Building an organisation to serve Dorothy

http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/can-better-roads-reduce-poverty

This is an interesting post and paper on a pretty counter-intuitive result for me. Perhaps it was the example of Saskatchewan: An amazing network of roads enabled farming growth and market access in that province. And so I never questioned the basic assumption that roads are good for agricultural growth and an important investment if you have the money.

But this line from the conclusion of the paper yet again summarizes what we should all remember in development – there are few solutions that are not context specific:

The implication for roads planning is that a one size fits all approach is not effective in addressing the problems of all regions of all African countries. Government and donors probably need to adapt an approach that supplies the appropriate road for a rural area, realizing that a large tarred road may not be required and should take more into account the economic potential of the region and do not preclude that roads investment has a quasiautomatic impact on poverty reduction.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/can-better-roads-reduce-poverty

The rain began soon after we crawled under our mosquito nets. It had been brooding for most of the late afternoon, and felt like a tiger had suddenly pounced. I read somewhere that roughly 40% of rainfall in Africa is classified as “erosion causing” because of it’s severity – and I was guessing this rain fell into that category.

I was staying in a village with Graham, one of our volunteers in Malawi, in a thatch roof hut. I smiled to myself, happy that I was inside and more importantly, happy for the farmers who were anxious to plant.

But then it began, a slow drip on my leg. No problem, I moved my leg. Then another drip, on my back. Then my face. No matter which way I turned, a slow drip greeted me. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep all that well that night.

But that’s the price we need to pay if we want to create change. It’s the price graham and other volunteers pay on a regular basis. We want to understand farmers to better understand how projects can be designed and implemented to support them – and there is no substitute for living alongside them. And if that means spending a damp night in a hut, so be it!

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