Ghana wins! The FIFA Under 20 World Cup! And my heart. Aww.
First: the football. As Ghana made it through match after match of qualifying rounds, the hopes of Ghana’s people for their team climbed higher and higher. They were the only African team in the quarter finals and Ghanaians were proud to have the chance to show off on the world stage. Ghana and Brazil were to face off in the final and people all around the country gathered around televisions in their homes, at public bars, and even at shops on the side of the street to watch the fate of their young players.
A red card early in the game against Ghana couldn’t stop Ghana from defending strong and maintaining a 0 – 0 score through the regulation time and the two 15 minute overtime halves. The entire game came down to a shootout and everyone held their breath as Ghana went goal for goal with Brazil. But then victory! The entire city erupted in celebration – an amazing sight!
I’m a self professed band wagon sports fan and usually can’t be too bothered with watching pro sports until the stakes are high. It was as I watched the game that I realized Ghana had stolen my heart. I wanted so badly for Ghana to win. For a country that is so accustomed to receiving assistance and handouts, and being told that it must ‘develop’ to a better state, to legitimately prove that they could be the best at something in their own right.
Thanks for not letting me down Ghana.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
The rains down in Africa
It’s Thursday morning. I’ve got a meeting all day today on the issue of HIV/AIDS that sounds very interesting and I was really looking forward to attending. The meeting was to start at 9:00am, but it is 9:30am and I am still sitting in my bedroom.
It’s raining.
This isn’t Canadian style rain – get your umbrella and quickly walk to your car/train/office. No, this is African rainy season rain. The kind that seems to come from all directions, soaks you through in about 30 seconds, and would render even the biggest golf umbrella useless.
The rain stops all human activity. Stalls where you buy goods and food are closed and people don’t leave wherever they are. I’m not worried about missing my meeting – I know that no one else is at the office either and the meeting won’t start until the rain has passed.
There is really something beautiful about this rain though – the power of it leaves me in awe every time it comes. I feel like I now understand why Toto misses the rain down in Africa. I think I will too when I leave. But I don’t think I will miss how it holds me hostage in my bedroom, eating ginger candies for breakfast and wanting to go to work to talk about development issues in my district.
It’s raining.
This isn’t Canadian style rain – get your umbrella and quickly walk to your car/train/office. No, this is African rainy season rain. The kind that seems to come from all directions, soaks you through in about 30 seconds, and would render even the biggest golf umbrella useless.
The rain stops all human activity. Stalls where you buy goods and food are closed and people don’t leave wherever they are. I’m not worried about missing my meeting – I know that no one else is at the office either and the meeting won’t start until the rain has passed.
There is really something beautiful about this rain though – the power of it leaves me in awe every time it comes. I feel like I now understand why Toto misses the rain down in Africa. I think I will too when I leave. But I don’t think I will miss how it holds me hostage in my bedroom, eating ginger candies for breakfast and wanting to go to work to talk about development issues in my district.
Development Work: When the Solution becomes the Problem
Two months of being in Ghana certainly does not make me an expert in this topic, and there are many people much smarter than I who have published extensively on the issue. This post is simply about some of my observations on a certain type of development work that I witness aimed at the District level governments in efforts to improve civil service and governance.
“Through Sensitization and Education Workshops, we will Build their Capacity”
Sensitization, capacity building, and capacity development are all buzz phrases which I have developed a strong distaste for. They make me cringe every time I hear them thrown around. Not because I disagree with the concept of increasing someone’s ability to help themselves. This is a great concept, and the reason these phrases have become so popular. My problem with the phrases is that in the context of district operations, the workshops are not only often ineffective, but they can actually be counter productive as well.
The Problems with Workshops
Let me place another caveat on this post by saying that not all workshops fit this description, and that there are some workshops that actually seem to be valuable. Unfortunately, many more seem to fit under the category of ‘Well-intentioned-but-poorly-implemented-development-work’.
Problems:
Awareness does not necessarily result in behavior change. This is a topic that EWB discusses often. Awareness is relatively easy to achieve, whereas behavior change can be complex. There are many factors influencing the behavior of an individual or a community. For example, I know that flying around the globe emits massive amounts of harmful carbon emissions, and yet I do so without spending the extra cash to purchase any sort of carbon offset. Holding a workshop for civil servants on a transparent tender evaluation process does not necessarily mean that this process will be disseminated to all of the districts with representatives attending the workshop. Too often, workshops are not designed in a way that considers the complexities of behavior change and it is assumed that the knowledge gained at the workshop will result in drastic behavior changes.
