Reflections from Rwanda

 Carissa McLennan
University of Western Ontario
 

        This past summer, I spent three months working as an intern at a university in Rwanda.  I was assigned to work at the governance level of the university in the realm of capacity building which provided the opportunity to become involved in development work at the bureaucratic level of a developing country.

This experience caused me to reflect on the role of the West in the "development" of Africa which led to questions about the West’s definition of development, best practices in development, and the role of education in development.  These are questions that have long been addressed in academia, but were highlighted during my interaction with Canadian consultants hired by the university and local students interested in the notions of development. This reflection echoes the struggle of an idealistic student breaking into in the reality of large scale development work. 

             During my internship, the university was in the initial stages of creating a strategic plan with a Canadian consultant.  The first stage involved a three-day workshop, with over sixty university staff members collaborating to conceptualize a twenty-six project strategic plan. The plan included major restructuring of both administrative and academic systems, focusing on improving efficiency, productivity, and ICT infrastructure and capacity.  Despite the inclusive nature in creating the strategic plan, I found myself questioning the monies spent on flying in consultants to work with the local population for two weeks with the expectations that the staff would be capable of executing the plan after the consultant left.  My immediate concern was that the project assumed the local population valued and exercised time management, accountability, autonomy, transparency, efficiency, and productivity – practices essential to the successful implementation of the strategic plan.  I had seen little evidence of such practices while working at the bureaucratic level of the university. 

            Phase two of developing the strategic plan involved the arrival of another Canadian consultant to construct with staff a comprehensive business plan.  Observing the consultant interact with the local staff in creating the business plan was similar to watching a teacher prepare a grade eight class for an independent project.  He established deadlines, assigned responsibilities to individual members and re-organized the existing infrastructure to facilitate implementation of the projects.   I was embarrassed for the university staff as I watched them being treated like children yet recognized the importance of this process to avoid the "shelving" of the strategic plan.  To validate this procedure, the consultant asked the staff, "How many foreign consultants have stood before you, how many development plans have been shelved, and how much donor money has been spent on creating these plans?"  However, in spite of these attempts to hold the university accountable by implementing deadlines, my heart sank when the university missed its first deadline of the five year, twenty-six project plan.  What did this signify?  Steps had been taken by both consultants to be inclusive of the university staff to make this plan “theirs”, yet the university did not appear to take ownership of the plan.
  
            A conversation with a student of the university shed much light on my internal struggle of western concepts of development being imported into foreign cultural contexts.  Steven (pseudonym), an economics student interested in development work, envisions education playing an integral role in the social and economic development of African countries.  He has great pride in his people but is saddened by how little Africans value themselves and they choose to turn to foreigners to solve their problems.  Education, he believes, should be used to instill pride and feelings of value in African people.  Steven reaffirmed my thoughts that the West is inhibiting African countries from developing by reinforcing feelings of dependency and inadequacy through the nature of imported development projects and the streaming of our ‘cast-offs’ into their villages.

By essentializing African countries as "underdeveloped" we are labeling them as less than what we are; "developed."  We cannot expect people to feel worthy and empower themselves if the label the western world gives them is one that devalues their existence.  Critical pedagogy in African classrooms is essential.   African communities need to study their own history, become aware of their own values, celebrate their own culture, and redefine development so it meets their needs.   Central to the evolution of countries we label as underdeveloped is empowerment. Only when African communities become empowered will they be able to define how they want to develop and engage in practices that facilitate this evolution.   

During my time in Rwanda I came across this passage:

Development is much more than just a socio-economic endeavor; it is a perception which models reality, a myth which comforts societies, and a fantasy which unleashes passions. Perceptions, myths and fantasies, however, rise and fall independent of empirical results and rational conclusions; they appear and vanish, not because they are proven right or wrong, but rather because they are pregnant with promise or become irrelevant. ~Wolfgang Sachs~  

            This statement spoke to me during my first involvement with an international development project.   However genuine my desire to help, I assumed an understanding of what African communities wanted and needed.  It has been made evident time and time again that often imported development projects do not work yet, we (the west) continue to pour our guilt money into Africa without reflecting on whether or not what is being practiced is working.  I do not claim that all development projects are failures; however, I have come to realize during this experience, the need for local populations to become more than just participants in development so we can feel good about the inclusive nature of our projects.  Education at all levels of African communities needs to focus on empowering the local population to become leaders in development work as defined by them.