2 weeks of staff training just came to an end, facing my team of 80 Congolese – mostly men – and hoping to somehow tune them to the second phase of our program which in Swahili means “let’s unite” (for those who have been to the Congo, you know how people here love to say “on est ensemble!”). Given the instability of the Kivus, fostering and working towards a community-driven anything, let alone reconstruction, is pretty ambitious. I can’t help being torn sometimes.. not wondering what I am doing here. Well, it makes as much sense or even more to be here as to be working for a think tank in New York as I used to do - but I can’t wrap my head around thinking about the different levels of analysis and action when one is dealing with a post-conflict situation. Where should we begin? Bottom-up and top-down combined, that’s how I used to approach it. But what if these are centrifuged forces? What if they don’t work at all towards the same goal?
I thought – well, at my age and with my experience I have little to contribute so let’s start from the bottom. Understand the dynamics of politics from the grassroots and encourage community understanding about politics, hopefully promoting local leadership. Seemed like a good idea, and the governance program for which I am working like the ideal starting point. It is the biggest program of the kind in the world, and South Kivu its largest project. So I came, and 6 months after here´s my verdict.
Learnt that I still have a long long tortuous way to go to become a good manager. At first, back in June, I was petrified to have to directly lead 2 people and indirectly supervise our field activities in more than 327 villages with some 60 field staff. But the first phase of the program was already dwindling – people knew what they had to do, and most of our activities were coming to an end- they were more to do construction-wise than in governance terms. So I had the first 3 months to breathe, to travel around, meet the teams, get to know the field, and organize my ideas. Now it is different, in January we are kicking off the second phase of the program in 500 villages with 80 staff – most of whom have to be convinced of the pertinence of the changes that the coordination made to the design. Not easy. Just lost my voice (and nearly my patience) when I had to present, explain, clarify, and make comprehensible the main goal and objectives of the program. They were looking at me as if I were crazy.
So here is the irony: donors and NGOs put an immense effort designing programs, discussing concepts and refining conceptual frameworks - not to mention recruiting motivated staff willing to work 18 hours a day in conflict zones trying to make this a reality – and they spend too little time thinking about how to develop local capacity.
What do I mean? In my team of the 80 we are only 3 expatriate staff: a Belgian, a Beninois and myself, and (coincidence!) we are the ones “in charge”. There is only one Congolese (absolutely great by the way) in the coordination team. I kind of understand – it is extremely hard to find competent people around here – and we have first both the Belgians and Mobutu to thank for that, and then to top it over, more than a decade of war and instability. Universities are still to few, curricula limited, and even the teachers rarely reach the level of someone with a Bachelor’s in Europe or in the US. Also, most people are poor – and this makes them take twice as much time to finish their studies because they have to work. Before coming I had imagined that our field agents would be my age, or at least less than 35. But no, they are all 30 and up because it takes them at least 8 years to complete a University degree if they are not well off (and none of them is). And then there’s “corruption” - sometimes due to poverty, other times linked to notions of tribalism and patronage – meaning everyone is “frère” our “cousin” with at least 100 people and the richest have a duty to help the rest. We “wazungu” will never get this – what I call “forced solidarity.” (will come back to this in a next post).
Also, I had imagined that most of my team members were convinced about their “mission” as development agents - naïve, hein? Realized that for most, working for Bralima, the local beer company (one of the few private initiatives in the area, apart from mining of course) would be exactly the same as working for a humanitarian NGO.
So what about developing local capacity? I will eventually leave, and they will stay. If I have to do one single thing in this country is to provide the people with whom I work with the tools to help themselves– “don´t give them fish, but teach them how to fish”. Have to tell you that that is not a meager task. It is much easier to do things yourself than to delegate. Every time I ask someone else to do something I know it will take me even longer to put it in good shape. Some days I am close to despair – I spend all of my working hours 8h-16h30 doing “their” job – and then from then onwards, generally 22h, I am doing my own job. It is tiresome, some days even exhausting.
Funny how I came to DRC mesmerized by the allure of this “sexy” governance program, its reputation, scope and potential impact. All in all, it is meant to encourage a number of impressive things: (i) the understanding and practice of good governance, (ii) active citizenship, meaning making people interiorize their rights and help them feel that they are entitled to hold local government structures accountable, and through that (iii) improve the provision of local basic services, such as education, health and transportation. It is supposed to sensitize the Congolese constituency and put in motion their citizenship, aiming at preparing them for the upcoming elections. Great, no? An ambitious democratic governance program contributing to the reconstruction and development of Eastern Congo.
But the gist of it seems to be forgotten by everyone – including me – and it is that this a governance program implemented by local people for local people. It is a program targeting the Congolese electorate implemented by fellow Congolese. And if the ones who are conveying the message don’t even get it (I am not asking for them to believe in it) – how can they be actors of change? All of those inspiring concepts boil down to nothing if the vectors of the message don’t truly get it. And I tried. Sincerely, don’t know if I succeeded. Will have to keep trying during 2011 while I am in the field.
If there is one thing that I will know whether I have succeeded once I leave the Congo, it is if I managed to properly help the motivated and willing staff in my team to reach the maximum of their aptitudes. Hope I am up for it.
Bahati njema.
