Learnings of a Development Novice from a Development Nomad

Pavin Pankajan

(E-mail: ppavin@gmail.com)
Abstract
Development projects are complex in the sense that it involves many factors or variables of equal importance and hence removal of certain variable to convert it simple dimension does not bear fruit. So it becomes difficult to visualize or predict the outcome. One of the major requirements for a successful project is to get as accurate information as possible of the actual existing condition which in most cases remains hidden either due to our ignorance of how to explore them or by deliberate attempts by others not to reveal the actual conditions. The paper presents the views of Robert Chambers on Development pratices and how I have related them with my personal experiences. Some issues on which I don’t agree with him and what’s my alternative views have been put up. The need for writing this paper for me arises from the fact there has been lot of change that has taken place how development process is to be handled, managed and the to know who actually calls the shot. Also this will surely help other novice in understanding the problems and mistakes that are associated with development process.

Keywords
Development; Development studies; Biases & traps

Introduction
The papers describe the learning of a development novice from a development nomad. Here the Development Novice[*] is the author himself and development Nomad is Robert Chambers who uses this term for himself in his paper “Reflections of a development nomad.” Robert Chambers is an internationally renowned author of books on participatory community development, a champion of participatory methodologies such as Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) and a scholar with extensive experience on development in South Asia. He is affiliated with the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK
Prof. Chambers was born and brought up at Cirencester (England). His parents were not much educated due to family circumstances, but both looked that their son had enough of it. But here itself I see a nomadic tendency. After school certificate he did a year of Mathematics, and then switched to botany, chemistry and zoolgy for A-levels, then to history at university and then public administration. He says that since then he has been running away and never staying for long in one place or with one subject. He started his carrier in development sector from Kenya and did a lot of work from administration to irrigation and settlement work. With Ford foundation he worked in India for Three years (1981-83) on irrigation management and social forestry. He has also written a book on irrigation management [1] from the learning’s during this period.
At present Robert Chambers is a research Associate in the participation power and social change team at the Institute of Development Studies. His main operational and research experience has been in East Africa and South Asia. His work has included aspects of rural development, public administration training, seasonality, irrigation system management, agricultural research and extension, perception of poverty, professionalism and participation. His current concerns include participatory methodologies, knowing and not knowing in development community-led total sanitation, and personal and institutional learning and change.

Development studies
Development studies as per Chambers refer to what people in centers, departments or institutes actually do and have done. I have no idea when this bug of development stuck me, it all started with an aim of doing something that was more practical than what I was doing. Slowly entering into the system thoughts began to get refined and I started building my own views on different aspects of development. Like Chambers who call himself as development nomads who has run away from whatever was dull, difficult or conflictual thus avoiding the challenges in the heartland of any discipline or profession and instead seeking life and livelihood in other, emptier spaces. For chambers this has been exhilarating, fulfilling and fun, a mix of solitary wandering and collegial solidarity with others in a small tribe. Chambers has spent most part of his working life at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, but most of this time has been spent aboard. In my case the nomadic tendency starting from civil engineering to specialization in geo-environmental engineering, working on software development and finally to rural management was with my conviction that’s there has been lot of progress made in different field and the need is to take these to people who need them the most. The Nomadic tendency has helped me in understanding think better and making comparison of different schools of thoughts regarding development sector.

One of the biggest fears of mine while pursuing study in this field are how much my convictions and ideas on various issues hold good or correct. Whether the ideas which I am propagating, is it really the best or atleast better than the ideas which I am opposing. My 98% of understanding on the subject is bookish and I had a very few chance to interact with the realties. As Robert Chambers says that many lecturers don’t realize that giving a lecture again and again is, like a catechism, disabling and conservative because each time we say something we embed it, remember it better and believe it more, diminishing our doubts, finding it easier to repeat, and to a degree closing our minds. Similarly reading or meeting people of the same school of thoughts can put you at the same disadvantage which an isolated decision maker has.

