is also the issue of subsidies, and though I don’t want to spend too long writing about it here, it is a question that comes up time and time again; why do we in the West expect Africa’s agricultural markets to be liberalised and unprotected, when we have such strong systems of subsidies in place in the EU and the US? One counter argument offered by Mark Thomas last night was that we give our politicians a mandate to decide to implement subsidies in our country, and that it’s up to African governments to do the same.

Let’s also think about the distortions in infrastructure that are geared more to the export market in African agriculture (e.g. great asphalt connecting unilever tea farm to markets vs the bumpy mud and rock road linking smallholders to their trading centre), perhaps this can be utilised and highlighted as being a great tool for development. The Chinese again have invested (rightly or wrongly) a lot into developing Africa’s infrastructure and filled a vacuum left by Western donors who became more interested in softer development issues in the last 20 years).

What next?

I would like to see the redevelopment of Government Marketing Boards in African agriculture; they were mostly done away with after independence which is a shame since they provided great opportunity and potential. Extension services and marketing boards are key in the successful development of an agricultural industry.

I would also like to see a stronger promotion of ‘zero tillage’ to smallholder farmers, that they need not work so hard on getting the land perfect in order to gain a good yield. It is integral to the future success of agriculture in Africa to transfer knowledge on zero tillage to the many smallholder farmers throughout sub Saharan Africa – this is a particular role that commercial farms can fulfil in providing systems that better the value chain..

Again, anecdotally, I can draw on my experience working for a commercial farm in Malawi. The company promoted crop diversification; they grow chillies as well as maize, soya, groundnuts and some livestock like poultry and lambs. The company exports chillies internationally as well as supporting domestic consumption by stocking local supermarket s with vegetables and poultry. It is not a huge operation, but is indicative of many small commercial farming operations throughout southern and eastern Africa – the potential is there and tremendous results can be achieved using these commercial farms to connect growers to markets. The company I was working with worked extensively on training smallholder farmers and connecting an ever growing community of outgrowers (we would provide the training and extension services to farmers and also provide the secure market to buy their crop and sell it at a good price, this served the business interests’ as there wasn’t the capacity to grow everything ourselves). Commercial farms can also support subsistence agriculture in Africa by working to provide better storage solutions (wasted and spoiled crops is a big problem in many communities). Some donors like USAID and DFID have been working with commercial farms on storage solutions and developing ‘credit’ or ‘voucher’ style schemes.

Coming back to the idea of exports to countries within Africa, I’m very interested in this area and the idea of bringing manufacturing and processing into Africa rather than the model that has existed thus far of shipping primary commodities from Africa to the East/West to be processed and then shipped somewhere else. Plumpynut is the biggest example, the peanut paste RUTF that is used in treating clinical malnutrition – the peanuts are largely grown in Africa and exported to France where they are manufactured into the paste, then shipped back to Africa to support the WFP and UN’s malnutrition programmes…. Why not cut down costs and boost a local economy by exporting the peanuts within Africa and setting up a processing plant? (Check out AfriNut and Valid Nutrition, as I left Malawi this argument of mine was/is being put into practice).

These issues aren’t without problems though, and certainly the company I worked for enjoyed its fair share of difficulties. Smaller commercial farms are the world over known as having to work very hard compared to the money they make, this is no different in Africa and the difficulty to turn over a decent profit potentially impacts the level of assistance commercial farms can provide to smallholder farmers. This is where donors need to step in and bridge the gap between what we all say that commercial farms can do and what they are actually doing on the ground. Don’t underestimate the difficulties of working in an environment that is not stable – the fuel crisis in Malawi for example has crippled many businesses and limits your ability to export…this in turn puts off importers abroad as they want to be buying produce from a more stable source and quite often they will look to the East. I’m not sure what the solution here is short of suggesting improved political stability in Africa (hmmmm!)

