THE GAMBIA’S DEVELOPMENT REALITY.
An article by Paul LK Correa – published in the Daily Observer of August 7,
2001.
From the critique of development theories, the description of the main
situation in an administrative structure of The Gambia and organisational
reforms, some broad conclusion could be drawn from the politics of
development. In this article, an attempt is made to ‘outline a political
development philosophy that is appropriate to The Gambia’. This is needed to
provide an environment in which local concerns can be addressed and which is
responsive to the crosscut of intellectual influences that have determined
and continue to determine, the prevailing socio-economic and political
situation.
An obvious important new element is the interest being shown at all levels
in the whole gamut of substantive development problems that confront a
country in which over 90 per cent of the people are in a state of subjective
poverty and are totally dependent on aid and unaffordable (un-repayable
loans). This situation was expressed in the 1994 budget speech and by
FOROYAA newspaper special edition of August 12, 1992, titled The State of
The Gambia and International Economies.
The small size of the Gambia has a strong influence on the people. It has a
cohesion lacking in many larger countries. Ethnic and religious differences
are not defined by internal boundaries and have not, possibly as a result of
this, become the dominant influences they have elsewhere. It has thus
avoided the problems experienced in Nigeria, which suffered from the Biafra
war in the 1960s and in 1986 experienced religious skirmishes which
continued to threaten economic and political tension. Against this benefit
of smallness it is hindered by its very limited resource base and its
extreme vulnerability to outside influences. Together these two consequences
of smallness have contributed to “the stability” outsiders ascribe
over-simplistically to The Gambia.
To help to define and explain the present Gambian situation, which is always
the basis from which the development process evolves. It is necessary to
review political/economic history of the past forty years. This should lead
to an understanding of what can and cannot be done and thus of what is
appropriate. In short this determines the present Gambian reality.
THE PRESENT GAMBIAN REALITY.
Administratively, the central government is unable to meet the demands of
the people, i.e. to supply those for which it is responsible and which it
started to make available during the period when loans were being foisted
onto the country. At the same time local government structures have been
effective destroyed.
This means that most services are being operated and controlled by NGOs
using donor funds with the minimum of local authority involvement.
Indigenous institutions are thus not only being by-passed but actively
undermined. Under developmentalist approaches, aid was usually channelled
through existing (usually government) institutions, in the traditional
top-down way inherited from colonialism. Even though it was not controlled
by them or together with them. Under SAPs the equivalent aid projects
completely by-pass these institutions and donors and NGOs have become de
factor local decision makers.
As pointed out above, the administrative structure inherited from
colonialism remains intact. Its objective under colonialism was the
preservation of law and order. Since independence, it has claimed with
support of developmentalist donors, that its objective is development. The
structures and procedures established to achieve the former are not
appropriate to achieve the latter, while by-pass interventions usually make
no demands beyond the purely formal on government bodies and so seriously
undermine the whole government structures by usurping its development roles.
In The Gambia, such donor/NGO interventions have come to constitute an
impediment role for indigenous institutions, so undermining any chance of
these roles being sustained in the future. With real per capita incomes
declining, the land-labour ratio declining and the rhetoric of “Tesito”
undermined by dependency – inducing and it is clear that The Gambia is
coming increasingly vulnerable. This is equally true of the tourist
industry, of the fate of the re-export trade and of aid cut since the 1994
coupe. Economic vulnerability, attitudes of assistance induced dependency,
inappropriate administrative structures, coupled not with an institutional
capacity building programme, but rather with external interventions that
undermine indigenous institution. These are the factors that make the
ordinary Gambian feel powerless and subjectively poor. Previous attempts to
form pressure groups to express people’s frustrations have themselves been
frustrated, but the coupe of 1994 has increased people’s political awareness
and also awareness of the connection between politics and economics (which
the world bank likes to ignore).
These analysis of the present Gambian situation does not suggest what issues
its political development philosophy should be capable addressing:
· Reducing vulnerability through regional cooperation and simultaneously
increasing self-reliance. As Clack and Haswell (The economics of subsistence
Agriculture, 1974, 4th edition, page 225) state, the smaller a country is,
the less likely it is to require a wide diversity of imports. Regional
groupings can effectively extend the borders, while emphasis on the
mobilising of internal resource amounts to a positive search for local
production opportunities. Both approaches should be basic to Gambia’s
development policy.
· Treating The Gambia as a whole. Because of the size of the country, its
homogeneity and the lack of ethnic and religious discord, there is no need
to target special sections of society or geographic areas. To so is actually
harmful.
· Development through dialogue. The pressure on resources (especially land)
has not yet reached a level where it is a socio-political impediment to
rational dialogue. Again there is no need to fear that dialogue, will become
divisive because of religious or ethnic tension.
· Evolving from what exists. Gambians have a sense of history (long
settlement in one village) that informs their sense of tradition and change
i.e. the existing institutional structure may not work but it is understood
and can still form the basis for structural transformation through the
reversal of roles.
INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE.
Although independence and decentralisation have not in practice brought
about radical changes they were both accompanied by rhetoric and
sensitisation programmes. People are thus used to ‘the idea of an
independent decentralised state’ and have accepted through a process of
osmosis. To institutionalise it now in practise will not therefore involve
the introduction of new concepts but the idea through “praxis”, the
cumulative process of reflection (analysis/evaluation), decision and action.
As I often argue, roles need to change through 180 degrees at all levels,
but the levels themselves should remain, they will still require similar
technical capabilities to those needed under the present structure. Thus the
institutional structure will not be overthrown but transformed and the
transformation of attitudes from to-down directive to “bottom-up support for
initiatives”.
What has to be institutionalised, therefore firstly participatory processed
and secondly, but simultaneously, mechanisms for supporting local
initiatives. Two reports concerning The Gambia need to be assessed in this
light:
i. The review report on the EDF-financed Village Initiative Support
Activities (VISA) programme, 1995.
ii. The Strategy for Poverty Alleviation Programme produced by The Gambia
round table conference in 1994. The latter is based on Visa programme and is
in some sense a proposal for extending Visa; it is therefore logically to
discuss it first.
The Strategy for Poverty Alleviation report amounts to a proposal for a
programme titled Participatory Development Initiative (PDI) which will
“support and complement Community Based and Community Managed projects”
(SPA) Implementation process (p3). In summarising the operational principles
it is stated (page 2) that “NGOs” and community-based organizations will be
the key actors in the development and implementation of the SPA.
Have a good day, Gassa.
_________________________________________________________________
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