ABSTRACT
The author is a designer who has been working with NGOs in India for over a decade, and presents his observations and comments on why well-intentioned development initiatives fail to achieve their stated results at the ground level. He draws from the World Bank's "Voices of the Poor" report to remind us of the subjects of the development process, their quality of life, and the enormous barriers they face to accessing development innovations.
INTRODUCTION
Seeing the number, variety and scope of development initiatives underway around the world, one may imagine that "development" of the "underdeveloped" is imminent.
However, trends do not appear to support this conjecture. Substantial portions of the benefits of development initiatives do not ever reach the poor and underserved; rather, they end up benefiting already-developed, privileged and powerful communities. This paper is an attempt to remind ourselves of the subjects of our efforts, and hear their voice.
Development is essentially about removing or reducing the gross inequity of quality of human life across communities worldwide. However, while entire countries are certainly underdeveloped, this may not apply to their entire population as a whole. For example, India is full of gross inequity within itself - there is a significant population that could by no means be considered underdeveloped or underserved. Even in rural India, there is a section of people who are highly privileged and enjoy enormous agency for self-development.
What are the barriers that prevent a well-intentioned development innovation from benefiting the most needy? This paper presents a few insights culled from personal experience and the World Bank's "Voices of the Poor" report of 2002 [1]. These apply to India specifically, but should exemplify the problems with undertaking "development interventions" uncritically anywhere else as well.
INHOSPITABLE GEOGRAPHY
The "poorest of the poor" are outside the radar of the Indian researcher or academic - they often live in extremely inhospitable terrain, under constant threat of famine, floods, cyclones, epidemics, and more. This means that neither market evangelists nor government staff, nor even NGO activists visit them.
POVERTY & CREDIT-UNWORTHINESS
They possess practically no assets and live from day to day, often going without meals because of no money, or scavenging or foraging whatever they can find. Having no collateral means they have no access to credit except from the village moneylender - whose interest rates push them further downward into the spiral of poverty.
UNEMPLOYMENT & UNEMPLOYABILITY
Being physically unfit and completely lacking in any skill or education, they have no option but wage labour, and have no opportunities to raise their employability. Being so completely without options, every hand must earn - keeping children away from school, the women working 18-hour days every day, and the infirm also having to find a way to contribute - sometimes by begging.
CASTE, RESPECT, DIGNITY
They belong to the lowest strata of the deeply-ingrained Indian caste system, often considered "untouchable" in the literal sense of the term. Politically therefore, although substantial in number, the poorest of the poor are completely disempowered and kept outside the political process.
PATRIARCHY
Women are the worst victims of the underdevelopment spiral because of the rigid and oppressive patriarchy in Indian society. Even as more & more poor women are stepping out of their homes and working for the first time in generations, they do so only to help make ends meet - and are not released from household responsibilities and being easy targets for domestic and communal violence.
ILLEGITIMACY
Often, these communities do not figure in government lists (including electoral lists) altogether. They lack any formal entitlement to their homes, their trades or their citizenship rights. This renders them "invisible" to the lettered world. Since their very existence is not guaranteed, poverty statistics often present a misleadingly rosy and optimistic picture to the world and these communities continue to languish.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Given their inhospitable terrain and systemic invisibility, they are deprived of even the most basic socio-economic infrastructure such as roads, public transport, healthcare, education, communications, etc. Even where infrastructure does exist, it often ends up benefiting the elite and the already-powerful communities. Proactive efforts to transfer or share ownership over community assets and ensure the poor's access to social infrastructure have not yielded significant gains so far.
INSTITUTIONS & PARTNERSHIPS
The poor rate state institutions as vitally important to their well-being, but failing to reach them. They give mixed ratings to even their own community institutions, since these don't enjoy
political power over the larger community. The only institutional intervention they agree benefits them are NGOs. Hence, any development initiative that seeks to reach and service these communities is advised to seek the partnership of an NGO.
However, seeing the increasing inflow of development funding into India, the sector is fast turning into an industry. And this has caused a proliferation of NGOs, especially in the well-funded "buzzword" sectors such as AIDS, education, child labour, e-governance, information & networking technologies, training and support. Hence, finding a quality NGO and persuading it to be a partner is critical.
EVALUATIONS & RESULTS
A key problem with several development initiatives seems to be their 'hands-off' approach, by simply training or even outright delegating their work to a local partner agency, with periodical 'evaluation' visits. The pressure to justify funding and demonstrate results ensures a tacit conspiracy to 'dress up' the project for evaluation and move on. In very few cases does the initiator actually relocate itself in the project area and work closely with its local partner & the community. Similarly, rarely does the initiative arise from the community or local NGO and earn the support of a sponsor or funder on its own & original terms.
CULTURAL FIT
Development, quality of life, well-being are intensely culturally-informed indices, so any agency seeking to enhance a community's development must define & negotiate development within their own cultural framework-"The Missionary and the Tribal" story comes to mind: a missionary observes a tribal spending his entire day sitting under a tree, smoking a pipe. Unable to restrain himself, the missionary exhorts the tribal to make something of his life instead of wasting it away in sloth. The tribal asks him: "What for?" The missionary answers: "So you can have a decent income." The tribal asks him: "What would I do with that?" The missionary says: "So you can build a better house and life in comfort." The tribal once again asks him: "What would I be able to do with that?" Confounded, the missionary says: "Well, so you can retire and enjoy your life once you get old!" The tribal says: "So what do you think I am doing right now?"
In conclusion, while India and the developing world desperately needs every assistance it can get to eliminate every vestige of underdevelopment in its midst, well-meaning initiatives need to exercise a great deal of caution and criticality to avoid furthering aggravate inequity whilst claiming to reduce it.
REFERENCES
Narayan, Deepa and Petesch, Patti (Eds.) India - Gains & Stagnation in Bihar & Andhra Pradesh. Voices of the Poor: From Many Lands. World Bank/ Oxford University Press, New York. 2000.
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