I taught English in El Salvador when I was 24. A few of the students liked to talk with me about music. One day they wanted me to hear ‘this great song by Sepultura’, and I was like ‘Cool! That’s Orgasmatron!‘ and mentioned that I knew the Motorhead version. I don’t know what shocked them more: that I knew that particular song, or that their Sepultura version wasn’t the original.
I find myself having my fair share of those moments these days. I’m happy when good ideas in development and aid work are taken up, and especially happy when they are improved on (though I have to say that I like Motorhead’s version better than Sepultura’s). But it kinda bugs me when people talk about those ideas as if they are brand spanking new when they’ve actually been around for awhile. It seems like people should do some research, to at least know what came before.
What are some examples of 2010 re-makes?
Bottom up development
I find it weird that we are still discussing ‘bottom up’ development as a new or innovative thing in the year 2010 when it’s clearly been around for a really long time.
I started in development in 1994 in El Salvador. Most of the work that local NGOs were doing at that time was focused on helping grassroots groups and communities organize and manage their own development. A lot of time was spent in communities with community organizations. But this concept wasn’t born in the 1990s. It was grounded in Liberation Theology and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Liberation Theology emerged in the 1960s ‘as a result of a systematic, disciplined reflection on Christian faith and its implications’ as the Catholic church in Latin America was reflecting on itself and its relationship with the poor. Those who formulated the concept worked closely in communities with the poor and saw the social and economic injustice begun by colonization and continued through those in power both in governments and within the church. Liberation theology re-interpreted the scripture in a way that affirmed the dignity and self worth of the poor and their right to struggle for a dignified life. ‘Liberation theology strove to be a bottom-up movement in practice, with Biblical interpretation and liturgical practice designed by lay practitioners themselves, rather than by the orthodox Church hierarchy.’ Check here and here for good links on Liberation Theology.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Brazilian Paolo Freire, based on his experiences working on literacy with poor communities developed his Pedagogy of the Oppressed all the way back in 1968, around the same time that Liberation Theology was emerging. Freire’s philosophy has been heavily drawn from and applied to development. Especially pertinent is the concept of dialogics ‘an instrument to free the colonized, through the use of cooperation, unity, organization and cultural synthesis (overcoming problems in society to liberate human beings). This is in contrast to antidialogics which use conquest, manipulation, cultural invasion, and the concept of divide and rule’. Freire’s ‘emphasis on dialogue struck a very strong chord with those concerned with popular and informal education…. However, Paulo Freire was able to take the discussion on several steps with his insistence that dialogue involves respect. It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. For more on Freire (I certainly did not do him justice) check here and here.
These 2 philosophies closely mirrored ideas that arose during the Civil Rights Movement in the US. There’s a brilliant book called “We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change” where Paulo Freire and Myles Horton (who started the Highlander Folk School in 1932 and influenced Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.) discuss the similarities between their philosophies.
Public policy and advocacy
Fast forward to 1996, where we get a new director at the organization where I’m working, a Brazilian. He simply won’t stop talking about ‘civil society’ and ‘public policies’. ‘There will be no sustainable changes if we don’t have an impact on the level of policies and their implementation. How does this program idea impact on public policies? How is civil society involved in holding the government accountable? Where is the budget for Peace Accords implementation going?’ Changing systems, transparency, political participation by those formerly excluded, and moving away from hand outs and emergency type programs were key in the vision of how the country would improve.
Working with local partners
To that aim, we funded different local organizations that raised awareness in rights holders on their rights and that advocated for the implementation of the 1992 Peace Accords. We worked with an association of women who were demanding that the alimony laws be operationalized, ex-combatants groups from both sides of the conflict who were not getting the benefits promised them in the Peace Accords, sex workers who were being harassed and abused by police, civic education, environmental organizations who worked with local communities on issues such as deforestation, water and land rights, etc. We also met and discussed a lot with other international organizations, and many of them were doing similar kinds of work.
Local management of the development process
I was pretty much ineligible for any advancement in the organization because the director’s mandate was to nationalize and hand over the program, now that the civil war and the ‘state of emergency’ were over. Local organizations now had more political space to work without the protection of international organizations. The idea was to strengthen capacities of all local staff, to move over to a national board of directors and to nationalize the organization. At the same time, the thought was to build the administrative capacity of local organizations so that they could function transparently with full accountability.
Participatory design/participatory development
I moved to a different organization in 1998, and one of my first tasks was to help write the organization’s strategic plan. The first step in developing that plan was community consultation. Staff (all of them local by the way) facilitated a consultation process with people in the 400+ communities where we worked. In addition, they met and consulted with community based organizations, local NGOs, local governments, national level ministries as well as other international organizations, to learn of their plans and to avoid duplication of efforts.
