Sunday, November 1, 2009

Greed:More Internationally Infectious Than H1N1

I'm Just Wondering... when will Western-based NGO's and churches figure out that they have bought a bad bag of goods in regards to the ideas of Development in the Developing world...

There is the totally crazy idea that Western-based works... be they faith-based works for church-planting and discipleship, as well as social-development works like water drilling or health-care... that Western leaders, pastors, teachers, healthcare worlers, etc can go into a Developing-Least-Developed Country, "raise up leaders" "disciple and release leaders", "pass the vision to up-and-coming national leaders"... many forms of this ides... then somehow, at some point the nationals "get it", will take it over and aggresively find ways to "bless their own people" with continuing and expanding the said work (church-planting, drilling wells, taking care of the sick, etc) with their own resources and efforts... as the Westerners sneak out the back door and self-congratulate each other for having pulled it off...

TWO OBVIOUS THINGS

FIRST... in the history of Development, either fatih-based or NGO work, the few works like this are exactly that... RARE. I have RARELY seen it (20+ years of international work), NEVER read about it in any way that lasted longer than a few years, and never past a rare one or two national who actually tried it.

I know that my heros like Bryant Myers and Dan Fountain worked hard to raise up nationals in Development, but their systems didn't last longer than 5 years, then 'economic entropy' spun them to a standstill in Zaire/Congo, Haiti, Ecuador, Guatemala, etc...

Definitely, the national pastors from xyz denomination or group go OUT OF THEIR WAY to create funding-stream ties that will INCREASE from the West, never diminish... I call it 'pocket-rattling', and in Zambia, I became weary of evangelical pastors trying to see how much they could get out me, how much money I could secure from them from America...

SECOND... how can the idea that the start-up of a work can be done with monies from the West, then (happily) shift to internally-funded-by-nationals sustainability??
This idea is based in a hippie-flower-child concept that the poor in Africa, Asia and South-Central America want to invest in thier own welfare... all they need to be shown is how to do it...

The missing reality is that the economies of most of these places really stink... few opportunities, graft-corruption run rampant, employers who are worse than slave-owners, monthly salary that a 19-yr-old working in a US Starbucks exceeds in one day of wage+tips.

So the Westerner gets off the plane, wearing tennis shoes worth a 6-month local salary, a huge amount of money behind him (or her) to get to country... to find a way to convince nationals to start something that that THEY have to pay for??

Give me a break...

TRUTH: The economy created by NGO's is a major factor in so many places in the world. I saw it in Zambia. The NGO's hire nationals, and for those nationals, they are great jobs. They have NO intention of letting the Westerners bring their project to the place where they 'pull out because it's self-managed and self-sustainable'.. because they know that as code-speak for 'the Western money dries up, and they want us to dig the ditches on our own time them... with no wage..."

Sorry Bono, but how do we create 'justice for the poor' in Africa and not go in with big $$$ programs... when they don't have an economy to build anything for themselves, it's hand-to-mouth existence, day-to-day economic survival...

I am convinced that we need to find a different paradigm for development. The previously-mentioned idea is, quite frankly, bankrupt.

I am not sure how to do it well... I'm working on that... I do think that Moyo (Dead Aid) may be on to something...

c

No comments:

Post a Comment