GeoJournal 41.1: 1–4. 1997 (January) Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Third World development: a personal odyssey Stanley, William R., Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, USA Received 2 May 1996; accepted 16 August 1996
My initial exposure to Africa and its problems (how condescending we are, as if only Africa or other Third World areas have problems) was in 1964, when I arrived in Liberia to undertake the fieldwork leading to my Ph.D. As I look back upon those early years, I better appreciate what a group of doers and activists I and many of my contemporaries truly were. We wanted to be the wherewithal for meaningful change. As a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, I had the opportunity to assist in the training of one of the very first contingents of Peace Corps volunteers, the group destined to serve in Liberia 1962–1964. Now, here too were some real doers. These were young people on a mission, as intense and with a dedication to match that of any of the thousands of missionaries to ‘Darkest Africa.’ These first volunteers were universally enthusiastic upon their arrival in Liberia and so many seemed disillusioned at the end of their two-year tour. Why? When all is said and done, a reasonable response might be that their energy and idealism were worn down by the practicalities of implementing the seeds of change in a tropical, backward and, at best, only marginally developing country. Many of the volunteers were secondary school teachers and the Liberians they temporarily replaced in order that the latter might be retrained never seemed to return to the schools – at least not in anything approaching the numbers who left for more training. Twenty years were to pass before the Peace Corps put its foot down and withdrew volunteers from what had become, for all practical purposes, permanent teaching slots. Why did the indigenous teachers not return after their training? One explanation is that there was more money and certainly more prestige elsewhere. One would be naive not to recognize the worldwide mood of development pessimism that has prevailed for much of the period since the early 1970s. Indeed, this mood has intensified. At the same
time, several of the Third World countries of yesterday have developed rapidly over the past forty years. Witness the World Development Report published by the World Bank. The time it takes to double real incomes per capita in the early stages of industrialization has fallen dramatically. Great Britain needed approximately 60 years to do it after 1780; America nearly 50 years after 1840; Japan about 35 years after 1885. Turkey achieved the same feat in 20 years after 1957, Brazil in 18 years after 1961. South Korea did it 11 years after 1966 and China in 10 years from 1977. The increasingly rapid development process reflected by these figures ignores the considerable portion of the world little better off today than, about two decades ago. The poor appear to be getting poorer even while the less poor depict some considerable movement toward growth and overall economic development. What is happening? Surely the poor of yesterday have made some progress! Indeed they have, but often as not the benefits of growth and development have been statistically negated by increases in population and, in some instances, seriously handicapped by antiquated infrastructures or corrupt government. In a notable few countries, there has been little growth and next to no development. Furthermore, populations in these countries continue to increase. Is it not better to assess development as a fluid environment, one in which there is backward movement and where statistical measures are best viewed as rough guidelines rather than as hard and fast rules for achieving or failing to achieve particular goals? Development is a continuum and a process often difficult to define with precision. The extremes can be identified readily enough even though some of the statistics employed frequently generalize real world diversities to the extent that one is left with an over simplistic average of this or that variable. I wish to insert a personal definition. Namely, that the development process is at least
2 moving in the right direction when ‘The One-Eyed Man in the World of the Blind is King’ mentality no longer is of value. This writer was party to this very process and what intoxicating days they were. A ‘First Worlder’ in the 1960s who acquired practical experience while undertaking scholarly research in a Third World setting soon was in demand by all manner of public and private development agencies. At the time, I considered this to be a natural process. Was it not just reward for having worked in some austerity and in an politically, economically or physically difficult environment? Indeed, one was King! In my own case, there were short-term consultancies with a Rockefeller Foundation-supported agricultural development agency, the American and German foreign aid organizations (USAID & GZT), the African Development Bank and ministries in several countries. Slowly at first, more quickly after a few consultancies, I wondered aloud why all so frequently the only ‘Kings’ were the foreigners who came to the Third World country to work on a development project and, in the process, became versed in the practical and scientific components of the particular theme and its local, regional or national occurrence. Where were the indigenous potential ‘Kings?’ As often as not, their best and brightest were drawn into government. We have to be realistic; there was at the time an appalling need for competent people at every level of leadership, be it in government or in the private sector. That was more than 30 years ago; surely the demand for skilled civil servants has been satisfied and many times over! Is government the employer of last resort or has the private sector failed to attract the best and the brightest? Fact of the matter is that with the exception of the few who are attracted to government for prestige or power, the private sector has been able to pick and choose for the brightest talent. Job seekers in the 1990s far outnumber available jobs. Furthermore, with the exception in Africa of South Africa and a few other countries with non-governmental driven economies, the private sector has been able to employ but a small portion of the cadres of educated job seekers. Could it also be that some strategically placed government employees have not been overly interested in solving the ‘nuts and bolts’ issues necessary for economic and social development in their own country? Was this something of low priority or better left to foreigners employed by the international aid dispensing community? These latter were as a rule better paid and not infrequently better qualified than the indigenous worker in the public sector. In some instances motivation may have been an issue. Economic and political policies of individual governments have much to do with the success of the country’s quest for First World economic status. One would have to be blind not to have seen some of the recent market economics and democratization. But,
W. R. Stanley realistically, is there any hope in the near or mid-term future for the poorest countries of the world? One wonders! Furthermore, who will direct the development continuum in such places? Is the scope of the problem so great and so beyond the capacity of indigenous institutions that only First World and international aid agencies have any prospect for generating meaningful change? Or, as has been increasingly the case, will economic and social development issues be attacked by a mix of private, para-statial and national/international delivery mechanisms and institutions? The track records of the large national development aid agencies is reasonably well known; they are first and foremost components of existing governmental policies and prejudices. Performances vary, of course, but the big organizations tend to be unwieldy and frequently top heavy in personnel. Perhaps a damning criticism in a world having such contrasts between the haves and have-nots is the tendency for the administrative cost of the big aid project(s) to consume an everincreasing proportion of the project’s total financial pie. Let us not stop with national development agencies. One of the worst offenders in this regard is the UNDP. Thus, it should come as no surprise to witness the increasing attractiveness of NGOs. A growing proportion of the development aid budget of some developed countries is specifically allocated to NGO proposals (Canada comes immediately to mind; there are others). There is the prevailing view that the NGO will achieve a ‘bigger bang’ for the aid dollar. On the flip side, however, is the frequently expressed view that the NGO aid agenda is parochial, often serving a particular political or social philosophy. Personally, I have my doubts as to whether an NGO with a profoundly different political philosophy than that of the government of the day will stand much chance of having its projects funded with regularity. Are the NGOs little more than offshoots of the bigger aid agency, tolerated both for practical economics and for political reasons? Many, no doubt, are just that. Others, however, have well-established agendas and varying sources of financial support. Can the NGO achieve meaningful impact at the level of the targeted population? Yes. Can the impact bring long-term improvements? Again, yes. It already has been suggested that the cost of delivery for development aid may be cheaper via an NGO than through the larger and invariably more bureaucratic national and international aid agencies. What, then, should prevent most, if not all foreign assistance being channeled through NGOs? It is not quite the case that NGOs prefer being small, with one or a few issue-oriented objectives. There is evidence to suggest that a component of NGO leadership carries the same ‘empire building’ genes as those directing the fortunes of the larger national organizations. The missionary might serve as a worthwhile comparison.
