A History of Development: First Edition of Kristi's Ongoing Conversations with Herself

8/22/10

So, I’ve been meaning to write this entry for ages, but not sure how to do it.  But thanks to my mom, I have a spark.  And a fun metaphor.

Let’s contemplate this well-used proverb:

“If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day; if you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.”

We’ve all heard this little proverb a million times.  It’s one of those clichés that has been repeated so much, we’ve lost where it comes from or why it came to be in the first place.  So, I’m about to rip it apart in good old analytical form as the academic world has pounded into me over many years.

The history of development can be painted by this proverb.  In post-WWII times, colonial empires began to break down, and new countries—who had for generations been propped up, created, and consequently messed up by outside colonial powers—began to gain independence; many of these countries were in Africa.  During this era, when much of the world was rebuilding itself, the West turned its gaze not only on itself, but on these new countries as well.  These new countries were categorized as poor and in need, not having the ability to fend for themselves and in need of outside help.  In truth, many countries asked for such help, not being given two legs to stand on after the dissolution of colonial governments and already operating on a Western notion of riches, success, and modernization.  So, many argue, with the need for “development,” a new colonizing project began. 

So, the West began “giving men fish.”  Lots and lots of it, because these poor souls needed help and aid to combat their dire poverty.  It came from governments, from churches, from missionaries, from organization with private donations, and yet, the problem didn’t go away.  This “fish” could have been anything from food to clothes to technology to latrines.  People were still hungry.  Enough fish couldn’t be given.  The “development experts” scratched their heads and realized, well, if we give them the tools to do it themselves, surely that will solve the problem.  So, they gave the people fishing poles.  Lots and lots of them.  They gave them fishing poles that were high powered for optimum fish yield, made of the best state-of-the-art material and heavy duty line.  They forgot, though, to teach the people how to use them, so they ended up as measuring sticks or trophies or as status symbols.  So, the experts designed teaching seminars and sent in the best knowledge to show the men how to use it, but they went back after a year and found the poles collecting dust and the people still hungry and fish-less.  Why?  Well, the mechanical reel broke on one and the line was lost on another.  But who knew how to fix it?  How could one get more line?  The broken part costs $1 in America, but we can’t get it in Cambodia.  We have to import it and that costs a whole month’s wages for that one lonely fisherman.  And the people were taught how to use them, but not how to fix them if they broke.  So the experts designed poles made from locally available materials and decided to diversify tools—they give the people nets as well.  Still, they go back after a few years and the tools are used less than what was expected.  Why?  It turns out they have only given the tools to the men who then sell the fish for cash, but it is the women who do most of the fishing to feed the household.  So, they give the women poles and nets and show them how to use them.  Still, there are some people fishing and fishing well with great tools and knowledge, but it has not caught on like the experts thought it would.  Why are people still hungry?  Turns out there’s a cultural taboo against eating this particular kind of fish.  It’s believed to create impotence and infertility.  So the experts provide scientific evidence to the contrary, but it’s met with confused looks and raised eyebrows.  “Well, maybe not for you, White Foreigner, but for us _____ people, it has always been so.”  So now we are at a crossroads.  Chip away at the cultural belief, or find a different, equally viable source of food?

This handy little “teach a man to fish” proverb, when a metaphor for development, is rife with hidden assumptions.  First, the assumption is that the man is hungry and unable to feed himself properly.  Therefore, someone outside must give him food or teach him to feed himself.  He is a man to be saved.  Second, given that the man really is hungry, fish is going to solve all his hunger problems.  They ignored why the man was hungry in the first place (drought or politically unequal distribution of food?) and the circumstances that led him to be hungry.  When “development” first began as an industry and a field, it was thought that increasing productivity, capital and economy would solve all the poverty problems.  If people could only make more money, they could buy all the solutions to their needs.  Good ole trickledown economics and the American notion of purchasing power.  If we can only increase their cash flow, other sectors will naturally improve—education, health, gender equity, civil unrest, political instabilities, social welfare... Because they would be able to purchase all these things and carry more power with their money.  Third assumption:  the man is the one who fishes.  Oddly enough, Western aid has favored giving men all the tools for development from education to farm equipment because they are the obvious breadwinners right?  Women may actually provide all the household labor, but all that was needed was for men to make more money.  Women’s inclusion in development programs up until the 1980s was purely as baby machines.  Development institutions never saw the actual labor that women do in agriculture or the informal business market.  They were using their own cultural lens when distributing development: the solution to underdevelopment and poverty was to transform it into a modern patriarchal system.  We are still working—25 years later—to properly resist this type of development.  The inclusion of women into development and their participation in it has its own history and ideas, beliefs, and critiques.  That will be the subject of another post.  The fourth assumption is that by teaching a man to fish, these skills are sustainable for a lifetime.  What happens if he fishes too much and then all the fish are gone?  What happens if there’s a drought and the fish don’t come?  What if he dies before being able to pass the fishing knowledge on to someone else?

So where is the field of development today?  I’d say these three buzzwords cover it pretty accurately:  Environment:  Now that we’ve taught the people to fish, they are overfishing, and there is too much strain on the environment.   Gender:  We must make sure we include the women in everything!  Sustainability:  Will they continue this after we leave?  How long can the West prop up the non-West?   In order for it to be sustainable, whatever tools, skills, or knowledge we give them must be already congruent with the lifestyles they lead.  This is Peace Corps’ favorite buzzword.  Sustainability.

In a previous post, I linked to my friend Emma’s blog because she had already done a good job of explaining Peace Corps’ approach to development and why we think it is different, and, hopefully, more successful.  Development is a long, arduous process with no straight forward answers about how to make people’s lives better—especially in a cross-cultural context.  It also has no clear steps about how one place should develop.  Contrary to popular belief, development is not linear.  It moves forward and backward, and at times, from side to side.  After 60+ years of development theory and practice, we still don’t have it right.  But we keep trying to make it so, because what else are you going to do?  The best we can do is to learn from our mistakes, and that doesn’t happen unless we continue to look critically and analytically at what we are doing so we can make new solutions.  The development process is long and slow, frustrating and confusing.  We, as Peace Corps volunteers or NGO workers, are only a teeny tiny piece in the monstrous apparatus of development.  One can see why, after discovering the past trespasses of previous development paradigms, how it has indeed made much of the world poorer in many cases, and overwhelmed with the knowledge of how the richer developed world continues to dump on the underdeveloped world can argue and shout for the complete severance of all contribution to the global South.  It becomes easy to ask: Why are we doing this if we just continue to screw it up and because it’s our fault in the first place?  As a wise professor once told me:  we must not use this information to become paralyzed to inaction.  This knowledge is intended to inform so that we may continually evaluate and change our thinking, our views, our processes, and, hopefully, the outcomes.  We live in a globalized world.  Country boundaries mean less and less as our physical and information travel increases.  Everything we do, together as a planet, affects everyone else.  If a child is malnourished in Ghana, it affects me in America.  Even if there are malnourished children in America.  They affect me too.  Suffering and poverty know no political boundaries.  Philanthropy shouldn’t either.

Next on Kristi’s Ongoing Conversations with Herself:  What is poor?  And who says so?