What have you done for the Third World poor lately? You’ve seen the ads, right? Colourfully-dressed, smiling, happy-looking people enjoying the benefits of a well or school books, brought to them by nice people at one of hundreds of not-for-profit organisations; or tired, unhappy-looking people with flies buzzing about their heads, too discouraged to swat them away. I don’t know about you, but in the days before I ever set foot in the so-called Third World, every time I saw these images in a development t.v. ad, vague feelings of guilt and despondency would cloud my mind (“I didn’t donate! They have so little, and I so much!” or “Man, the world sucks! Nothing ever changes”). But then, right on schedule, the ad would have a kicker, and I would feel that faint glow of hope: “Well, this organisation here seems to help people improve their lives!” But, then (sigh) more guilty feelings as I would forget to write a cheque or not participate yet again in a protest march on Parliament Hill. (And, yes, I was brought up Catholic).

Well, I decided to take the ol’ bull by the big horns and dedicate my career to working in the field of international development assistance. And to kick it off, I would do the only kosher thing - dump my job security at home, eschew the large salary and large benefits widely available at the United Nations and other agencies, and work as a volunteer for two years in Africa. And now that I’ve been here for over a year, a front lines report!

Well, it’s a brave new world out here in development-land. Post modern, comes to mind. The vast majority of people in this country who work for international development agencies, small and big alike, live in the capital city. They don’t walk anywhere; they ride around in enormous, sparkling 4x4 Isuzu, Toyota, or Nissan trucks, the doors emblazoned with their organization logo, rushing here and there to meetings. There are lots of meetings, lots of conferences, lots of seminars, lots of solutions, debated and endlessly agreed upon, about What To Do About Poverty. There are lots of books and pieces of information circulating all around: more solutions, these with footnotes. There’s a lot of concern, stated and written, by lots of people who state and who write.

And what fruits these efforts have borne! I’m happy to announce that we have finally figured out the way to solve the poverty problem. Yes, sir! There have been lots of meetings and papers on it, so it’s official. The solution? Change People’s Mentalities! The poor are poor because they don’t think right! How more simple could it get? Of course, nobody here is blaming them, it’s not their fault they wound up at the bottom of the heap. But if they’re gonna make it in the Dog Eat Dog world, they’re going to have to Maximize their Potential, Minimize Costs, Keep an Eye on the Bottom Line, Increase Profitability, Invest in their Human Resources, Learn to Work Cooperatively, ...and they all had Better Learn to Get Along, too, because Wars Do Not Promote Development and are Bad For Our Security. If they all would become Entrepreneurs, they would quit being Dependant on Development Assistance and we could all go home. And that was the point, you know, once upon a time - that we development folk would work ourselves out of a job.

Well, contrary to what I imagined, I still have my job security. Development assistance is here to stay. But no finger pointing at the poor. It’s not because they can’t get it together that we keep having to send money overseas. Most of it never gets to them. Your development donations go in large part to running an enormous industry whose main beneficiaries are people like me - educated, mobile, and upwardly mobile, often foreigners but just as likely local elites.

We do very well. As I write, I am ensconced in my furnished 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom apartment in the city, rented at about $600/month (in a country whose average annual income is around $300), paid for by the organization; that is, by you the taxpayer. I, too, have a 4x4. To keep me salaried and housed for a year costs $17,000. Now factor in my share of the cost of running the office, my free and frequent medical care, the return airplane ticket, the gas and repairs for the trucks, per diems, travel to meetings in neighboring countries... I am responsible for a project budget of $80,000/year, money that actually gets to the poor (well, people who live in villages anyway). A colleague shares that budget with me. So let’s say $40,000 to spend $80,000. And believe me, our organization is small-fry compared to others. For comparison’s sake, I knew a Canadian woman who had a one-year trainee job at the World Food Program (a U.N. agency) whose free air-freight allowance was 700 kg. Mine is 50 kg. Just the cost of doing business? Everyone seems to think there is no other way. We couldn’t possibly live in anything less than such apartment. We couldn’t possibly make it work without so many vehicles, so many meetings, so much infrastructure.

It’s a crude analysis, I admit. But the rest of the evidence is no more compelling. While we’re running around talking and for the most part agreeing with each other about What Has To Be Done, we’re not out there talking to Them, the poor (a stupid category to begin with). The statistics tell us they are out there and I think I’ve seen some beyond my truck window. It’s true that nowadays we do consult them when they are involved in our projects. But when they disagree, we dot it to them anyway, because it is For Their Own Good. You see, they have to change their mentalities if they’re gonna survive in the dog-eat-dog development world. Meanwhile, the twice-weekly flights to Paris take off and land, filled with those who’ve made it, and those, like me in 10 years or so, who must fly off the Very Important Meetings all over the world on Strategic Alliances, Networks and Suchlike. But in the end, it’s not only that we don’t know or attempt to know the poor. It’s that the poverty problem, whatever it might be, cannot be solved by focusing on them. The poor are not poor in isolation. All of us live together on this planet. Could it not be that our standard of living and how it is maintained is also at the root of poverty?

I’d like to produce my own development ads, man-or woman-on-the street shots, with people saying things like: “The World Bank really sucks, if you want to know my opinion,” or “These international organizations, all their trucks driving around - I don’t know, what are they doing anyway?” I may be putting words in their mouths but that’s no more unscrupulous than the shameless manipulation wrought by the development industry’s current image makers. Don’t get me wrong - there are people doing good work out here. But that they do it in spite of the system around them is worrisome.

February 10, 1997

C. Marrs