Third World development: A personal odyssey Whatever else their stated or unstated objectives, few mission stations or those responsible for their future did not dream of ever greater numbers and influence. Indeed, one might consider the missionary as the first NGO, certainly in the Protestant World. It would be the consummate cynic who could not accept the fact that, while looking to the soul, the missionary achieved considerable progress in the area of development and very likely at a delivery cost as low as if not lower than most organizations concerned solely for issues of development. Then, why have the missionaries not been given the development portfolios? Why not, indeed! First off, they very likely did not want this chore. Second, the missionaries’ overall agenda would have been too restrictive for most posting countries with well-established separation of church and state. In the past, NGOs achieved meaningful delivery because they primarily were single issue oriented organizations (variations, perhaps, of a major single issue. Oxfam, for example, works with poor people in their struggle against hunger, disease, exploitation and poverty through relief, development, research and public awareness). Once any organization expands beyond its ‘bread and butter’ basics, it risks dilution of the quality and effectiveness of its delivery capabilities, be these in areas of human development or in some facet of everyday commerce. Where there once was little likelihood of NGOs absorbing the primary roles of the bigger and better financed national development agencies, this is no longer true. Collapse of national government in several countries (Liberia, Somalia and Burundi come to mind) has had the almost perverse effect of donor countries funding and using NGOs to administer aid in warlord dominated regions or in corrupt countries where they (the donor countries) prefer not to have an official role. Not only has this led to NGOs running nationwide programs, but to where the NGO has been accused of harboring neo-colonialistic attitudes. Organizations that viewed themselves in the forefront of an alternative and more altruistic form of human development have frequently become the tools of governments. No longer do NGOs tapping the public purse serve as a check on the performance of the bigger organization. Governments hesitant to become too closely identified with humanitarian assistance (much less development aid) in certain Third World countries; otherwise independent NGOs increasingly dependent upon tax monies while used to administer aid programs; this suggests that the development aid agenda of the 1990s has changed from the more utopian views of an earlier period. This is not necessarily bad. Those countries continuously slipping in both absolute and relative development indices challenge even the most idealistic of aid providers, private or governmental. Little appears to be working with any consistency in this basket of weak countries,
3 in those depicting the least real growth and greatest dependence upon outside assistance. Is there another possible solution to these worse case countries? In the late 1920s, Liberia was threatened with a League of Nations takeover because of accusations concerning the role of leading political leaders in a new version of the slave trade: providing Liberians for long term work contracts on the plantations of Fernando Po. In due course, both Liberia’s President and Vice President were forced to resign afterwhich the matter slipped from public attention. One hears today a similar message concerning Liberia. Just possibly, the issues of national sovereignty need to be reassessed for those few countries where development progress has been unusually slow or, as often the case, almost imperceptible. It is in such places that the overall development continuum appears to have slowed to the point of stopping. Perhaps, the UN might reconsider the mandate idea in order to foster the conditions of stability including good government necessary to give developmental assistance a chance to work? Political stability might enhance development by whatever name. I hesitate getting too precise in comparing achievements since there are so many ways in which to measure progress in the field of development. I do suggest, however cautiously, that the impressive economic growth in some of the newly industrialized countries (NICs) might have had less to do with the collective impact of NGOs and national/international aid agencies and more to do with the cultural dynamics of the individual country. In 1981, I was invited to Korea as a guest of the Ministry of Education as part of a program to invite veterans of the Korean war to return three decades after the end of hostilities. Twenty-eight years was a long time; I could hardly recognize the economic landscape. Who or what had brought about such profound change? One answer is that all else aside, it was the dedication and cultural strength of the Korean people who, when the political environment was conducive, unleashed the energy required for this tremendous economic change. Policies designed to protect domestic companies, state directed sector priority, foreign aid and other external schemes helped, but their combined role likely was secondary to that of the Korean people themselves. Development, therefore, first and foremost should be based on ‘people growth.’ Aid must be designed first and foremost to help in providing the means for people to get ahead. Sometimes it leads to a few getting ahead of less ambitious or less fortunate neighbors. This, too, is a necessary facet of the development continuum. It may not be fair, but life itself is not always fair. Let me return briefly to my use of poor countries of the world. Do people in such places lack that hunger for getting ahead? Few do. Why, then, are some pockets of economic undervelopment so pervasive and so unresponsive to external stimuli? I
4 don’t have a simple answer. It is in these pervasive pockets of underdevelopment that NGOs and their bigger brothers seem to have concentrated their energies. What is to be learned from this? First, development assistance must encourage the individual’s getting ahead even if social inequalities are the result; collectivization of development simply doesn’t work. Second, development aid budgets in so far as practical should be separated from humanitarian assistance budgets. The goals are different and the confusion has had negative effect in mobilizing the public opinion necessary to support the seldom glamorous and often politically unattractive development assistance so necessary for real growth. No ethical or decent person wants to see people starving to death. Yet, if for example, there are two
W. R. Stanley areas being considered for development assistance (and keeping in mind that ours is a world of infinite demand for assistance, but of finite resources from which to assist), then it might be better to assist the area where farmers already are producing some surplus and where there is clear evidence of individual and collective energy – the very soul of the development continuum, and to relegate the other area to budgets other than development assistance. Care has to be taken not to throw scarce resources down the proverbial black hole. Most people are desperate to improve their quality of life. Those in the Third World are no exception and will respond positively to assistance, particularly development aid that seeks to encourage the individual’s getting ahead.
