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'Empowering the poor: a radical path to peace?' Education Links ,volume 66/67, Winter 2003, pages 27-31, Centre for Popular Education, Sydney, 2003
Recent media and policy 'think tank' reports suggest Australia is surrounded by an “arc of instability”, with “failed” Pacific states disrupted by ethnic tensions, secessionist pressures, breakdown of law and order coupled with weak institutions of governance. Some claim simplistically that international “aid” has worked to reduce economic self-reliance in the South, and thus contributed to the threats to peace that we now find on our ‘doorstep’. Indeed, huge resources are now being diverted to a long term, 'cooperative intervention' in Solomon Islands on the basis of flimsy preconceived models of international development.
The region’s instability is a development problem well before it is a security one, and certainly developmental “aid” has not been managed with insight.
Paul Bryce argues that development is a learning process, in its most direct form. How can communities gain choices for their own destiny, unless it is through learning on their own terms? He reflects upon two decades of first-hand experience with renewable energy development assistance projects for communities in Australia's region. Are there lessons for ‘good aid’, peace and ‘good teaching’?
Empowering the poor: a radical path to peace?
A. An alternative to environmental rape:
In the late 1970’s, a plea for assistance was heard from a small and remote rural village in Solomon Islands that was attempting to block an international logging company’s plan to clear-fell its rainforest. Village people were desperately standing up to bulldozers long before the practice became well known in Australia. An alternative, sustainable development path through electricity generation from its local river was sought, inspired by a traditional elder’s vision . The resulting community-owned and community-managed rural micro hydroelectricity system became such a beacon for alternative development that the small APACE group, involved with the Iriri community in the project, found themselves overwhelmed with requests for its replication. With existing large aid agencies unable to assist, and indigenous agencies lacking the capacity to assist, APACE became itself an unusual form of development assistance agency specializing in renewable-energy projects, directly responding to, and working with, rural communities. While implementing a number of such projects in Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Laos over the ensuing years, it also worked with Provincial and National Governments to provide an enabling environment for the new technology. New electrical standards are now accepted for traditional “thatched roof” households, and some policies for indigenous energy supply now include and involve women and youth in the processes. APACE worked also to build and strengthen local institutions with an awareness and control over the technological choices and locally-appropriate forms of project management.
This work has devolved progressively to endogenous control, through local representative non-Government Councils in several Pacific nations. At present, the indigenous Solomon Islands Village Electrification Council (SIVEC) manages submissions from communities in that country for rural electrification projects, and networks with information support between the various communities already enjoying their own power systems. A similar PNGVEC is established in embryonic form in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu’s VANVEC is being formed. An umbrella Melanesian Islands Village Electrification Group (MIVEG) is due to meet in Honiara in August 2003. APACE “Village First Electrification Group” (VFEG) now simply acts as a non-profit back-up consultant for these new local entities, while they begin to operate independently, albeit with minimal resources beyond their own vibrant human energy.
It is perhaps apt that APACE VFEG’s work grew within an educational institution; their office was housed in UTS (although not funded by UTS). Tertiary staff and students contributed to the effort, along with many community volunteers, and to some extent the culture of UTS’s Faculty of Engineering was influenced by the crucible of experience with projects that force technological design to be contextually appropriate, and starkly illustrate the social character of technological development.
B. Education and development; a common theme?
The education sector shares common characteristics with the ‘aid’ sector; quality outcomes in both have struggled in a political environment of short-term ‘commodity’ models of efficiency. Quality aid is not about building health clinics or energy systems per se, any more than education is about providing students with computers or dictionaries. People working in both sectors are prone to ask ‘for what objective do we develop a course? what methods are best to achieve that objective? how can we tell when we have achieved it?’ The questions have no agreed answers, and indeed agreement upon a purpose cannot be achieved until both method and indicators of ‘success’ are also decided upon, in a circular rather than a linear process. In essence, there is no unidirectional cause-effect mechanism. The fundamental questions, the methods and the solutions, in both education and developmental aid, are embedded in an endlessly interactive human system.
