Elephants aren't the only ones who never forget broken promises

I spent last week in Mozambique.  On Friday I went out to a village near Napula to learn about farming cooperatives and meet the members of one of these co-ops.  We were hosted by an organization called Miruku, which tries to help farmers adopt a business mindset and apply basic cost-benefit analyses and collective negotiation to improve output and income.

The members of the village co-op mentioned three organizations as their "partners;" Miruku and two others.  We asked them about what they had learned or gained from each of the partners. Miruku had given them the most, they said.  At the beginning, they'd been skeptical about working with this organization because it said it would only give them knowledge, which was in their minds less valuable than services, cash, or other benefits that they hoped for.  But now they were quite pleased with the new strategies that they'd learned, and could already see the economic benefits they gained by applying the knowledge. 

Another organization had handed out health supplies and other small goods, but all in all the cooperative found these handouts relatively useless and didn't have particularly good things to say about them. The organization that they rated lowest was one that had promised them access to credit months before, but to date had actually provided nothing.  The farmers were very critical about that organization and its apparent failures to deliver on what had been promised.

Meaningful change usually requires work from the community as much as anything else--to organize, to change behaviors, to accept new practices.  Organizations who come in and talk about what they will do for the community should beware.  Compared to the outside inputs that any program can offer, most development has to come from within.

A wise saying I learned from a colleague at BRAC is:

If you give me a fish, you feed me for a day. If you teach me to fish, you have fed me until the river is contaminated or the shoreline seized for development. But, if you teach me to organize, then whatever the challenge, I can join together with my peers… And we will fashion our own solution. (actual citation: Barefoot Guide to Working with Organizations and Social Change, Vol 1)

The cooperative's president and Miruku staff making a presentation on the group's annual production plan.

Miruku has helped the farmers form a cooperative with local leadership.  They take their knowledge of prices of crops, productivity of the land, and costs of inputs like fertilizer and seeds, to calculate out plans for each individual member.  Once these are summed up, they approach local buyers to negotiate contracts to buy the harvests.  The cooperative buys the crops from each farmer at the local market price, and sells to the buyers at a slightly higher rate.  The cooperative keeps a small percentage of the markup, which will eventually enable it to offer other benefits, either a communally-owned tractor or mill, or other benefits like insurance. Miruku staff visit once a month, but the bulk of the activities and decisions lie with the farmers.

Too often, well-meaning people go into communities and make promises, often with good intentions. I'll admit, that it can feel really uncomfortable to visit a relatively poor community, ask dozens of questions about their lives, and not offer any solution or assistance. One of my favorite authors, Katherine Boo, recounts the incisive comments of a poor woman she interviewed:

“Wait, so you take our stories and put them in a magazine that rich people read, and you get paid and we don’t? That’s some backward-ass bluffiness, if you ask me.” 

Boo agrees, and says, "Anyone with a conscience who does this work grapples with that reality, and if they don’t, I’d worry. I lie awake at night, and I think, “Am I exploiting them? Am I a vulture?” All of the terrible names anyone could call me, I’ve called myself worse."

Honesty can feel inadequate. In this case, when the community asked us what we were doing, we said that we had come to learn, and potentially to take some successful practices back to Bangladesh. That didn't really excite them.

Even if we did intend to work with them directly, I would still be fairly conservative in our promises. Sometimes, an organization truly believes that it can commit to providing assistance, but ends up being unable to get the resources, licenses, or other pieces in place in order to do so. Poverty is complex, and solutions are rarely straightforward and simple. A lot of things are hard to figure out at until you're in the thick of it. 

The leaders from Miruku told us that when they first approached communities and explained what they could offer, the farmers said that they weren't interested in market information and cooperatives; they only wanted to do it if they would get cash or other benefits. Miruku refused, and the farmers were lukewarm during the early activities. But just a few years later, the farmers are telling us that Miruku is the best organization they work with!

Better to be honest from the beginning, and to promise only what you know you can deliver.  The reality is that usually, that's nothing.