Reflections
Chambers Reflecting on his experiences of what he did and how he did the various activities says there are four aspects that illuminate and in part explain what happened, and which may point to more general insights and lessons for those of in development studies: These are comparative advantage and luck; making mistakes; reversals – standing on one’s head (or, more prosaically, seeing things differently); and issues of development nomadism and ecosystem change.
Chambers says that he had been lucky, luck and coincidence have provided a sort of personal comparative advantage He was lucky in the sense that he got good patrons who were inspiring and he got good opportunities to work in different parts of the world. He was also lucky that he did not have to do any lecture and concentrate more on his research work. He has often been wrong and has made many mistakes. He cautions that combining commitment, enthusiasm, educated ignorance and power can be dangerous combination for blunders in development process as you undermine the realities of the last and put your own realities which you feel are needed for development. This leads to process where questionnaire are framed at far distant place where the ground realities are not at all understood. About Reversals of behaviour chambers explains that how PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) methodologies totally changed the way development process is carried out. It gave the stick to its rightful contenders also the days when south came to north for learning is over. Chambers speculate that he would have done better work if he had experience in participatory research. The new developments in this sector with respect to fund are that it is mainly determined by the donor agencies. He feels that the system has become more rigid, with less on trust and requires more accountability. It today suffers more and more from centralized decision making. In 60’s and 70.s development studies was a growth industry and large number of institute and centers were founded. Also there was lot of movement from one organization to another and nomadic practice was common, but now people are looking more for security and try to stick to one particular job. Chambers favors a semi-nomadic professionals who move around and gain experience in different contexts, countries and organizations.
We all have different endowments, opportunities and trajectories. I don’t agree much on the nomadic behavior required for a development profession. An immersion is good way of enhancing the learning curve and is an essential part of this profession. I would like to put that the traps, biases occurs more when an outsider is put in the planning or implementation process. This is not an era were the third world is a white man’s burden. Ten to fifteen years ago a staff team in Africa would consist of a Canadian, a British, an American but today the members would be an South African, a Nigerian, an Ethopian. So these near natives will have less to unlearn and learn, it is something like meeting your local needs with local produce. My own personal experience during my Summers at Greenpeace can be mentioned here, I had to report to the project director who was a German. A brilliant fellow who is very good in formulating action plans but had little knowledge of the local conditions and few network contacts. He used to come with ideas which were more relevance to Latin American countries like the destruction of rain forest which are burning issues in South America but in India you just can’t sideline the national issues. What for him are important or Burning issues are not the real issues which Greenpeace India should go with, were my understanding. Even during the fund raising programmes the main question people put before me was what Greenpeace is doing to the pollution problems in Bangalore, when we were trying to raise money on Turtle cause. This method of raising fund by showing the deplorable conditions in the south works in the north but if in India if you need to raise fund, one’s has to raise local issue along with the International one so as to better connect to people.
When outsiders take up development projects he unlearns and learns many things but the development process suffers. The lessons learned with respect to development studies changes fast, some of our learning’s and understanding from yesterday may not hold tomorrow, while in other case we may need to follow the old path. The Knowledge can become out of date in short span so there is a need to strive to write, publish and share with little delay, fortunately now with the Web it is much easier than it was previously. Also the use of forums, network like Indianngos [5] which help in information and knowledge exchange on India’s social and development sector. As with regard to AIDs I don’t agree that system has gone for bad, but it has tried to become more efficient in its working with respect to more accountability. With 24-houe news channels and Internet sites for all kinds of media outlets has made it easier for aid groups to alert potential donors, so it’s much easier today to raise fund from concerned citizen’s but these can be sustained when the process is more transparent and the donors as well as the receiver are accountable in the ways they use the fund. For this system may be somewhat centralized for its monitoring mechanism for implementation it’s more decentralized now. As Mr. Narayana Murthy[†] Says “In God we trust. For everything else give us data.”

Traps Biases and Agenda
Here are some of the traps, Biases which the decision maker must be careful while making plans for poverty reduction. Chambers says the long period from when he first mentioned about these problems back in 1983 in his earlier publication Rural Development: Putting the First last, not much has changed when he revisit on the same in 2000. The way in which in the whole process is carried out has lot of traps which should be kept in mind so as to be sure that one is not making the mistakes that has been continuing in this sector. Chambers coins the term rural development tourism for the brief rural visit from urban based outsiders, which are carried out to understand the rural conditions. The biases in these visits are – spatial, project, seasonal, diplomatic, professional, security.

