Maendeleo, tutaendelea vipi?

There has been some reshuffling within my host-organization, after Tom, my former supervisor left the organization in order to pursue politics. Wandera, my former counterpart and now supervisor, held a staff meeting last Friday in order to discuss how we proceed.

Following this meeting, Austin, now my official day-to-day counterpart, and I have received the green light to proceed with performing a Community Needs Assessment and acquainting myself with the community of Bunyala District.

This is a much more daunting task than it was in Mali. There, my community was the small village of Makili with a population of approximately 1,500. Here, my community is the entire district of Bunyala, comprised of more than 250 villages divided up into six locations, each comprised of three sub-locations. The population of the district as of the 2009 National Census was 66,723.

Bunyala District is, in comparison, a massive area. It is a diverse district in terms of geography, and is divided by a large river, the River Nzoia. Because of its diversity in geography and its water features such as swamps, rivers, and Lake Victoria, the problems that each community faces within the district vary greatly. It’s a complicated district with a plethora of problems.

I asked Austin to help me make a list of all of the villages with markets or major meeting centers where we would be likely to meet people at any given time. This came to 20 villages and 7 beaches, the latter being important in order to meet with the fishing community as well.

We have prepared a schedule to visit each of these locations, meet with the chiefs of these communities, speak with people in the community centers, visit a few families at their homes, visit health centers and schools, and speak with active youth and women’s groups. We will surely have to return to some locations later so as to meet with key community leaders and active community groups at scheduled times. But some of the locations are so remote, such as a village called Osieko, which will require an overnight stay due to the need to cross the river Nzoia and either Lake Victoria or the Yala swamp.

So at such places we must make full use of the time that we are there. We have been therefore working with local ministries to compile lists of groups and facilities in each area.

Our schedule involves a steady, rather intense pace – 4 days a week in the field, 1 day in the office. This puts us up to the first week of October, then we will begin returning to villages to meet with certain groups as identified during our initial visits. The schedule is likely to be derailed – this is the short rain season (which still means much more rain than Mali’s lone rainy season), and other obligations and meetings will arise. But for the most part, this task should remain in our hands, and Austin is as committed to it as myself.

But there is a side to our work that I hadn’t before encountered. I like to talk about sustainability, specifically not instilling dependency, as a development worker.

Here in Budalang’i, I am working with an organization completely formed and staffed by locals. Its great, exactly what I would want to see. But the staff does make a full-time commitment to the organization. For them it is a 9-5 job, Monday through Friday. And the only benefit they receive is small stipends for such things as travel and meals related to particular projects, which alongside a community contribution, are funded by a foreign entity such as an NGO. But such projects come and go, and at the moment, there is none. Yet they still have to find a way to support themselves, and in Wandera’s case, his family.

Austin is now to be out in the field with me, just about every day, but he has no money or stipend to pay for food, and no bicycle. Right now, he has to borrow a bicycle to use daily, and I am trying to help with meals when I can.

But it’s a difficult challenge. He is the quintessential volunteer, doing work simply to help his community.

In all development work, the biggest challenge is to find and mobilize a motivated group of individuals who simply want to help develop their own community. This is what I struggled to build in Mali. Here, we have that, but how can it be sustained?

How does an organization like this, and specifically its people, survive on its own, without some level of dependency on foreign assistance? Regardless, no foreign organization appears to be willing to commit support to full-time staff of another organization. Additionally, it would be a tough sell for a poor community to pay this local organization for their efforts.

The Kenyan government may be the most ideal answer. After all, the organization’s intent is to serve the people, the same mandate as any government. But is the political will there? Also working against this concept, the organization is registered specifically as an NGO, a non-governmental organization, and is supposed to be apolitical.

One potential solution that I have discussed with my coworkers is as follows. The organization sells some small agricultural and livestock products from the office, mainly intending to provide a much-needed service to the community. Businesses in the area do sell many of these items, but at a much higher price.

They’ve talked about wanting to continue and expand this, because it’s a beneficial service for the community. But perhaps a balance can be struck between providing an affordable service to the community and making a profit. At least enough of one to simply absorb regular operational and staff costs.

It’s a difficult challenge. But one thing remains certain, when it comes to development, there are no easy answers.