Accordingly, progress comes in cycles of action learning employing (often unconsciously) a soft systems methodology, as distinct from a positivist, reductionist approach. While there are generally agreed characteristics of ‘good aid’, as there are of teaching and learning, the specific methods will always ultimately be driven by context.
Such esoteric processes are not easy to ‘sell’ for political support of education, or for overseas development assistance. A 'commodity' model is being pressed on both sectors, where the user (student or community-in-poverty) increasingly pays and the subsidising Government demands more accountability in ‘efficiency’ numbers. Perhaps in the past, the sectors were recognised as more complex than a commodity trading system. Certainly, the products are both difficult to ‘price’ and are beneficial to a larger set of players than simply a service provider and a ‘client’. Hence Governments have traditionally acted as a third party, as funders and regulators, because clients are under-resourced and under-informed in both sectors. The non-Government community, as a fourth stakeholder, pitched in to support the client, whether student or aid recipient, as best it could.
The inequalities of the stakeholder relationships are, almost by definition, extreme in the case of development assistance. With the community sector ill-informed by simplistic assessments of the aid process , and the recipient stakeholders virtually devoid of economic, social or political power, the power structure firmly swung towards the ‘donor’ Government until development assistance now tends to further the interests of donor nations rather than the economic and social independence of recipient communities.
In the past five years, Government-recognized ‘aid agencies’ in this country have shrunk to about one third of their previous number, and are each individually larger and more ‘professional’, or ‘corporatised’ in their focus. Financial sustainability of their separate institutions is a growing preoccupation, and competition for the ‘aid dollar’ is intense. Accountability processes are extensive and thorough, but largely focused on financial efficiency measures that cannot possibly track the quality of outcomes any more than teachers can measure their impact on a student’s quality of life.
Whereas the tertiary education sector has far more political weight, and is backed by a community with at least some direct stake in its support, the trend is indeed similar in substance to that already occurring for non-Government aid agencies.
If we then consider the far larger aid flows that occur directly through Government-to-Government arrangements, where the ultimate client is hardly represented, is it any wonder that ‘aid’ resources to the pacific region has largely served Australians, and generally not produced the development that underpins peace and security?
C. Aid as a client-centred activity?
APACE has responded to the debilitating political climate through a policy akin to student-centred responsibility for learning. Their “Village First” program of rural community-based electrification embraces a model of shared ownership of the full project cycle, including its resourcing within the relative capacities of stakeholders. Management and training is devolved to previous ‘students’ willing to share their own learning experiences for the benefit of their compatriots, through their indigenous Council entity. Australian APACE individuals act only as facilitators and as back-up advisors in areas where their research and infrastructural support offers particular advantage.
For example, SIVEC has adopted an eight-step path, or project cycle, for communities interested in their development through affordable, local-sourced electricity supply:
Step 1. A community applies to SIVEC, after considering SIVEC guidelines demanding stringent conditions of transparent management and inclusive processes, including the involvement of women and youth. A small fee is paid to SIVEC for administrative costs, and documentation for community self-assessment is supplied.
Lesson 1: Elective courses, involving students with pre-requisite attitudes, have less motivational problems.
Step 2. Communities work through the self-assessment process collectively, gaining knowledge about the implications (positive and negative) of their proposed project as well as providing detailed information to SIVEC regarding their local social structures and physical resources.
Lesson 2: Students learn most from their peers, when focused as a group upon a common self-defined goal.
Step 3. A feasibility study is managed by SIVEC and conducted by APACE VFEG (local) staff experienced and trained in previous completed projects, both in their own village communities and others. As for Step 1, the study is financed largely by the community, through its own efforts at fundraising, as distinct from support through an outside development assistance agency.
Lesson 3: The best teachers and assessors are often individuals with recent first-hand experience of the student context.
Step 4. Agreements are discussed and signed, providing a ‘green light’ through any potential land or resource-usage disputes.
Lesson 4: Group efforts must be ‘owned’ by all students, before the marking of any submission begins.