Too many workshops! This is a bad thing because the same people are often invited to the workshops. These people are generally senior officers whose job it is to make things happen at their districts. If they’re at a workshop in a city 4 hours away from their district, they’re not able to do their job to develop the district. As an example, I am working with the District Planning Officer to facilitate a two day meeting in our district to discuss the next four year development plan with all of the heads of departments. The meeting was originally scheduled for September 30th and October 1st. Unfortunately, a workshop we were attending on September 29th ran over schedule from one day to three (imagine leaving town for a workshop that you expected to last for one day and you would be home that night, only to find the meeting would actually take three days!). So our meeting at our district would need to be rescheduled. Unfortunately, there is no suitable date in the next three weeks because of workshop conflicts outside of the district. So our work is literally on hold for about a month while we wait for schedules to align. My fingers are crossed that no more workshops will pop up which will delay us even longer!
Lack of coordination between development partners holding these workshops is often low and times and topics may overlap. Not a good use of senior district officer time. For many reasons, communication about the workshops to the districts is often delayed and so officers may get only a day’s notice that they are to attend a workshop.
Workshop quality. This seems to be more variable, and some workshops are run by very good and experienced facilitators that engage all of the attendees. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen some run by facilitators who are unprepared, unaware of realities of district operations, and who are outright dull. This means that no matter how valuable the information being delivered is, it’s likely not reaching the audience and so it doesn’t even result in awareness, let alone behavior change. I realize this is a fact of life for workshops in both the developing and developed world, but here it makes me especially angry because the consequence of failing to deliver a message and wasting the time of the district officer is that those in extreme poverty will be deprived of essential services for even longer.
It’s not all Doom and Gloom
One of my pet peeves is people who complain about their situation but don’t do anything to change it. So what is EWB doing to address the problems I’ve indicated above?
On the job training: one of the huge value adds of our work with the District Assemblies is that we show up day after day to provide on the job training that is relevant and responsive to the realities that the district officers face, and doesn’t pull officers away from their jobs. This means skills that we teach are much more likely to result in behavior change. Unfortunately this model is resource intensive (i.e., there are 170 districts in Ghana so it’s very difficult to supply each district with a volunteer).
Development Partner Influence: our work with the districts gives us a unique perspective into realities and challenges. EWB sits on some Development Partner meeting groups and shares these realities to try and influence how Development Partner work is conducted. We also share district realities with the Regional Offices who have authority over the districts. The Regional Office can share our successes with districts which do not have an EWB volunteer (e.g., a water point siting tool is being scaled up for use in several more districts). EWB’s critical thought process is unfortunately not a norm in the world of development I’ve seen.
So Now What?
I don’t believe that all westerners should immediately pack up and abandon Africa for Africans to sort it out on their own. I do believe there is a place for westerners in development work, but there is much room for improving the way it is delivered. Saying development is complex feels like an understatement. I certainly don’t have all the answers for exactly how to make it better, but asking hard questions and quickly learning from failure is a behavior that needs to be adopted by the entire development industry if we truly have people at heart.
“Through Sensitization and Education Workshops, we will Build their Capacity”
Sensitization, capacity building, and capacity development are all buzz phrases which I have developed a strong distaste for. They make me cringe every time I hear them thrown around. Not because I disagree with the concept of increasing someone’s ability to help themselves. This is a great concept, and the reason these phrases have become so popular. My problem with the phrases is that in the context of district operations, the workshops are not only often ineffective, but they can actually be counter productive as well.
The Problems with Workshops
Let me place another caveat on this post by saying that not all workshops fit this description, and that there are some workshops that actually seem to be valuable. Unfortunately, many more seem to fit under the category of ‘Well-intentioned-but-poorly-implemented-development-work’.
Problems:
Awareness does not necessarily result in behavior change. This is a topic that EWB discusses often. Awareness is relatively easy to achieve, whereas behavior change can be complex. There are many factors influencing the behavior of an individual or a community. For example, I know that flying around the globe emits massive amounts of harmful carbon emissions, and yet I do so without spending the extra cash to purchase any sort of carbon offset. Holding a workshop for civil servants on a transparent tender evaluation process does not necessarily mean that this process will be disseminated to all of the districts with representatives attending the workshop. Too often, workshops are not designed in a way that considers the complexities of behavior change and it is assumed that the knowledge gained at the workshop will result in drastic behavior changes.
