Field Notes from East Africa – Changing Perceptions of Development

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime!”

Joanna, our project manager, gave a talk at a recent Breakfast meeting on the changing perceptions of development and illustrated her talk with stories from her recent visit to East Africa.

We were introduced to the idea that development should be community driven and not donor driven. Donor driven usually focuses on activities that donors think the community want – like in the above adage “teach a man how to fish”. It runs the risk of not involving the community, in keeping with the fishing theme, the community knows how to fish but they need fishing rods, or unpolluted water or a market to sell the fish. Development is far more complicated than simple platitudes.

Joanna gave us good advice in that we should be asking how our donations to development agencies are being used. Are the funds going to projects:

• that are community driven?
• that are sustainable?
• that are efficient and effective?

If the agency can’t answer those questions satisfactorily then find another agency that can. Of course ORAF welcomes being asked these questions and for further information on our work please go to our website or email Joanna on jryan@abau.org.au.