So basically, with better investment and renewed interest in strengthening extension services and marketing boards, African agricultural exports could go up and benefit everybody – the farmers as well as the consumers, at the same time boosting productivity in Africa and potentially helping economic growth on a sustainable and longer term trajectory than previous methods employed…

In the broader argument of connecting farmers to markets, the debate concluded by arguing that buying beans from Kenya et al is a good thing.

If you are interested in this topic I strongly recommend you get a book by a chap called Stephen Carr, ‘surprised by laughter’, I met him several times in Malawi and he is incredibly clued up on agriculture in Africa after a long spanning career working throughout the continent…

I’m quite sure I’ve missed out a lot here, but hopefully these musings are in some way indicative of the need to put agriculture firmly back on the agenda for development (properly, not just rhetorically) and the relevance of African agricultural exports in a broader global debate on climate change and food sourcing (much criticism in the UK recently on the fuel used to get beans from Kenya to UK etc although it has been proven that more fuel is used to grow roses in Dutch green houses and freight them to UK than for the flowers to be grown naturally in Kenya and flown over… so.. there!)

Is there room at the table for the private sector?

Today I wanted to write a bit about other actors in development. I should caviat this with my belief that NGOs do some great work; in short term relief (humanitarian assistance) where they can often mobilise quickly and get funds/resources to places that need them and also in longer term development interventions. This in itself deserves an entire blog, as I also feel that the development community has a tendency to spend too much time bitching and whining, and not enough time to sit back and say 'hey, look, a paradigm/project that is actually working, let's celebrate that'.

You can't avoid though, the growing dissatisfaction in the aid + development community, with the way that some NGOs and donors operate - often inefficiently, corruptly, and ignorantly. So it has become pretty fashionable in development discourse to start talking about 'philanthrocapitalism', Faith Based Organisations, Diaspora groups and so on. Big donors are moving towards working more with these kinds of actors in the hope that they might bring something substantial to the table that others have not.  Be it DfID  investing in dairy farms being set up in Malawi to the rise and rise of the Gates Foundation et al, we cannot escape from the fact that there are other players in the system who have something to say.

Private sector interventions

I was involved with a private farming enterprise in Malawi for 3 years, it was a small scale but grassroots and hands on example of the private sector actively seeking to improve the lives of the people they employ and the surrounding communities. This, to me, is the way forward in terms of private sector development interventions; small scale industries that offer improved livelihoods through employment alone but with the potential to work with communities, communities that are familiar with the 'company' etc. Higher profile examples include companies like Unilever, who have for example built schools and housing in Kericho, so that their employees can send their children to a local school. Exagris, the company I was involved with, has far less resources and access to funds to be in a position to provide this level of infrastructure (indeed this is the case for a lot of small scale industries working in developing countries).

Exagris' development work could be roughly divided into two; the social side of development and more agricultural based development activities. On 9 different farms, throughout Malawi, youth groups were set up, feeding programme's established (but later phased out and soon to be reformed into community resource centres), family planning and HIV/AIDS workshops established through local partners and Community Based Organisations. On the agri side of things, the firm worked with smallholder farmers and an increasingly large community of outgrowers, training farmers to grow better, depend less on inputs like fertiliser, and of course the company provided communities with a 'secure' market - a place for farmers to sell their crop and receive a fair price (prices determined according to local standards, not inflated or deflated prices). The work was slow, progress was slow, and results were not always tangible and positive. But hey, welcome to the real world of development. It made any real achievement so much more rewarding, knowing that it was a long term positive development for communities (that rarely had anything to do with the 3/4 European staff and everything to do with the leadership and drive from community leaders).

Of course, we experienced all the usual frustrations (and then some) particularly as some NGOs still haven't cottoned on to the fact that working with the private sector has huge potential, but we kept on and knew that we were on to a winning formula. I hope the company continues in its successes, and that donors will further recognise the role that the PS has to play.

In a classroom last week, I spent a heated hour defending the private sector, amidst wild accusations and criticisms of the PS talking only about how corrupt it all is, big bad evil companies, they exploit, they are only driven by a need to make profit. Yes yes yes... but what is beyond that? NGOs are subject to the exact same criticisms and arguably don't want to reach their goal of 'emancipation' or 'total sustainable development' as we'll all be out of a job, but somehow on the private sector these accusations seem so much worse...