Too many workshops! This is a bad thing because the same people are often invited to the workshops. These people are generally senior officers whose job it is to make things happen at their districts. If they’re at a workshop in a city 4 hours away from their district, they’re not able to do their job to develop the district. As an example, I am working with the District Planning Officer to facilitate a two day meeting in our district to discuss the next four year development plan with all of the heads of departments. The meeting was originally scheduled for September 30th and October 1st. Unfortunately, a workshop we were attending on September 29th ran over schedule from one day to three (imagine leaving town for a workshop that you expected to last for one day and you would be home that night, only to find the meeting would actually take three days!). So our meeting at our district would need to be rescheduled. Unfortunately, there is no suitable date in the next three weeks because of workshop conflicts outside of the district. So our work is literally on hold for about a month while we wait for schedules to align. My fingers are crossed that no more workshops will pop up which will delay us even longer!
Lack of coordination between development partners holding these workshops is often low and times and topics may overlap. Not a good use of senior district officer time. For many reasons, communication about the workshops to the districts is often delayed and so officers may get only a day’s notice that they are to attend a workshop.
Workshop quality. This seems to be more variable, and some workshops are run by very good and experienced facilitators that engage all of the attendees. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen some run by facilitators who are unprepared, unaware of realities of district operations, and who are outright dull. This means that no matter how valuable the information being delivered is, it’s likely not reaching the audience and so it doesn’t even result in awareness, let alone behavior change. I realize this is a fact of life for workshops in both the developing and developed world, but here it makes me especially angry because the consequence of failing to deliver a message and wasting the time of the district officer is that those in extreme poverty will be deprived of essential services for even longer.
It’s not all Doom and Gloom
One of my pet peeves is people who complain about their situation but don’t do anything to change it. So what is EWB doing to address the problems I’ve indicated above?
On the job training: one of the huge value adds of our work with the District Assemblies is that we show up day after day to provide on the job training that is relevant and responsive to the realities that the district officers face, and doesn’t pull officers away from their jobs. This means skills that we teach are much more likely to result in behavior change. Unfortunately this model is resource intensive (i.e., there are 170 districts in Ghana so it’s very difficult to supply each district with a volunteer).
Development Partner Influence: our work with the districts gives us a unique perspective into realities and challenges. EWB sits on some Development Partner meeting groups and shares these realities to try and influence how Development Partner work is conducted. We also share district realities with the Regional Offices who have authority over the districts. The Regional Office can share our successes with districts which do not have an EWB volunteer (e.g., a water point siting tool is being scaled up for use in several more districts). EWB’s critical thought process is unfortunately not a norm in the world of development I’ve seen.
So Now What?
I don’t believe that all westerners should immediately pack up and abandon Africa for Africans to sort it out on their own. I do believe there is a place for westerners in development work, but there is much room for improving the way it is delivered. Saying development is complex feels like an understatement. I certainly don’t have all the answers for exactly how to make it better, but asking hard questions and quickly learning from failure is a behavior that needs to be adopted by the entire development industry if we truly have people at heart.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Kadeo!
Here are some photos I thought I would share since I've had an abundance of text only posts. Most are from a recent festival in town called the Kadeo festival which is celebrated on the 27th day of fasting during Ramadan. Enjoy!
My Job in Ghana
Although I’ve tried to fill you in on my living situation and my office atmosphere, I haven’t actually articulated what I’m doing at work.
I think I’ve already mentioned that I feel very lucky to have the job I do here; I’m involved in all sorts of conversations about all the development issues that the Bole District faces, and I get to meet all sorts of amazing people. I really feel like I’m getting an experiential degree in Development Studies and a very large portion of my day every day is spent thinking about how the local District Government can better deliver services to citizens of the District; and how I can help to facilitate that in my short time here.
Engineers working in governance?
I am part of EWB’s Governance & Rural Infrastructure team. Here’s a blurb from our team strategy document:
“Our team is making the district planning systems work. Specifically:
1. District plans utilize accurate data for evidence-based decision-making.
2. District leaders are proactive in assigning roles, motivating staff, and taking responsibility for creating evidence-based plans.
3. District communication systems are transparent and allow communities to hold the district accountable.”
Let me be the first to say that these are big goals. But they’re also really exciting because they address some of the key issues to proper functionality in the local governance structures, and ultimately in service delivery to the citizens of the district – particularly the rural poor.
Fortunately for me, I find big challenges like these to be motivating rather than paralyzing – especially when working with the awesome people that make up our little G&RI team. We’re all working towards the team’s goals with strategically selected projects, but there’s also room for some innovation and testing things out within each of our districts so we can learn and share best practices.
