May 2008 Archives

I spent a week in Malawi recently with Nick (SolarAid's Director): my first fieldwork for SolarAid. Bottom line is you'd be thrilled. In that week, I saw on the one hand how difficult things can be, but also learned that the opportunity to help and make a big difference - huge as I thought it was - is bigger, indeed just vast.

First some impressions of the country and the people. I knew Malawi was going to be poor, but I didn't know quite how poor. As you drive around, you can easily sense how close the people live to disaster.

There is no real functional economy. A few big companies do sugar or whatever, then there are vanishingly few mid size or even small companies between the elite and the masses of subsistence farmers. This is the result of decades of post-colonial corruption. A gent called Hastings Banda pillaged the place to fill his bank accounts, and northern multinationals aided and abetted him as ever. But the subsistence farmers make do, and you see maize, cassava, groundnuts lapping up to the doors of the huts everywhere. You don't see many livestock, and there are children just everywhere: thousands and thousands of children.

Despite all this manifest poverty, you see very, very many smiling faces, and hear plenty to keep hope alive. The schools do their best. Even the poorest speak English passably to well.

Two anecdotes. We met a teacher, Mary, in Nkhata Bay. She teaches classes of over a hundred in the local school, in two shifts a day. She invited us to her hut, where we heard all about the challenges in detail and saw her indomitable spirit shine through them. There are also opportunities.

We met a lad called William Kamkwamba, now nineteen. Aged fourteen, living in a rural hamlet of typical red-mud brick huts miles with tin roofs in the middle of nowhere, he went to a school like Mary's and learned about electricity. He decided he wanted to make some of that for his family, so they could see at night, and run a television. He went to the library, read about wind power, and decided he'd make one of those turbine things. He got some bamboo poles, some old metal to make blades, a bicycle frame and chain to run a dynamo. he wired it all up to a box of batteries and ....bingo.... light at night. Have a look at this photo:

We went to his hamlet, saw the turbine, kicked the tyres. We'd have hired him on the spot, but some American philanthropist had heard all this before, and is packing him off all-expenses paid to university in South Africa (plus solar powering the whole hamlet). SolarAid's national co-ordinator, Fiskani, is another example. He gives the impression his folks must be teachers or government officials, but they're not: they are subsistence farmers. Here's to education, and the Mary's of the world. Plus the lights at night to help do it.

If you want to watch a short video about William, go here:

More about the trip in my next blog entry!
Jeremy Leggett, Chairman

We had a meeting with an official from a UN agency who specialises in helping set up businesses in Malawi. He told us about all the challenges facing organisations that try to set up sustainable businesses here. The culture of dependency, which we mentioned earlier, and decades of dictatorship under Banda play against entrepreneurship. He said that there are around 2,500 operating registered businesses in Malawi - that's not much at all. A key problem is that as soon as someone sets up a successful microbusiness, the family network kicks in and relatives start asking for a share of the income - ultimately leading to the collapse of the business.

But he's put us in touch with an Italian organisation that has been extremely successful in surmounting these problems and helping Malawians create sustainable enterprises. It's all a question of giving people the confidence and the skills to release their potential.

As you'll have realised by now, we seek to work in partnership with all kinds of organisations: international NGOs, companies, local businesses, government - anybody who is willing to share their experience and work with us for our common goal. We don't believe in reinventing the wheel!

Nick

What a fascinating experience it's been here today, although I must say that we're pretty bemused by certain things.

On the one hand, there are some extremely committed people here who are devoting their lives to fighting poverty. Malawi is one of the world's poorest countries, with the majority of its 12 million people living on less than a dollar a day. It's in desperate need of development.

On the other hand, it seems that the international development system has some serious failures here. Millions of pounds of aid from governments, international organisations and charities have led to a culture of dependence that is endemic. Countless local NGOs have sprung up that are entirely dependent on this outside aid. Any sense of entrepreneurship is hard to find, and the country numbers barely 2,500 operating registered businesses, according to an international official we met today.

But most shocking of all is the culture of 'seating allowances' that the international NGOs, international donor agencies and foreign governments have set up. It goes like this: there are so many international development organisations here competing that they've started paying people to attend their trainings and workshops, so that they can then report back to their overseas headquarters that so many people came to their training session.

Initially, this was meant as a form of compensation to take account for the fact that attendees were possibly giving up valuable work time in order to attend trainings. Instead, it has led to an increase in dependency and a decrease in commitment verging on corruption: people turn up who have no interest whatsoever in the training and just come to collect the cash.

It totally beats the point. Why bother running a training in agricultural techniques, capacity building or literacy if you're going to pay people to attend it?

Even worse is that agencies now pay government officials in order to meet with them. So a government official may make $100 just for turning up to a meeting with an international agency. So there's no incentive to do any work apart from attend as many meetings as you can! How can we then blame African governments for being corrupt when our agencies actively encourage it?

Suffice to say that there's no way we're going down this route. We've met a number of other NGOs that refuse to play game, and we're one of them. If that means fewer people turn up to our microsolar trainings, then so be it - at least we'll be sure that those who do turn up are committed!

Nick