Step 5. A feasibility report is prepared, usually by APACE VFEG under contract from SIVEC, delineating both the technical and social context, such that international donors can reasonably assess the veracity of co-financing a renewable energy project in conjunction with very significant local self-help, largely in the form in-kind contributions of local resources and labour.
The report becomes a snapshot of the community, as well as the proposed project, in a marketable form.
Lesson 5: In problem-based action learning, many life skills derive from attempts to marry existing political and institutional resources to the intended goal. When the vehicle crosses cultures the leaning options are magnified.
Step 6. The report is marketed locally, through SIVEC and a community-connected representative.
Lesson 6: For marketing a course of learning, experienced students and committed graduates make better ambassadors than any form of institutionalized PR agency.
Step 7. Implementation of the renewable energy system is a team effort of local community decision-making committees, local human and physical resources, imported materials from donor funds, APACE VFEG experienced staff, and SIVEC as financial manager of the combination of local and international funding. A design-and-construct methodology largely replaces detailed abstract blueprints and plans. Training is on-site and just-in-time.
Lesson 7: New and abstract concepts are often best tackled within the students’ contexts, and reinforced by experiential learning.
Step 8. Evaluation and ‘hand-over’: A participatory evaluation, in terms of the self-imposed goals of Step 2, is conducted followed by a ceremony to exchange formal ownership and operation to local control and management.
Lesson 8: Action learning involves a series of cycles, each concluding in reflection.
D. The commandments underlying ‘good aid’:
APACE has ‘stuck around’ as friendly observers of the communities involved, providing the rare opportunity for a longitudinal study stretching well past the arbitrary timelines that characterize normal aid projects. While the projects ‘handed over’ to community management have inevitably experienced intermittent social or technical problems, the learning basis inherent in the ‘Village First’ model has generally prompted a further cycle of action learning to confront each situation and a climb to a further level of self-reliance. Indeed, there are clear indications that APACE’s efforts over the past two decades have been unusually ‘successful’. Conferences on renewable energy in the Pacific continue to promote experiments with renewable energy projects with major institutional support that have lasted periods of months, or sometimes years, whereas the “Village First” community-based projects are measuring their longevity in decades. Indeed, the Iriri and Vavanga village communities, with the oldest APACE systems in Solomon Islands, are currently upgrading their systems using their own progressively-developed design and management skills. Whereas rural electrification initiatives in developing nations are commonly criticised as recipes for recurrent funding burdens on host Governments, the communities in this program have received no support (nor publicity) from host Governments. Moreover, in three particular systems, in PNG and Solomon Islands, communities ‘export’ reliable power to Government schools and health facilities, at concessional rates, where the latter would otherwise find electricity supply beyond their budgetary and technical capacities.
Are there principles of “good aid” that follow from these experiences? Given their parallels with teaching and learning, would such principles also be seen in the education field? The five ‘commandments’ below may be familiar for a teacher approaching a new class, and also seem appropriate for an ‘aid worker’ attempting any technological transfer with a rural Pacific community:
1. Unpack your baggage:
The “expert” carries an enormous baggage of preconceptions, since her/his training is extensive, and it comes undoubtedly from the textbooks and professional culture of the developed world. The baggage of knowledge and techniques is often emotionally attached; it forms part of our self-image. Is it really appropriate in the new “student” context? Do we teach what we know, rather than what is appropriate?
For example, the feasibility study of rural energy projects is generally approached as a ‘rational’ assessment of demand and supply, and standard survey questions abound. In the worst cases, they provide a "zero or negligible" answer to energy demand since an informal, subsistence economy has no ‘commercial’ energy use that has dollar value. In the better examples, the assessments include traditional sources of energy and traditional uses of energy, whether they contribute to an economist’s model of cash generation or not.
However, in a rural Pacific community, supply and demand are inseparable; it is a circular problem. The ‘class’ must be involved rather than consulted. They need information and understanding of options before a future demand picture can be developed. Indeed, without their understanding, any imposed energy system is unlikely to translate to development.