It's easy to generalise; they're not all the same (just like NGOs aren't all the same, neither wholly good nor wholly irrelevant) and when done properly, the private sector has a lot to bring to the table of development, in conjunction with states and other non state actors. People who work in the private sector can be driven by a motivation to do good and help people just as much as people in the public sector, come on, who really buys all this realist/neoclassical bullsh*t? IBM, Exxon Mobil, BP, Pampers, GSK, Unilever. Massive corporations, massive revenues, big commitments to CSR type policies and sustainability.

The anti - corporation argument is old and no longer relevant in a predominantly capitalist driven global community, one in which the NGO sector (one that is meant to offer an alternative to government) is FAILING to provide results on any level with regard to long term, sustainable development.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that I understand the need to critique and hold people and organisations accountable to their actions. This is a vital role that the online community, through the advent of twitter and blogging etc, is excellently placed to do. My problem is that people appear to spend far too much time complaining and talking about how awful development can be, and yet there are actually so many good stories out there. Perhaps I am missing the point, what do you think? I am but just another speck in the ocean of aid bloggers, but I am determined to remain optimistic; optimistic that the private sector can and WILL help the project of development without being solely focused on self-interest, optimistic that most of the people working in most organisations started out like any of us - with a genuine desire and passion to 'do good' and optimistic that one day we will find answers to the great problems of development that don't involve huge dependency on aid flows from North to South and the iron fist of the West banging on about liberal democracy.

But hey, what do I know, seriously - I find it pretty overwhelming that even with the variety of experience that I do have - I still feel like I  know nothing about this industry. The more I learn the less things make sense, and the harder I find it to comment.... go figure.

What's wrong with volunteers?

It might seem completely contradictory that I am about to lay into volunteers, given that I a) spend a lot of time being one and b) lead trips of young adults to Malawi. But volunteerism has just exploded in the last few years, and whilst on one level it infuriates me having to listen to people explain how they've built a classroom in a really remote and rural village school in Tanzania, it also has some very serious implications for development.

We need to pay attention to it, because 'volunteering' can be as much of a hindrance as a help to development efforts. We also need to address the growing number of young people seeking to volunteer abroad, and try and harness their enthusiasm into positive energy; doing something that does more than bring them back home buzzing about their new found love for Africa.

True, civil society relies on volunteers and in our home context - in the West - volunteering can and is a fantastic way for charities to reach out to people and do great work. Those volunteers however, tend to be long term older professionals (think care givers, social workers etc). The kind of volunteering that I am critical of though, is of the 'i'm 16 years old, I can change the world and I am GOING to Africa'. True, we all have to start somewhere, and in many cases these volunteering experiences are a springboard to a hopefully more enlightened career in various sectors. (And it's great that young people give a damn). True also that there are some fabulous organisations out there that have years of experience on the ground in the country they work in; organisations that recognise the needs of both projects and volunteers and who place people accordingly with thought and consideration. Say what you will about VSO but they are (or have been) one such organisation.

Different Types of Volunteering

1. Short term tangible volunteering.

Volunteers that go from their home country (in the West somewhere) to a developing country (in the South somewhere) to work on a specific project such as building toilets, classrooms, painting. Sometimes they raise the money to pay for the project, sometimes they just pay for their own expenses.

Why is this detrimental to development? Well, what happens when the volunteer has left? You would think it is widely understood that teaching a man to fish is a better, more sustainable investment than giving him one. But organisations continue to operate along the one fish line! Why does a volunteer need to go and build a school when local communities and labour can be used (and even trained), not only creating a sense of ownership for the local community but also providing a job for someone.

