| By Gavin Chait,
on 06 January 2007
|
 Begging by the side of the road
Yet, no land was under plough. Instead the locals were queuing patiently outside UN feeding stations waiting for their daily ration of grain. And you would too. Farming is hard work. If international donors are happy to provide you with the basics you need to survive why would you work?
And this is the difficulty of development: how do you transition to a post-conflict development model from that of conflict-survival? A people who have learned to accept assistance from the outside will pay little attention to their own development. In Zimbabwe the very foreign governments that Robert Mugabe rails against are responsible for feeding his starving people. North Korea is the same. It is unlikely that people will learn to hold their leaders to account if those same leaders are divorced from any responsibility for their people’s well-being.
Social development focuses more on the immediate needs of survival than in supporting those who are helping themselves. So there are feeding schemes, and community gardening projects, sewing projects, craft projects … the products are not commercially viable but the purpose is to keep the poor occupied rather than to help.
Across Africa men and women leave their families and homes and travel, seeking opportunities. Some head north to Europe, some south to South Africa and – in countries not their own – they seek employment and opportunities denied them at home. Some have degrees or technical skills but immigration laws prohibit them from formal employment so they park cars, sell trinkets or wait tables.
Some, lacking even elementary skills, collect on convenient corners and stand by the side of the road. Patient, noble and dignified. They are not begging; they are hoping. Hoping that someone will stop and hire them for the day. They do not question what they will be asked to do. They do not negotiate their pay. They are a pair of hands and a willing body.
Our orientation is all wrong. We spend more time assisting those who do not help themselves than those who try. By doing so we create a moral hazard where we encourage people to be less effective than they could be.
One of the most horrifying side effects of the chronic unemployment in South Africa is that people who have AIDS would rather not take anti-retroviral drugs. The reason is simple: with AIDS they get a government disability grant; if they take the drugs and get healthy enough to work then they will lose that grant. Most would rather stay sick than struggle to find work.
By the side of the road those who would work stand and wait.
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