JOCV Trainee Reflects on Development Assistance (Part 1)

Hello everyone, Nawa-na wa?? I'm Molly, currently undergoing pre-departure training for JOCV.
“Nawa-na wa” means “How are you?” in Oshiwambo, one of the local languages of Namibia, where I will be dispatched 🇳🇦

By the way, I'm told that the response to say “I'm fine!” is “Nawa-na”.
While English is the official language of Namibia, Afrikaans, German, and numerous ethnic languages are also spoken. I don't feel like I'll be able to properly pronounce Nama, which is primarily based on click sounds... For now, I think I'll try to recall the faint memories of German I have inside me 😇

Well, there are only 10 days left of life at the JICA training center. There are only about two months left until I am dispatched to my host country. Time flies.

Thankfully, since coming to this training center, I've been blessed with several opportunities to think about various aspects of development assistance, so this time I'd like to summarize some of my thoughts on development assistance from the “JOCV perspective”.
However, since it looks like it will be very long, I've decided to split it into two parts, Part ① and ②.
My writing has always tended to be long, and my fellow group members in the JOCV training even gave me the biased opinion that I probably write incredibly long book reports 🐣 Actually, that's spot on. lol

◯ Conducting workshops on development assistance

Since coming to the JOCV training center, I've had several opportunities to hold workshops and give presentations on my field of expertise (in my training language, English, targeting people with completely different fields of expertise). So far, I have covered “Why We Need Education”, “Human Security”, “Development for Whom?”, and by utilizing these lessons, in the fourth workshop, I had the participants try to form a project forGrant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects🌱

“Human Security” is a grand theme, but at the very least, Japanese ODA cannot be discussed without it. Also, since JOCV carries out grassroots activities, a major feature is that we can connect with people in our respective host countries at a grassroots level (← this is one of the biggest reasons why I decided to apply for JOCV).
In the “Development for Whom?” session, while using tools like the OECD'sBetter Life Index, we thought about the relationship between well-being and development, read about “development failures” and “side effects of development” from past cases, and included the message that development must not be an imposition from the “West”.
It was a workshop for people whose field of expertise is not development (and it wasn't in Japanese), but I would be happy if I was able to convey the message.

◯ Who is development assistance for? - Development for Whom?

As mentioned above, since JOCV carries out grassroots activities, I imagine that we will be very close to the local people. Therefore, if we ask, “What are the ‘issues’ in this region/for you, and what are the ‘needs’?” to determine our activities as JOCV, that would likely not be appropriate.
As a technical advisor for the JOCV community development field also said the other day, if you ask such questions, you will be exposed to a rain of “pseudo-needs,” such as wanting this and that, or lacking this and that, and you might end up finishing your two-year JOCV term without ever identifying the root causes of the issues.

Development assistance has repeated many “failures” in many projects. To speak in macro terms, a certain international organization once assumed that Lesotho, a country located within South Africa, was an agricultural country with no signs of industrialization, and implemented an aid project to improve the livelihoods of the residents. On the other hand, because this project was formulated and implemented without sufficient understanding of the country's current situation, and because only a part of the upper echelons of the Lesotho side were involved in this project, it did not match the needs and current situation of Lesotho, and the “purpose of the project” was not achieved.
As a result, the above project produced unexpected benefits that could be called “side effects of development,” which were different from the original “purpose of the project,” and Lesotho actually benefited in a somewhat different context. However, because the “purpose of the project” was not achieved, the project is perceived as a “failure”.

Simply put, if the analysis of local customs, environment, and issues is insufficient, cases of misjudging local needs occur frequently. The following examples can be called typical “failures” of development:
　・Purpose: Income improvement through the expansion of job opportunities
　　Result: Loss of connection with family and community
　・Purpose: Income improvement for farmers and tenant farmers through the expansion of farmland
　　Result: Amplification of environmental burden
　・Purpose: Modern, sanitary, and stable water system with a small fee charged
　　Result: Residents abandoned the new system and returned to using the unsanitary and unstable “free” rainwater puddles they were used to

The reason I put “failure” in quotes is because when I was asked in a graduate school class, “Is there such a thing as failure in development in the first place?”, the class was divided in opinion, and I couldn't find a clear answer myself. Answering this question would require a very long discussion, so I will omit it this time, but please be aware that I do not necessarily evaluate “development = success or failure” at all 🙇🏻‍♀️
On the other hand, in order to avoid such “failures” in development, I think it is necessary to constantly re-recognize “who this development assistance is for”.

I will end this article here for now~
#3 JOCV Trainee Reflects on Development Assistance See you in Part ②. Tschüss!🇩🇪

Photo: Oooh Magazine
https://www.oooh.jp/magazine/namibia_museum/?type=AMP