Construction/tangible projects are also problematic because all too often clinics/schools etc will be built with large injections of cash from NGO, but with no set up or training for local people to manage and continue the running of such facilities. I have seen several clinics in remote Mozambique and Malawi that are shiny new thanks to the hard work of pioneering volunteers.... gathering dust because they didn't bother to build relations with anyone on the ground and leave the project in their hands.

Many people have written much more coherently on this than I, but the point is fairly obvious I think...

Can it work? Yes! If the community is on board with the project (actively involved not just 'consenting') then there is less risk of projects occurring and then being left with no support. If teams fund the project, this can arguable be good too as a source of funding for core needs.

2. Short term intangible volunteering.

Short term volunteers going away to say, teach English in a primary school in Tanzania, or solve the HIV/AIDs cultural impasse in Malawi through football (yes it really does exist....http://tackleafrica.org/what-we-do/uganda/hivaids-awareness-football-coaching-2007/ GREAT example....)

Often detrimental when constant change occurs and young kids are exposed to volunteers who aren't committed to improving the child's welfare. Lack of consistency does nothing to build trust. Time is wasted continually briefing new volunteers rather than retaining existing volunteers for longer thus maximising their impact. As with the construction argument, why teach kids English? If you are a qualified teacher or you have your TEFL (i.e. a tangible and useful skill to offer other than just an A level in English literature....), for goodness sake go and work with a parent teacher association, or teacher group and HELP THEM in their own English skills, lesson planning etc. Your impact will be sustained once you have left, operating this way. It infuriates me that more of these kinds of placements don't exist with the big volunteering schemes.

Can it work? Yes; when done through a smaller organisation that has local knowledge and solid relationships, it can often serve as encouragement to local communities who often feel forgotten about. I know this because I have asked plenty of farmers/youth workers/village chiefs who I have taken volunteers to. It also works when people go off the beaten track and search for volunteering opportunities in schools for example that aren't supported by a massive i-to-i style organisation. I did this with an old link school in Kenya. It doesn't always work out but you have a better chance of having an impact and building relationships because chances are, if you're willing to go off the beaten track you're probably the kind of person interested in genuinely helping without the frills and hand holding that other organisation's provide...

3. Long term skill sharing volunteering

Bloody brilliant. I have no bad experience of these types of volunteers bar the occasional peace corps fruit loop that slips through the net. The simple concept of someone with a developed career, and a tangible set of skills, taking them to a context where it is beneficial to share these skills and educate. Typically taken up by nurses, doctors, teachers, physiotherapists and so on. I have a lot of respect for people willing to give up their time to train local people in difficult professions in difficult contexts, and not get paid for it.

4. and many combinations of the above....

What future for volunteering?

The passion is clearly there; so many people feel deeply convicted to help put an end to global poverty and limit human suffering in its many forms. Which is great and deserves recognition in a world with plenty of people who are more preoccupied with typically 'rich' problems. Where it all falls apart is that efforts to coordinate and channel this passion into something productive, are not good enough. Perhaps there needs to be a coordinated effort to guide and advise young adults in how to effectively volunteer, helping them to avoid volunteer tourism....

Volunteering in your home context? Great. Reflects so much better on your commitment to your own community and helping out on your back yard. Volunteering to build something someone else could do in half the time, for less money and with a longer lasting sense of ownership and care? Not so great.

As with much of aid and development, too much focus is disproportionately placed on accountability, and funding. At the end of the day, there aren't THAT many people who are interested in going to India with an organisation to simply 'learn' about development, soak up the culture with great humility and become enlightened as to how they might individually be equipped to make a difference in the future. What people really want is to play with cute children (it's hard to resist!) and come back knowing that they can tick off the 'build a school for poor kids in Africa' box on their CV. You pay your £2000, and you get in return a very tangible end product without ever looking back. And the result? A continued cycle of dependence on aid in those countries receiving volunteers, whilst organisations continue to send cart after cart of volunteers encouraging them in their bid to rescue people that neither need or want to be rescued.

comment and let me know what you think.... am I being fair? Or am I being unreasonably critical of volunteerism?

Leaving Malawi....