The community consultations were done using PRA (aka ‘participation, reflection, action’) methodologies. Many of the tools staff used were developed and written about by Robert Chambers. Check here for a great overview of PRA or these 2003 notes on PRA since 1998. PRA traces many of its roots back to Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and looks to make communities the real owners of the development process. Any externals involved act as facilitators of a process (not drivers of the discussion) who ‘hand over the stick’ to local people as often as possible so that they fully manage their own processes. Chambers warns against ‘fascipulation’ – facilitation + manipulation, and surface PRA, saying the main ingredient in PRA is having real respect for local knowledge and local people. Some reading suggestions here.
(Side note to get an idea of how awesome Chambers is. I went to a workshop with him once and he walked in barefoot, pants rolled up, hair askew. He stood in front of us holding a map. It was upside down. Someone raised their hand to tell him it was upside down. He looked down at it and said ‘it looks fine from my perspective’. Then he went into a whole discussion about perspective. As part of that discussion, he started talking about computers and network thinking and how birds fly in flocks. This guy is some kind of genius.)
Community managed projects
Following the strategic consultations, staff worked with communities to design, plan and carry out their own projects, which were also administered by the community once they had gone through project administration training and had opened their community bank account to receive deposits.
Orgasmatron moments
Thinking about sustainability and working with local communities is really not a new concept, nor is the idea of working yourself out of a job if you work in development. The buzz words of transparency and accountability have also been around for awhile. Participatory design is not new either.
I don’t know. Maybe the organizations I’ve worked with in the 1990s and up to now are just amazingly progressive. Or maybe I’m missing something and when people use the terms above they are talking about something different and much more advanced and innovative than what I’m talking about. I mean, the White Stripes first album was a total Doors/Zeppelin rip off, but they did go on to develop their own sound as they matured, and their third album was brilliant. Snoop’s Upside Ya Head is obviously drawing on the Gap Band’s Ooops Upside Ya Head, but both versions are excellent. I do actually like a lot of the re-makes that are out there and there are also some really good new concepts and ideas and some great people and organizations that I learn from on a regular basis.
However, Green Day are not the ‘godfathers of punk rock’ (sign the petition here and help settle that issue once and for all) – How could they be if they came out in the late 80s and punk started in the early 70s? And I keep having Orgasmatron Moments when I see people gushing over an NGO that hires local staff (no brainer) or has a child protection policy (implementing ours since 2003) or consults with communities (why wouldn’t you consult with local communities?).
I suppose, like with my students in El Salvador, it kind of sucks when you realize your idea or your version isn’t the original. But you can be annoyed or bummed out or remain in denial, or you can go back and do some research, and see what you can learn from the original and try to improve on it. With music, knowing about the original song (even if it’s horrible and the new version is much much better), usually scores you some points for legitimacy.
Related posts on Wait… What?
Nothing new under the sun: trends & development mash-ups
I was talking to someone about his experience in the Peace Corps in ’67 or so; and he said that community empowerment and participation is what they were taught in training.
I’m tempted to be snarky and say that we could use some of that in the US these days.
I remember reading Freire in ’76; and on seeing that he was speaking on campus 8 years later; felt that a lifetime had gone by. It is hard to describe how deeply the conservatism of the eighties obliterated so much.
I used to wonder how it was that people could forget how to read during the Dark Ages (if the stories are true); but having lived through the Reagan years, I KNOW that it is possible.
That’s not snarky – it’s just true! Maybe during the Obama years we can forget the 80s and the 00s ever happened… 🙂
[…] Raftree (What… What?) ponders how old ideas get re-mixed and become hip again in development. She’s known about bottom-up development, the importance of public policy, […]
Excellent post, Linda. What jumped out at me was the line: “…go back and do some research, and see what you can learn from the original and try to improve on it.” Modern, western society, as you well know, is not particularly good at building on the past – improving, not recreating. Partially we’re not trained to do so but we may have been handicapped in the past by the difficulty of doing this research. Hopefully with information now being posted on websites, wikis and other common spaces it will be more accessible and easier to learn from each other.
Like Bonnie (and I thank her for directing me here from Twitter), I also think the main advantage to understanding it’s not a new idea is that you can “see what you can learn from the original and try to improve on it.”
But I’d suggest there’s also an advantage to someone thinking their idea is brand new: they are more likely to be committed to making it work effectively, more “invested”, if they believe they thought it first. Maybe even invested enough to even make sure that there is some proven good impact. Thoughts?
Yes, maybe… but it seems you are suggesting that we can’t be committed to making something work if we didn’t invent it ourselves. I think that there are many ways of feeling ownership, aside from inventing something from scratch. Maybe as Bonnie said, it’s a cultural thing?
When my son was 16 he came to me to share an idea he’d come up with that closely resembled social Darwinism. I told him he was amazing for having thought something up by himself that had been written about (and often disproved) by great philosophers over the years, and encouraged him to do some research to see whose company he was in, and to see where he could improve his argument for it or understand the arguments against it and potentially change his mind and expand his thoughts on it. He learned a lot in the process and reached another level of thought and analysis.
