Global Development: Views from the Center

Please, being this a comment on education malaria and Tanzania allow me to place here what I wrote in my Voice and Noise after having visited Tanzania as an Executive Director. Forgive me if it is not in the language of a typical development paper, but then again I might not have been the quite typical ED either.

My ED trip to Tanzania

Honorable Accountability

We sat down in some new and humble school installation, to listen to M/S Aisha Kimolo, the Head Teacher of Chamwino Primary School, giving us EDs a brief report on the implementation of a Primary Education Development Program.

Ten minutes later, after hearing Mr. Kimolo address his Honorable Guests in clear words and a firm voice, accounting for a Capitation Grant of TSHs (the currency in Tanzania) 7,614,873.60, (about 8.000 US dollars) down to the last cent, using clear indexes, and ending with a forward-looking description of how they intended to achieve sustainability, we knew that we had not heard just another project report, we had just witnessed a very rare and marvelous example of true accountability. We thanked him and regretted later not having been even warmer in our congratulations and not having had a group photo taken with such an honorable man.

Strategic Plan

Suppose the country was an island and that the only boat with which you could leave it for the next thirty years was scheduled for departure today. If you were an ambitious and hopeful 15-year-old who loved his country and that has just read the country's Strategic Development Plan, would you stay or would you take the boat?

When we read these plans, we are left with two lingering doubts:

What's in this plan that separates this country from all the rest? As it is obvious that all developing cannot occupy exactly the same place under the sun or find jobs in agriculture, what more is there to lead us—except for an "If it's Tuesday it's got to be Tanzania!"

Yes! All the basic necessary tools are included in the plan: macroeconomic stability, brushing your teeth, better governance, eating your breakfast. But, where are you really heading and where is that green valley that will motivate and inspire your efforts?

Trains and privatizations

A functional modern two-track train is what they need in the long term, but somehow they can't seem to get it moving. Are they perhaps biting off more than they can chew? In countries with a lack of resources and high uncertainty, every single dollar requirement that you add on to a project will make it exponentially so much more difficult to complete, since when the investor expects high rates to make up for high risks, the lengthening of the duration of the concession offered is of little use as anything in a distant future is not really valued.

This is what I call the death-embrace of discounted cash flows. Normally a country gets into problems because of shortsightedness but, when it then is in a problem, the rates of return that investors demand shoot up, and so now it is forced to be even more shortsighted, as anything beyond the first couple of years is considered almost of no value.

So, forget the fringe on the top, go for a reasonable one single-lane restoration and, in the process, prepare yourself for more action a couple of years down the line. A clause that gives the government the right to repurchase a privatized project, in cash at a decent price a couple of years hence, does provide much flexibility without taking away too much from the general attractiveness of the project.

Environmental disasters

There are about a million small miners whose uncontrolled activities are causing a lot of damage and there are also around 300.000 to 400.000 ha (750,000 to 1,000,000 acres) deforested each year. So what is to be done? The magnitude and urgency of the problem require some real out-of-the-box thinking. (Perhaps something like the suggestion you might find in http://ourpiedaterre.blogspot.com/2007/02/better-than-hybrid.html)

AIDS vs. Malaria

There we sat listening astonished to the Minister of Health describing that what she most needed was help in fighting the malaria that was killing more people in her country than the AIDS, but AIDS was what donors mostly prioritized. How sad! The high mortality rate of the malaria came as a surprise to me but from what I deducted the malaria strain in most of Africa is much worse that what we are accustomed to in South America. We were informed that the anti malaria drugs we have been supplied by the bank for the trip were not allowed in this country as they could create an even more drug resistant strain. Answering some nervous questions the Minister informed us EDs that the malaria mosquito attacked exclusively at night and only if the victim was still and that's why the protective nets are so important.

Malaria is a tragedy, and so you have to forgive me but I cannot refrain from telling you that after the minister's mosquito comments, I detected immediate incipient salsa-like movements in my colleague's limbs (mine as well) and that grew stronger as night approached.

Giving away Bouncing Balls

During a previous trip I had learned from a grand lady colleague from the richest country to bring some bouncing balls to give away. I threw them at the dozen young kids standing there and only two of them moved. The rest did not even acknowledge it in their poverty and misery-filled glazed eyes. Per, what are you doing here? This is so far away from your realities that there is no way you could really add something useful. Yes. I know! But then again that is perhaps exactly what I needed to see … with my own tear-glazed eyes.

Questions and answers

There I was in a meeting with several local NGOs and staff from other development organizations hearing about the "quiet time" that had been created in this country so as to permit the government to work without being continuously interrupted by the thousands of donors and officials that visited it. As the spokesman of the group, I innocently asked, "During what months of the year does the quiet time fall?"—only to realize in that same second that I should never have asked just that question! I remembered a movie where the senior defense lawyer counseled his younger partner never to ask a question to which you don't know the answer.