The Urban trap
What happens in the development planning process is that people who are carrying out the formulation part have very less idea of what’s the actual condition existing on the ground. As most of modern amenities are not available in the rural areas, the professionals prefer to stay in urban setting. At time it is family responsibility, over commitment to office work that ties the person to his/her urban location. Over-commitment in the sense that the professionals take up too much work that they can handle and finally mess up in everything. The worse thing is that in such cases as they become more and more eminent they are less and less likely to be told that their work is bad.
The other form of urban bias is shown in the form of secondary treatment that is meted on the rural area. In government department the first appointment of an ignorant and inexperienced staff, be it in hospital or banks are to rural areas as if rural people only suffer from cough and cold.
Robert chambers agree that Foreigners have less connection and urban based. On top of that they have to depend on interpreters who take them on a planned tour and are interacted with the same set of people who have become specialized in this work of giving answers to questions of outsiders Also most of the news from rural areas does not reach the media, mainly because it’s vast tract of land and become economically unviable to stretch the press/media staff too much. Most of the newspaper are read in urban areas, and the urban likes to have news from their region, so even if there is big epidemic in the rural area it get missed out from the media news. Also in case of false information there is nobody to sue which results in taking the rural population lightly by the media.

Rural Development Tourism
Rural development tourism may be for one day or for several days. The ‘tourist’ or visitors may come from a foreign country, a capital city, a seat of regional or provincial government, a district headquarter, or some smaller urban place. They come from urban area they want to find something out; and they are short of time. The same is the case even during our field trips. All activities are pre-planned. We go their on our SUV vehicles with mineral bottles in our hands and clicking camera all round. The visitors are welcomed with garlands, coffee, tea or milk etc. Speeches are made, schoolchildren sing or clap. Photographs are taken, Buildings, machines, construction works, new crops, exotic animals, the clinic, the school, the new road, are all inspected. Questions are asked one after the other like interviews. They respond in ways which they hope will bring benefits and avoid penalties. It’s always the same group that comes for these meetings. As Prof S. P Das[‡] says that you just need to stand before the rural people. They will tell you the questions and answers. They have passed through these procedures so many times that they have become used to it, were the visitors are to be moved, whom to talk what to be shown all have become routinised. Many of the realities remain hidden. People are chosen who are fluent and can quickly answer the questions. Women, children’s, the lower caste and old are missed in this process. As the days wears on and heats up, the visitor become less inquisitive, ask fewer questions, and is finally glad to retire, exhausted and bemused, to the rest house. The village returns to normal, no longer wearing its special face. When darkness falls and people talk more freely, the visitor is not there. As most of the time we make connection to villagers through some Non- Governmental Organization (NGOs) which have its own agenda, so depending upon its need it also tries to show a picture which suits them best. Tourists are advised to avoid question to villagers regarding the working of the host NGO. Also the presence of members from host NGO prevents local people to speak out the actual conditions in the village as they are afraid of loosing even the meager from the actual amount they should have received.

The Six biases
These apply not only to rural development tourists, but also to rural researches and local-level staff who live and work in rural areas.

Spatial biases
Urban bias leads people to select villages near to towns especially near capital cities and large administrative centers. But the regional distribution of the poorest rural people often shows a concentration in remoter areas. Also even if they moved interior they try to get the sample along the road side houses were services are infact better. In our RLLE[§] (Rural Living and Learning Experience) I found that in almost all the villages the lower caste used to live outside the main area of the village and because of the distance to be traveled and bad condition of road to their area they are often missed in the program.
Project Bias
Project bias is marked with the showpiece: the nicely groomed pet project or model village, specially staffed and supported, with well briefed members who know what to say and which is sited a reasonable but not excessive Governments in capital cities need such projects for foreign visitors; district and sub district staff need them too, for visits by their senior officers. Such projects provide .a quick and simple reflex to solve the problem of what to do with visitors or senior staff on inspection. Once again, they direct attention away from the poorer people.
What happens in this process it diverts all fund and attention to one particular way of solving problem which has been successful in one area and attempts are made to replicate in other areas. One need to understand that the conditions in different parts of the country are totally different and one should try to come with a particular solution suitable to that area without blindly imposing an idea which has been successful in some distant place.