You are absolutely right in highlighting that NONE of this thinking is new. My question is…why are so many of the donors and aid agencies still not working from these principles? The sad reality continues; community-based organizations are not the drivers of development, nor the setters of priorities, nor the controllers of resources. Unfortunately, grassroots leaders echo to me again and again that their experience of receiving development aid is largely negative, which would not be happening if these principles were actively in place. Until then, I think we need all the echoing voices we can get to bring Freire’s and Biko’s and Ghandi’s (and, and, and…) ideas into everyone’s reality.
Thanks for your comment…. I agree that not all aid agencies follow these principles, and even those that do are sometimes not doing it all the time, but there are many forces at play.
I know of a case where the community complained about the organization because they didn’t get any handouts, they complained that they hadn’t been given mattresses or clothing. But that wasn’t the methodology of the organization at all, the organization was looking at partnering with the community to support them to self-organize and drive their own development. I know of another case, different organization, where the community wanted to be given funds, not to go through any of the training on funds management. And another case where the community was not interested in working on changing local laws to benefit communities, they wanted to just be given seeds and farm tools on a yearly basis. I know of other cases where the community misappropriated funds and then told evaluators they were unhappy with the organization.
In all these cases I’ve personally seen the discussions taking place in the community as well as in the organization. But I would never make a statement that all communities are bad or corrupt nor would I say all organizations are bad and corrupt, or that all communities and/or organizations are good.
Certainly the organizations above may have approached the relationship wrongly in those cases, been at fault somehow or somewhere, or maybe the community leaders were just looking out for their own interests, and not those of the community. But in those cases the community was not complaining because they wanted more Freire or more Ghandi. They wanted more ‘bad development.’
I think development work is always complicated and full of negotiations and politics, no matter what because we are talking about social change,, relationships and power dynamics. We need to see community members as equals, as human beings with the same tendencies as every human being, and take out some of the romanticism.
But I’m digressing….
A well-articulated post, as always. I would add that, in some ways, CGD’s Cash on Delivery Aid idea isn’t entirely new either (and I’m not the first to call them out on this), though it’s gotten a lot of press from everyone from DfID to Nick Kristof who have heralded it as a “new” way of doing development. Programs in Haiti, Rwanda, and other countries have relied on the idea of making either financial incentives or even specific percentages of an annual budget contingent on meeting specific service delivery targets. I’d have to go back into old files from my grad school internship for specifics, but, for example, in a past program in Haiti funded by USAID, NGOs received funding to accomplish certain program outcomes (vaccinate X children, for example). By meeting their targets, the NGOs ensured they received continued funding.
The CGD proposal does, however, advocate for taking the principles behind performance-based financing (or results-based financing, if you work for Abt or the World Bank), and applying those ideas to how governments spend aid dollars. So perhaps it could be held up as a good example of a new way to apply an existing idea, elevating it from a program to a policy.
Thanks Amanda, have incorporated your comment into the follow up post!
@Jennifer – yeah… I dunno.
Fortunately grassroot leaders echo to *me* again and again that *their* experience in receiving development aid has been largely positive…
No one is saying that aid is perfect. Far from it, in fact. But many of the principles that you seem to suggest aren’t in place, in fact are. Universal statements about how they’re not serve only to paint in black & white something that in reality is made up of shades and colors.
[…] my last post (Orgasmatron Moments) I compared re-hashed development and aid work ideas to re-makes of songs, lamenting that often […]
Linda,
I had to chuckle a bit reading this blog. You see, I’m in the middle of writing a book that essentially rehashes a lot of these old ideas. The thing is, the new generation of volunteers and aid professionals and development workers…they don’t read Chambers and Friere and Hirschman; they read whatever’s on the shelf today looking new. I agree that we should be building on knowledge and taking the sector forward, but there are a lot of places where these principles are only partially in place. Certainly the language of participation, community-driven development, cultural sustainability, local partnering, advocacy, etc. is widely adopted, but the principles and practice? Not so sure.
On a totally different topic, I wanted to let you know that I’ve add you to my blogroll. I’m totally new to blogging (but not new to int’l dev.) and I’m not sure what the protocol on that is. If you don’t want to be listed (i.e. associated) with my blog, I’ll respect and honor any request to remove your name from the list. Also, any feedback on my first month’s efforts would be welcome. http://www.stayingfortea.org
Look forward to seeing your book out, and I agree that these principles are only partially in place, and that practices need to be more robustly incorporated across the board. But still. Sigh….
Thanks a bunch for adding me to your blogroll – flattered to be listed and have listed you as well!
[…] Orgasmatron moments […]
[…] is a bit cynical, while also recognizing that there’s value it intellectual iteration. As Linda Raftree has noted, many of the new ideas in development are re-mixes of old ideas. That’s only a bad thing if […]
[…] framing is a bit cynical, while also recognizing that there’s value it intellectual iteration. As Linda Raftree has noted, many of the new ideas in development are re-mixes of old ideas. That’s only a bad thing if […]