If we carry a hammer in our baggage, do we see everything as a nail?
2. Change your clock to local time:
Australian students have to interleave your assignment requirements into a larger schedule of demands from other classes. Similarly, a remote subsistence community must interleave activities for a developmental project into their needs for survival. Almost by definition, individual lives are already filled with commitments that are closer to basic needs than we can normally appreciate.
A recent large project in Kenya, designed to increase food security for many thousands of participants, timed its mobilisation phase to interleave with a large number of logistical and administrative factors. The local time for crop harvesting happened to coincide; when people are consumed in a fulltime effort to procure their food supply. If a change in the complex chain of scheduling had not been done, the major resources invested in that project would have been directed against its fundamental goal.
Learning is often a matter of timing.
3. Shift your mental space:
There are cultural divides between teacher and student, “expert” and recipient. They take the form of preconceptions of what is important.
In one early micro hydroelectricity project, community decisions on the position of electrical circuits for domestic lighting and power were protracted. Two such decisions were surprising to our APACE team. Firstly, women indirectly made their views clear that lighting was not to include kitchens, since in their view this would lead to extended work hours for women. Secondly, a street light should be placed at the end of a coastal wharf even though there seemed no functional reason for the placement. In hindsight, we realized that the wharf light was a valuable asset, to reinforce and advertise village pride in their achievements; its output could be seen many kilometres across the sea to the provincial township.
The goals of the recipient (or student) are central to a sustainable result.
4. Shift your professional space:
Previous experience and ‘training’ generates ‘models’ for problem solving, that embody assumptions to reduce the time for solutions to arise. Leaving out steps (on both sides) leaves communication holes, misunderstandings and often paralysis.
There are typical traps in aid delivery. Electricity supply for a large number of people is conventionally a technical problem, and the textbook model is clear. We need an institution to make it, run it and own it, with qualified people. In 99% of the Pacific land mass, this means 'alienating' land from traditional communal ownership, with all the attendant problems that can follow. The exotic construct of a land usage contract agreement is superimposed upon a traditional and complex network of layered ownerships. Exotic dollar values are written into the contract as compensation, to equate with affective values for the land derived over many generations. It is no surprise that such agreements are seldom maintainable.
Why not consider another model that gives trust and responsibility to those with greatest motivation for owning and maintaining the system, and look to the capacity building that may be required?
Technology thrives or withers in a cultural framework.
5. Your class room is made up of 'participants' not students:
Development problems are circular, interdependent and steeped in human perceptions. Indeed, if either education or aid were open to scientific method, where a body of knowledge and techniques was sufficient to tackle any class of problem, then a one-way transfer plus experience would make for a valid operating strategy. In our society such ‘linear’ problems are increasingly solved with technical aids, and consume ever smaller portions of our 'economic system'. Our education systems are progressively recognising the importance of 'emotional intelligence'. In the developing world, basic problems repeat themselves while people assume these problems, albeit complex, are tractable by such objective and linear methods. If people are starving, the problem is seen as lack of food, or lack of resources to grow food. They are seldom so able to be reduced to single factors, let alone factors that can be defined.
Teaching and learning is a two way interaction, and listening is an important skill.
E. Peace in our region:
A constructive approach to instabilities in our region may begin with provision of 'tools' for civil societies in Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere, that may be used to map their own poverty-free destinies. At the very least there should be avenues of hope for developing paths of choice for their children. As for own children, building the necessary human capacity arises through education, and it is our role as teachers (or aid workers, or policy-makers in international affairs) to provide an environment in which this can be possible. While the contexts may be different, the principles of good teaching seem largely analogous to those of good aid.
Acknowledgements: to the editors for their comments, to Nixon, Edward and many other patient and understanding Melanesian colleagues who have worked for sustainable developments of their peoples, and taught me much to remember, to Donnella for her vision and persistence in APACE's developmental work, and for Griff, Keiko and Tim who could put names to what was happening.
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