Last fall I took a very interesting course at my university, called ”Environment and development”. The class was a nice contrast to my courses in economics! We of course talked a lot about environment and pollution, but also fundemental questions like what our relationship to nature really is, and what responsibility we have towards it. Does nature have a value in itself, or just through how it can help people? We also talked about “development”. The word naturally just means a change, or a progress of some sort. But we often use it synonymously with industrialization, increased production and GDP, increased “standard of living”. Maybe at any cost? So when I went to Cambodia, I was excited over seeing a so called developing country up close. How NGOs did their work, what kind of aid proved to be most successful.
Before going, I learnt that my very cool doctor had actually worked there for some time with her husband. They’re both doctors, and they decided to do something completely different for a few months, in a whole new place. They started an initiative where they went around in boats to the people in the floating villages on the Tonle Sap, and provided medical care to the people who needed it. Needless to say, it was normally very hard for these villagers to go to a medical institution for help. One year later she was very happy and proud to hear that the project had continued without them, now operated by local Cambodian doctors. I learnt that a big problem with these initiatives started by foreigners, is that they’re not sustainable for when they leave. They might stay for a few months or a year, and then the locals don’t have the compentence or the funding to continue the project. And worse, sometimes the locals have learnt to depend on the temporary projects, and might suffer when it suddenly disappears.
I met a nice guy who worked for an NGO called BB2C, they had project on water pumps used in agriculture. About 85 % of the population are farmers, so this is a very important focus area in Cambodia. They struggle to grow crops during the dry season, november – may, so they import a lot of fruits and vegetables from Vietnam, and the prices are extra high during this time of the year. Their idea was to follow the model of a project in Kenya called KickStart. They would buy efficient, environmental friendly water pumps that were easy to operate, and that were simple to maintain and repair. The farmers could use the pumps to water their fields efficiently, get higher yield and even grow crops outside the rainy season. The NGO first tried giving away a certain number of pumps as a trial project, with the criteria that the farmers who received them wanted to use them, and had access to water that could be pumped up.
One year later the NGO returned to see what results the farmers had gotten with the pumps. They were surprised to find that only a very small amount of the pumps were still in use, most of them stood covered in dust and almost untouched. When trying to find out why the farmers weren’t using the pumps, even though they had gotten the training and had been guaranteed larger crops if they did use them, the reasons were varied. Some had found it too complicated, and given up. Some weren’t motivated after all to change the way they worked on their land. Some didn’t have as good access to water as they had claimed to have. The project was deemed pretty unsuccesful, and they decided to sell the pumps instead of just giving them away.
They sold them for less than the production cost, I believe for about 100 dollars, and they went to small villages to give training in how to use them and fix them. Often families or neighbourhoods would buy a pump together, so that more people would benefit from the purchase. One year later, the NGO was happy to see that basically all the pumps were in use, and the farmers had all gotten very good results and increased incomes. If something was wrong with the pump, you could take it apart with your hands without using tools, and they were able to fix it themselves. The pump didn’t need electricity or gasoline to run, so it was a long-term environmentally sustainable solution. I thought this was an interesting story! When the farmers and the communities decided for themselves to invest some money in the pump, they felt a full ownership and responsibilty for the project. I bet they also got a great feeling of accomplishment when they made this investment work, and could harvest a larger crop for themselves and their families. Inspiring.
Photo from the NGO's website.