Person Bias
The Person bias result from persons who are chosen by rural development tourists, local level officials, and rural researchers to obtain impressions and information about the village. This may not represent the reality of the actual poor people.
Elite bias
‘Elite’ is used here to describe those rural people who are less poor and more influential. They typically include progressive farmers, village leaders, headmen, traders, religious leaders, teachers, and paraprofessionals. They are the main sources of information for rural development tourists. They are the most fluent informants. It is they who receive and speak to the visitors; they who articulate ‘the village’s’ interests and wishes; their concerns which emerge as ’the village’s’ priorities for development. It is they who entertain visitors, generously providing the expected food and beverages. It is they who receive the lion’s share of attention, advice and services from agricultural extension staff. It is they who show visitors the progressive practices in their fields. It is they too, who, at least at first, monopolise the time and attention of the visitor. One has to make personal effort to get the real poor people. These poor people are mostly shy, frightened, confused on seeing the outsiders and one need some time to mix with them to understand their realities.
Male bias
Most local-level government staff, researchers and other rural visitors are men. Most rural people with whom they establish contact are men. Female members are neglected and their voice remains unheard. In most societies women have inferior status and are subordinate to men. There are variations and exceptions, but quite often women are shy of speaking to male visitors. And yet poor rural women are a poor and deprived class within a class. In tribal class the women have good social standard and mostly follow matriarchal society. During my RLLE visit I found that SHG (Self Help Group) Movement has empowered women in many villages and things have changed a lot in villages. One statement during a SHG[**] (Self Help Groups) meeting that “we are women first and then wives” really changed my views that women’s condition is also not uniform. In some villages they have considerable say and independence and in other village it’s totally opposite. It’s in these villages were women have more freedom that SHG movement has been successful.
User and adopter biases
Where visits are concerned with facilities or innovations, the users of services and the adopters of new practices are more likely to be seen than are non users and non-adopters. Like when a new hybrid variety of seed is introduced in an area which results in greater production as compared to previous year, this may not be just a result of the seed itself, it may happen that the climatic conditions in present year might have been more favorable than previous year. So it’s necessary to contact and take notes from the non-adopter too and to know what has been their experience.
Active, present and living biases
It’s usually happen that the people whom we interact are those who are fit, happy and active in the village. In most of the village I visited they were no young men’s. All had migrated for work. We don’t see the sick, old and the dead. One has to get to keep all these in mind while selecting their sample for getting views.

Dry Season biases
For the majority whose livelihoods depend on cultivation the most difficult time of the year is usually the wet season, especially before the first harvest. Food is short, food prices are high, work is hard, and infections are prevalent. Malnutrition, morbidity and mortality all rises, while body weights decline. But this is not the season of rural tourist as roads are in their worst conditions, arrangements for food and shelter is a problem and there are restrictions in the movement due to heavy rainfall. The outsiders flock to visit when climatic conditions are extreme in their native place to pleasant conditions down south. Once the rainy season is over, visitors travel more freely. It is during the dry season, when disease are diminishing, the harvest in, food stocks adequate, body weights rising, ceremonies in full swing, and people at their least deprived, that there is most contact between urban-based professionals and the rural poor. Institutes concentrate their field research in the dry seasons; the rains are for data analysis and writing up with a good roof over one’s head. Concern to avoid inconvenience to respondents when they are busy and exhausted with agricultural activities provides a neat justification, both practical and moral, for avoiding research during the rains.

Diplomatic biases: politeness and timidity
Urban-based visitors are often deterred by combinations of politeness and timidity from approaching, meeting, and listening to and learning from the poorer people. Other time it may happen that those who offer hospitality may not welcome you to ask questions, other than to those people who they have appointed for the purpose. Senior officials visiting junior officials may not wish to examine or expose failures of programmes intended to benefit the poor. Courtesy and cowardice combine to keep tourists and the poorest apart.

Professional Biases
The problem with specialization arises when expert try to look at the problem from one side and not as a whole. The variable for the core problem are usually many factors, but the professional get stuck in their area of specialization and don’t understand the integrated nature of various factor in shaping the core problem. During our RLLE when we were introducing ourselves to Prof. Radha Mohan[††], when one of the members introduced as from agricultural science, he remarked that you need to unlearn a lot of things, which did not make sense to me at that time but later I realized the importance of the statement. With specialization some time we get trapped in that field only, or fail to give importance to thing that were not important part of your curriculum.

Security Bias
Due to security reason the visit are discouraged or excluded from the project work. The cumulative effect is that visitor’s lack experience of being personally insecure, and may fail to appreciate what physical insecurity means to many poor people and the priority many accord to peace and civil order. One of the subset of security bias is sickness when visit are left out on the belief that there is danger of falling sick while undertaking visit to interior areas.

Conclusion
Much can be done to offset these traps and biases if these are kept in mind during rural visit. The solution is to make more visits, not fewer. The visit should be extended further to an immersion were outsiders live along with the villagers for a few days. The essence of the immersion with overnights is that the visitor is not an important person but a fellow human being and can become a friend. She or he spends nights living in a community, taking part and helping in life, and experiencing and learning as a participant. During this period try to follow a path that is different from the VIP circuit, and have unscheduled visits. What is required is to mix with people and wander with them so that they feel you are not something alien and best is not to have prearranged meetings. It’s better to start early as in most cases village life starts early, and don’t try to rush from one place to another. The number of calls made is not important but the quality matters. Even after keeping all precautions it’s not guaranteed that one will get the clear picture of what’s happening in the village. As Prof. D.N Rao[‡‡] says it’s very difficult to get the real thing from the rural folk”. Never think that they are too naïve or fools. They very well know what to speak before a donor agents and how to trade their items. Things are simple and not complex on the ground what is required are observation and understanding and facilitating them to understand the problems and asking for solution from them itself, rather than imposing our prepared solutions on them.