Dear friends,

 

I am sadly/not sadly, returning to the UK in September. I'm done with Malawi just yet though, so there are a few more tourist visa stamps to be had in my passport from the wonderful chaps at immigration... 

 

There is still so much need here, and it’s easy to forget that Malawi is one of the ten poorest countries in the world, with over one million orphans. AIDS, Malaria and other diseases continue to cripple many communities, despite sweeping interventions from some of the larger aid agencies. Many of the 13 million people living here still exist on less than $1 a day. NGOs come and go, leaving little motivation for people to help themselves because everything is handed out and done without consulting and involving local communities. To make matters worse, the political situation here worsens daily and the relations between the Brit and Malawi governments is growing increasingly sour. Tax is going up on almost everything, quotas have been extortionately increased for fines the police need to collect from motorists, visa restrictions grow tighter, the fuel crisis continues to cripple the country and the blackouts/power shortages are bordering on ridiculous. Who would have thought a few weeks ago, that Malawi would erupt into political turmoil for 2 days? Peaceful protests led to violent riots, looting and vicious targeted attacks.

 

BUT! We’ve had a lot of successes and positive progress in our community development work so far. We are improving the quality of life for a lot of people here in Malawi, living around the farm estates. That much is true. From the feeding programmes, to the disability clinic we’re setting up, to the adult literacy circles and the work we do with smallholder farmers building capacity and improving their access to markets (and many more activities); we have undoubtedly improved rural livelihoods and our 60 year leases on the farms prove that we’re in it for the long haul unlike many other aid agencies and NGOs. But the harsh realities of being a business and the need to earn money come first before the priorities of community development. There are some awesome and incredibly inspiring people/organisations who are making such a difference in people’s lives here (*cough* the Mollers *cough*!) so the picture is definitely not one of doom and gloom.

 

I find the future is uncertain, and it’s hard to know where God is taking us sometimes, and why. But I have had such a great time pretending that i’m not a tall blonde white-y, and that I am in fact Malawian... There have been up’s and down’s, but on the whole, I have absolutely loved every minute of my time here and I leave knowing that I have made some life long (and unfortunately, soon to be, long distance) friends. Africa is a beautiful, special, frustrating, random, awe inspiring place, and you have to live that through your own eyes to truly understand what that means and feels like. For now, here are a few final photos of the work i’ve been doing and the amazing people I get to work with every day....

 

These are workers at our Mchinji farm; the young boys carry fumigating packs and the women bring their children to work as they work on de-seeding the maize cobs. We want to set up creche’s on some of the farms so that the children can be looked after in a more healthy/safe environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for me, very special pictures, of the children who attend the Mangochi farm’s feeding programme. Florence and I have become good friends and it’s been wonderful getting to know each of the children. Mangochi is a very poor area in Malawi and as such the children are visibly more malnourished than their peers in other districts. Though not without fault, it’s great to have a feeding programme in place which is reaching out to these young kids, battling to improve their nutritional status.

 

 

 

Gandali Primary School, where we have set up a link school in the UK. The classrooms are being renovated with cement, and our team of volunteers will help to paint the walls with whitewash and blackboard paint. The teachers are inspiring in their commitment to improving the quality of education for their students, and not being a party to the usual handouts. They provide their own bricks and sand using local labour and get the students to contribute towards some of these costs. I’ve been blessed to build up such a good relationship with them, and it was touching on the last few visits when students remembered my name and when miraculously I could understand conversations in broken chichewa!!

Of course, it hasn’t all been long days in the office and hard days on the road... what brilliant adventures i’ve had with such good friends! (hahaha sorry Kat, couldn’t resist, love you!)

 

 

Prayer points: please pray for our team of volunteers coming from the UK TODAY! Please pray for courage, humility and grace for all of us, that we might be able to make a positive impact in the work that we do and the people we work with. Please also pray for God’s provision, that we would have enough fuel to get to where we need and so on.

 

So onwards we go.... thank you for your kind words of support and prayer, and I hope you have found some of my mutterings interesting.... I hope to write to you all again living in another exotic paradise somewhere in the world, but until then...