Planning for Service Delivery
At the Bole District, my primary focus is working with the District Planning Officer to facilitate the creation of the District Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) for the term 2010 – 2013. This document is supposed to be the framework that each district uses to plan out their focus and specific development projects over the four year period. Each year, the MTDP is used to guide the creation of an Annual Action Plan which is a more detailed and specific plan for the upcoming year.
The theory of the process is great, but in reality many of the districts fell short on execution. This is likely due to a great number of factors, but some main hypotheses are:
- the document was not easily read or understood and so was not consulted when carrying out specific actions or projects
- there was little stakeholder involvement in the creation of the plan, meaning that departments didn’t have buy in (or even know that it existed for use)
- the plan wasn’t actually finished until over half way through the planning period
- the plan didn’t reflect actual priorities of communities and departments
Project Specifics
I’m trying to facilitate a MTDP creation process that addresses these challenges and hopefully creates a plan which reflects the development priorities of the district, is accessible and user friendly, and engages stakeholders so they can use it to hold their governments and politicians accountable for service delivery. It’s a long process which involves data collection, consulting all stakeholders in the District, prioritizing issues and projects, and setting goals and targets. The process won’t be complete when I leave in December, but I’m working hard to coach the planning officer through initial stages of the process so he can continue down that path when I leave.
Some other things I’m doing at work:
- exploring the role of the public sector in private sector development and trying to determine some best practices that the public sector can follow to create an enabling environment for economic growth
- some computer training to staff at the District Assembly in basic computer use, MS Office programs, electronic data analysis and management, and virus management
- trying to facilitate development of a District capacity building plan based on a government led and donor supported assessment called the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT). Basically FOAT is a way of annually assessing the performance of a District and awarding funds based on good performance. If District capacity is built, there will be potential for higher fund disbursement to Bole in the following years
- working to change small behaviors such as time management, communications, and organization
Not a short list. And also not comprehensive. I don’t expect to achieve a state of satisfaction of each area, but organizational change is difficult and if I can make some small sustainable changes to the way the District operates to better deliver services to its people, I will be happy.
The EWB vacuum
When the EWB long term volunteers leave Canada for their 12 month placement, many of them seem to be drawn in and extend their placements for two and even three years. When I first arrived in Ghana, I was a little overwhelmed with things and although I knew I would be fine for four months, I wondered how so many volunteers would want to stay longer than a year.
I’m now beginning to understand how easy it is to be completely caught up in your work – the challenges are so numerous but the potential for rewards are so great. You’re learning so much every day about your surroundings, systems that work and don’t work, and your own ability to face challenges and seek for solutions. I’ve never had a job that is constantly pushing my thinking and is filled with so many opportunities for contribution. I know that at the end of my placement I will be going home, but I also can now see how easy and tempting it would be to stay.
I think I’ve already mentioned that I feel very lucky to have the job I do here; I’m involved in all sorts of conversations about all the development issues that the Bole District faces, and I get to meet all sorts of amazing people. I really feel like I’m getting an experiential degree in Development Studies and a very large portion of my day every day is spent thinking about how the local District Government can better deliver services to citizens of the District; and how I can help to facilitate that in my short time here.
Engineers working in governance?
I am part of EWB’s Governance & Rural Infrastructure team. Here’s a blurb from our team strategy document:
“Our team is making the district planning systems work. Specifically:
1. District plans utilize accurate data for evidence-based decision-making.
2. District leaders are proactive in assigning roles, motivating staff, and taking responsibility for creating evidence-based plans.
3. District communication systems are transparent and allow communities to hold the district accountable.”
Let me be the first to say that these are big goals. But they’re also really exciting because they address some of the key issues to proper functionality in the local governance structures, and ultimately in service delivery to the citizens of the district – particularly the rural poor.
Fortunately for me, I find big challenges like these to be motivating rather than paralyzing – especially when working with the awesome people that make up our little G&RI team. We’re all working towards the team’s goals with strategically selected projects, but there’s also room for some innovation and testing things out within each of our districts so we can learn and share best practices.
Planning for Service Delivery
At the Bole District, my primary focus is working with the District Planning Officer to facilitate the creation of the District Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) for the term 2010 – 2013. This document is supposed to be the framework that each district uses to plan out their focus and specific development projects over the four year period. Each year, the MTDP is used to guide the creation of an Annual Action Plan which is a more detailed and specific plan for the upcoming year.
