Traditional Development

OK - what would you do? Here are the choices.

You can eradicate a disease and play a major role in sustaining a traditional society with little respect for human rights, particularly as they relate to gender equity.

Or you can address the underpinnings of many development issues, factors such as human rights and gender equity, and know that a possibly eradicable disease will not only not be eradicated, but will possibly flourish again and destroy the health and lives of many people.

Some choice huh!

The health issue in question here does not matter. The fact is that this kind of Faustian development choice - in order to achieve a specific development goal we undermine a broader development goal - is played out in development circles every minute of every day because of the way that development policies are constructed.

And it is not just health. The same issues apply to environmental action, governance issues, media roles and relationships, economic development and a wide variety of other development priorities.

If you wish to exercise influence, then the perception is that you need to associate with the influential. For that reason, many global major players are really keen to get traditional leaders on their side, prioritizing the development issues that they themselves have as priorities. But as they contribute funds and provide associative status to these traditional leaders in order to achieve that specific development goal, they (by design or accident) strengthen the hands of the very people who will often be most resistant to improved human rights and growing gender equity.

The new funds and the higher status that comes from their "development leaders and funders" relationship can reinforce and deepen their traditional approaches - confers them with additional influence. If you are bringing in money and have powerful friends, then your own position and perspective is strengthened.

In a more nuanced way, the funds and associated status that flow to traditional leaders help to take away the space for those seeking improved human rights, including gender equity, to pursue those goals. It becomes harder to make that case and work towards that goal when the very people you need to "move" have demonstrated they can raise significant financial resources for communities and have developed personal relationships with the global figures who drive development funding and action.

Ironically, this dynamic becomes more pronounced the more that development action and funding are required to prioritise so called "hard-to-reach" or "marginal" communities. It is just a fact of life that those communities are more likely to be "traditional" in nature.

But…if we do not work with traditional leaders then we are unlikely to gain the access, engagement, influence, support and base required to effectively address specific development issues. It will make negotiating to protect land and fishing rights more difficult. Opening up new business opportunities will be more problematic. Preventing environmental degradation will be a little harder. And eradicating or controlling diseases could (could!) be nigh impossible? 

What a difficult development policy choice! What would you do?

Warren

Warren Feek
Executive Director
The Communication Initiative.

Click here to access all of Warren Feek's blogs on this website.