For solidarity in the global village

Is the posting of development workers the best way to help Africa? That certainly depends. Definitely not, if you are constructing a highway or building a cement factory. And maybe not, if the aim is to get a strictly professional or fiscal input to the partner organisation. In those cases, development workers are likely to be a pretty ineffective and expensive bunch to have around.

But I don’t subscribe to the ‘quantifiable’ view of development. The true impact of an intervention is not easily measured at any given point in time. Certainly, the development workers may raise a fair amount of havoc in the partner organisation. Certainly, their contract periods are short, and their adjustment period is often long. And certainly, they don’t always go about it in the most sensitive of ways.

But there is a gap to breach – and from both sides. And if we succumb to the thinking that development is all about material resources, about having and not having, we are missing an important point! Of course Africa, Kenya, anyone, have to progress on its own terms, but any development, be it in Kenya or in Denmark, happens in a context. And that context is changing – for all of us.

One, almost worn-down, word for the prevailing context is ‘globalisation’. Structures of production, of distribution, of communication, of what-have-you – of power – are increasingly being centralised on a super-national level, outside of national control. In the ‘village’ – African or Danish, different as they appear – it may look like a far-fetched point. In terms of the posting of development workers, I don’t think it is at all. Because the issue is the same: Do we want to have a fair chance of controlling our respective future(s)? How do those who recognise this context liase in a meaningful way? Across geographical and cultural borders?

In this perspective, posting development workers makes sense. They are ‘there’, at implementation level. Potentially, they can gain a perception of the realities on the ground. And if they have a brain in their head, they will not just avail their professional skills, but will go away with an improved understanding of the prevailing realities, and a different kind of respect for the immense task that development on people’s own terms is, and for those who try to bring it about. With a new sense of (dare I use the word) solidarity. And with the prevailing selfishness in the North, we all need that.