The theory of the process is great, but in reality many of the districts fell short on execution. This is likely due to a great number of factors, but some main hypotheses are:
- the document was not easily read or understood and so was not consulted when carrying out specific actions or projects
- there was little stakeholder involvement in the creation of the plan, meaning that departments didn’t have buy in (or even know that it existed for use)
- the plan wasn’t actually finished until over half way through the planning period
- the plan didn’t reflect actual priorities of communities and departments
Project Specifics
I’m trying to facilitate a MTDP creation process that addresses these challenges and hopefully creates a plan which reflects the development priorities of the district, is accessible and user friendly, and engages stakeholders so they can use it to hold their governments and politicians accountable for service delivery. It’s a long process which involves data collection, consulting all stakeholders in the District, prioritizing issues and projects, and setting goals and targets. The process won’t be complete when I leave in December, but I’m working hard to coach the planning officer through initial stages of the process so he can continue down that path when I leave.
Some other things I’m doing at work:
- exploring the role of the public sector in private sector development and trying to determine some best practices that the public sector can follow to create an enabling environment for economic growth
- some computer training to staff at the District Assembly in basic computer use, MS Office programs, electronic data analysis and management, and virus management
- trying to facilitate development of a District capacity building plan based on a government led and donor supported assessment called the Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT). Basically FOAT is a way of annually assessing the performance of a District and awarding funds based on good performance. If District capacity is built, there will be potential for higher fund disbursement to Bole in the following years
- working to change small behaviors such as time management, communications, and organization
Not a short list. And also not comprehensive. I don’t expect to achieve a state of satisfaction of each area, but organizational change is difficult and if I can make some small sustainable changes to the way the District operates to better deliver services to its people, I will be happy.
The EWB vacuum
When the EWB long term volunteers leave Canada for their 12 month placement, many of them seem to be drawn in and extend their placements for two and even three years. When I first arrived in Ghana, I was a little overwhelmed with things and although I knew I would be fine for four months, I wondered how so many volunteers would want to stay longer than a year.
I’m now beginning to understand how easy it is to be completely caught up in your work – the challenges are so numerous but the potential for rewards are so great. You’re learning so much every day about your surroundings, systems that work and don’t work, and your own ability to face challenges and seek for solutions. I’ve never had a job that is constantly pushing my thinking and is filled with so many opportunities for contribution. I know that at the end of my placement I will be going home, but I also can now see how easy and tempting it would be to stay.
Great Expectations
My greatest fear in coming to Ghana had little to do with uncomfortable living conditions, unappealing toilet facilities, or unusual insects. My greatest fear was that I would not live up to expectations.
I’m continually impressed by the caliber of people I meet within Engineers Without Borders. Their insights, critical though processes, ideas, and achievements never ceased to amaze me. EWB did express some expectations of their volunteers; although no one was outwardly demanding that I live up to all of the characteristics of every other previous remarkable volunteer. However, these became expectations that I imposed on myself – and more than anything else, I feared failing.
I’ve since arrived in Ghana and overcome my fear. This doesn’t mean I think I’ve surpassed all the expectations, and being a month in then it’s far too early to evaluate whether I’ve failed.
What has changed is my perspective. I’ve come to appreciate tall expectations to be wonderful gifts instead of a cause for concern. Expectations have the power to motivate me and push me to face challenges and achieve things I didn’t realize I could. There’s a great sense of empowerment in knowing that you have the ability to face challenges and work towards overcoming them. Whether you succeed or fail is somewhat irrelevant because either way you will learn valuable lessons about the problems you faced and about yourself.
So the next time someone confronts me with great expectations, instead of feeling fear I will feel excitement. And instead of losing sleep over the possibility of failure, I will simply say ‘thank you’, and get to work.
I’m continually impressed by the caliber of people I meet within Engineers Without Borders. Their insights, critical though processes, ideas, and achievements never ceased to amaze me. EWB did express some expectations of their volunteers; although no one was outwardly demanding that I live up to all of the characteristics of every other previous remarkable volunteer. However, these became expectations that I imposed on myself – and more than anything else, I feared failing.
I’ve since arrived in Ghana and overcome my fear. This doesn’t mean I think I’ve surpassed all the expectations, and being a month in then it’s far too early to evaluate whether I’ve failed.
What has changed is my perspective. I’ve come to appreciate tall expectations to be wonderful gifts instead of a cause for concern. Expectations have the power to motivate me and push me to face challenges and achieve things I didn’t realize I could. There’s a great sense of empowerment in knowing that you have the ability to face challenges and work towards overcoming them. Whether you succeed or fail is somewhat irrelevant because either way you will learn valuable lessons about the problems you faced and about yourself.
So the next time someone confronts me with great expectations, instead of feeling fear I will feel excitement. And instead of losing sleep over the possibility of failure, I will simply say ‘thank you’, and get to work.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
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