 

tionana mawa

 

Love and blessings

 

Hannah

Rumours are just so good at instilling fear into people....

This information courtesty of Sam Kawale, a business owner in Lilongwe, determined to set the record straight about damage caused. There's a definite balance to be had but the situation in Malawi is not life or death OR generally riotous. The city is once again largely peaceful, and shops are beginning to open again today.

Here is what Sam had to say on Lilongwe Chat - an online messageboard we use here... like I said previously, photos speak for themselves, and some awful things have taken place in this otherwise peaceful and stable country in the last 2 days. But likewise, people enjoy exaggerating facts and claiming things as true that definitely are not.

Sam Kawale	View profile	More options Jul 21, 4:07 pm

After spending the last two hours back and forth in Lilongwe, the situation
has not changed for the worse as THERE IS STILL A LOT OF CALM.
Chilinde, Nchesi, Biwi are all very calm. A lot of people are home and
businesses still closed. Nchesi street (where they sell coffins and
window/door frames) is also very calm and vendors are open for business.
Across the bridge on this side it is still very, very calm. Nothing has been
broken as earlier reported by some people. Only Peoples shop in Kawale is
the only one I saw burnt down to the ground. I have attached pictures of
some of the buildings that were said to have been damaged (I was using a
phone camera so the pix might be poor).
Let me repeat: Chipiku, Game, Shoprite have not been damaged, and so is our
shop, JDS COMPUTER CENTRE and PRINTER SYSTEMs near Chipiku, its ok (so you
can come and buy computers or have them repaired anytime, or come and have
your t-shirts screen printed or embroidered. We will serve you).
As for fuel, NO PETRO STATION OPEN. Don't bother going around.
As for groceries, sorry, you will have to live on left overs tonight J, no
grocery shops open, so are all take away places (mostly because their
workers cant come to work as there is no public transport).
More update will follow if I hear anything contrary, but for now, stay away
from area 25 and Likuni. I hear tension is still high.
There is a higher level of Malawi Army presence in all the streets. This has
helped quite a bit, and I hear they are now going to Area 25 and Likuni to
bring calm there.
Thanks for reading this and let me know if you have any more questions or
concerns
In HIS service Together
Sam Kawale
JDS Investments/E-3 International
P.O. Box 2129
Lilongwe
+265-888-308-798
+265-999-600-345
If your vision does not scare you, then the Lord is not in it.

deserted Lilongwe bridge.jpg 52K View Download

Deserted Mosque area.jpg 45K View Download

deserted National Bank.jpg 46K View Download

Chilinde, just before traffic lights.jpg 81K View Download

Chipiku stores intact.jpg 58K View Download

deserted Game stores.jpg 55K View Download

Deserted Indian Town.jpg 53K View Download

IMG00039.jpg 54K View Download

JDS Computer Center intact.jpg 45K View Download

road to main bus terminal.jpg 57K View Download

Vendors in Nchesi out for business.jpg 53K View Download

Wulian, Chinese shop not damaged.jpg 57K View Download

There are still problems in Area 25 and Likuni areas of town but to reiterate - these are not the safest parts of town at the BEST of times, so it's wise to avoid these parts at all costs. As for the rest of town, there is a strong army presence and they are doing what they can to keep the peace. Shops are opening and life is returning to normal.

The violence here throws up much broader discussion on governance and democracy in this country, and for the first time ever in Malawian history, we have made the international news and social media networks are a hive of activity with people who have otherwise not taken an interest in this country, now talking about what is going on. I'm glad things are returning to normal, though with more extreme protests planned again for 17th/20th August, things are far from over.

In other news, the nyasatimes website is now back up and running and the radio stations are once again broadcasting. The government tried it's best to censor the newspapers and radios by taking them offline/ off air, but what a fail! The sheer volume of twitter coverage highlights the pressure we have all put on different organisations leading to much more widespread international media coverage of the protests here.

Hannah