Challenges to Development Work

Whoever said humanitarian work makes you feel warm and fuzzy was lying or has never done it. And this is not just my conclusion. I have received many an appreciative nod lamenting and one must just look to the eloquent anger of William Easterly (former World Bank economist) and Stephen Lewis (UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa) to confirm that prominent people also feel this.

Some of you may be in agreement, thinking, “Africa is a corrupt continent – of course it must be frustrating to do development work there.” And while I did experience my share of frustrations on the “dark continent,” I could not help but conclude that a lot has to do with how the West treats the Rest, in media representation, donor requirements and humanitarian work in general. Quite a few Ugandans impressed me with their work ethic, determination and passion so one should NEVER say that Africa is a write-off. Because it isn’t. However, the road to better infrastructure and poverty reduction will be a long one with no simple solutions to the complex problems.

But back to the original subject. Here are some things that detract from the joys of helping others when working for an NGO in Uganda:

· The amount of office work is under-estimated. Sitting in an office all day when the goal is to help people can be frustrating. But record-keeping is key to a successful organization, especially when your donors do not trust you. Which is not to say that donors should trust you. Corruption and monetary mismanagement do exist and is quite fascinating.
· Running after money – Part 1. As an NGO, chances are that you rely on donors for money. Thus you have to produce project proposal after project proposal to find financing for short-term projects with long-term, sustainable results. I churned out approximately seven of these tedious beasts between January and April without a hope of success. But one was!!! Whether by entirely clean means I am not sure, but I do know that my organization will carry it out. But now I am a proud mother that will not be able to raise her child, since I have to stay in Canada while the project gets carried out in faraway Uganda.
· Running after money – Part 2. Like I said, as an organization you rely on donors for money. Yet somehow few donors want to channel money for the actual running of the organization, even as a small percentage of a project budget. An NGO needs an office to be taken seriously, but who will pay the rent or electricity bills? Or the staff that stay on in periods between funding? Competition is tough after all and one never gets all the grants applied for. In my case, it was the watchdogs and staff that suffered most when there was no money. Many NGOs often lack financial planning for dry periods when there is no money. But who can blame them, where would they find the money to invest?
· The demon of corruption is also often lurking in the shadows. One cannot ignore stories of development money buying cars rather than safer mining method training programs or contracts not being signed because the people wanting the job refused to pay huge bribes. And this goes for both donors and recipients, black and white.
· Poor management. When the management does not plan ahead, buys vehicles inappropriate for the work or hires too many staff that end up sitting in the office looking important but doing nothing, it makes my blood boil. On another note, in a country where you are not supposed to trust anyone, managing an organization is difficult. But then again, importing people from your home village to do work in another tribe is not the most efficient way of making your organization beloved.
· In a world where people feel like the West has an obligation to help, people are often not content with the help they receive and lose all motivation to change things themselves. And of course the question gets raised, when will the West stop being responsible? Is that even possible?
· When one must work through translators (which one has to with all the languages present in Uganda), something is always lost. In one situation I experienced, the people were promised something by the translator and this promise never came through. Of course they were angry and this resulted in an uncomfortable situation for those who had apparently made the promise.
· Donors like to see results. They like to see children in smart school uniforms, water tanks, people eating, houses being erected. And while these perfect picture opportunities do help and make the donors feel warm and fuzzy, they do not necessarily address the more pressing problems faced by the people needing the help.
· I do not know how consultants do it. Coming into a situation in a foreign country with a different mentality and different ways of doing almost everything. How do they manage? It took me at least two months to find my feet and stand on relatively firm ground. All my major break-throughs happened towards the end of my 7.5 month stay. So people coming in, especially when not from that country, are vulnerable, especially to corruption and being ripped off.
· Speaking of being ripped off: as a foreigner, you will be bombasted with stories of suffering. While some stories are genuine, others just want to pump you for money. One unexpected side effect of this is that this can make friendships difficult – one Ugandan once told me that one reason some people might not open up to me was because they did not want to sound like they were milking me for money with their life stories. It is hard to sift through the truth and lies and it can sometimes leave one feeling helpless, since one would like to help but either cannot trust the story or does not have the financial means.
· Being ripped off Part 3 - going somewhere with the intention of carrying out a humanitarian project for which you do not even get paid and then having people demand more money than was agreed upon in the signed contract. This happened to me once. The problem may have come through miscommunication, since we did not share a common, fluent language, but there were three people involved on their side and they cannot all have completely misunderstood. And now, when I think back to that project, the confrontation over owing them more for their services comes to the fore, rather than the joy of the people we helped. But when running a project, how can one tell the donor that 30% of the money was used for transport?
· And yes, transport can be expensive, not only in fuel costs but also car maintenance. Anyone who has seen Ugandan roads (or the lack thereof) will immediately understand. And this is often not budgeted for in donor expectations of projects. But, as in my situation, their demand of 30% of the funds really was quite ridiculous and undoable. Luckily when I asked them if they wanted to call the donors personally to ask for the money, they declined.
· Side note: For anyone thinking of going abroad to do something useful involving people, stay at least six months, if not longer. Otherwise the result will be you having a better understanding of the place but not much more. I am not speaking of consultants or people who are trained, but of general do-gooders and people who travel the world volunteering. Even having a better understanding of the place isn’t entirely true. If I had left Uganda two months after my arrival, my understanding and picture of it would be entirely different from what it is now.