PHA-Exchange> About Technical Cooperation (TC)

[Aviva]

From: <Profitinafrica at aol.com>

What TC looks like from a rural village resident's perspective:

> ............ TC looks like a Toyota Land Cruiser with a big agency
> sticker on the doors to announce who funded the vehicle;
>
> ............ TC looks like a big sign on a compound ....... inside a
> place to park the cars, a generator to give light, and drive the air
> conditioners and refrigerators ....... and a room with computers and
> copying machines;
>
> ............ TC looks like people coming to the village to ask
> questions ..... sometimes very polite and correct ....... usually very
> intrusive and arrogant ...... with lots of questions and questionaires;
>
> ............ TC never seems to ask about what is of priority and
> importance to our community. What we need is never on the
> agenda of the TC visitors.
>
> ............ TC people never seem to stay long enough to learn
> anything;
>
> ............ Some people stay a long time ....... but usually they are
> young and really do not have much understanding of the
> complexities of our life ....... and they never seem to know
> anything  about our traditions and our values. We try to be polite,   but
it is not  easy when they are so demanding. We do not have much material
resource, but they want us to use it in ways that make no sense to us. When
they go it takes us a long time to get back to normal.
>
> ............ When we have the chance to talk to TC people it is clear
> that they offer absolutely nothing that will make a difference in our
> lives. In fact it is often the opposite. They create a legitimacy for
> government rules and regulations that are very damaging to our
> community economy;
>
> ............ When we talk about the big government programs (funded
> by World Bank) and others they are more interested in money
> made from export crops than in crops to feed our families. Export
> crops mostly impoverish our community. We only grow them
> because the government makes us. We have to use good land for
> these crops which could be better used feeding our people.
>
> ............. Credit programs ....... why do you make us buy a
> complete pack of items in order to get credit when we could buy
> just what we need and not have to throw out everything else. It
> really is very silly.
>
> ............ Womens programs ........ the women are the backbone of
> our community. We (the men) have to listen to them. Giving them
> more opportunity to work when they are already working
> enormously hard is maybe not a good idea.
>
> ............. Education ......... is very good ........ but most of us
> cannot afford the cost of fees and uniforms ...... and the school is a
> long way away. Educating girls ...... OK .......... but most of the
> boys are not getting schooling either;
>
> ............. What is the government doing? .......... well ........
> making it difficult to travel by doing nothing about the rural roads which
are awful;
>
> .............. Telephone, electricity? ............ they hardly have
> them in the cities ...... do you expect anything in rural areas?;
>
> .............. Health ............. it was getting better ..... the
> children could get primary health care when UNICEF teams would  visit.
Government health programs have been getting worse and  worse for the past
ten years (... since Structural Adjustment);
>
> ............. HIV-AIDS .......... yes we know ....... but what can we
> do about it? ...... and what about behavior change? ......... well what
change? ..... there are no condoms ..... there is child spacing to
> reduce family size, but that is not "safe sex" ....... and we do need
> large families in our rural environment;
>
> .............. Any questions? .......... yes ...... why do TC people
> and urban people come to our community and tell us what to do,
 but will not ask us to tell them about our problems and what we
> might be able to do to solve them. Though we may not be able to
> read and write, we have lived in this situation for many generations  and
we have learned a lot ..... we could learn more, but it would be nice to
learn something that has value in our community and in our situation.

> The above could go on ...... I hope I have been fair.
> Peter Burgess