Reference
(1)Chambers, R., “Managing Canal Irrigation: Pratical Analysis from South Asia”, New Delhi, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co,. 1988.
(2) Chambers, Robert (2005) Ideas for Development, London and Sterling VA:
Earthscan
(3) Chambers, Robert (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last, London: Intermediate Technology Publications
(4) Chambers, Robert (2006), “Poverty Unperceived: Trap, Biases and Agenda” IDS working paper 270
(5) Website : http://www.indianngos.com/


Appendix

Apart from the points that have mentioned some other points which needs to be kept in mind are mentioned below for student going for RLLE.
(1) Planning to meet people and taking a route that is not normally taken by the host organization. The host organization should be insisted for this purpose.
(2) Formal arrangement for lunch can be tiresome and limit the time spent for learning. It best to have some fruits or samosas or local equivalent. Better to have lunch along with villagers as it gives more time for informal conversations and which also help to bridge the gap between the outsiders and local.
(3) See that you get ample time to wandering in the village talking to children’s playing on the ground, people buying groceries at haat, the shopkeepers, the workers in the field etc.
(4) Have some visit which are not prearranged and one is able to interact with people and see them in their actual flow of work.
(5) It’s better to start early for your visit, don’t rush with the idea of covering more area. Go slowly with rapport building process, see, observe and keep all your sense open.

(6) To understand the poverty in this region one should not go by the Housing index as there is a marked difference in the attitude of the people in the coastal and the interior region of Orissa. The normal tendency in the interior part is that they use much of their earnings in the construction of houses whereas in the coastal areas the people in lure of getting flood relief keep their house in bad conditions even if they have wealth they do not invest to improve their housing condition.
(7) The economic condition of the household in villages were the people have migrated seems to be better that than those in which people decided to stay in the villages. But the Social capital with respect to unity and people institution has detiorated as result of the change. The effects can be seen in the form of new diseases, trafficking, loss of cooperation among villagers and more individualistic attitude. So it seems that they are paying a greater social cost for the meager economic benefits.



[*] The author is a second year Post Graduate student of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.
[†] N. R. Narayana Murthy is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor of Infosys Technologies Limited.
[‡] Prof S. P. Das is a faculty of economics at Xavier Institute of Management.
[§] RLLE (Rural Living and Learning Experience) is an immersion program organized by Xavier Institute of Management for its first year students of Rural Management.
[**] Self-help groups are usually informal clubs or associations of people who choose to come together to find ways to improve their life situations.
[††] Prof. Radha Mohan is a UNEP conferred ‘The global Roll of Honour’ for distinguished work on environement. At present he is working as State Information Commissioner, Orissa.
[‡‡] Prof. D. N. Rao is the Director of Jagannath Institute for Technology and Management. Previously he worked as a faculty at the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.

Agriculture condition of villages in Nayagrah and Ganjam district of orissa

India lives in her 6 lakhs villages. If India has to progress it is very important that the living standard of the rural inhabitants improves. Agriculture is the mainstay of rural community. Though the contribution of the agriculture to our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is continuously decreasing it employs about sixty percent of our population. Today we hear lot of rural potential, rural marketing, rural communication, rural revolution etc. How much is the truth, is it there a sea change in the living conditions of the rural people. Today every company wants to go rural; many have special rural wings cater for this purpose. Also it is estimated that one-third of the world’s poor live in India, and there are more poor people in India alone than in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. Although official estimates of the Government of India indicate that every fourth Indian is poor, the estimate of the internationally recognized poverty line of “a dollar a day” revel that 39 percent of people in India were already living with income below “a dollar a day” in 1999-00. Indian Poverty is predominantly rural, where landless laborers and casual workers are the worst-off economic groups. The rural poor are primarily those with limited ownership of assets – including land. The vast majority of the rural poor in India are engaged in agriculture (including fishery and livestock) either as agriculture wage laborers or marginal farmers. To see the condition existing in the villages i visited some of the villages in the district of nayagrah and ganjam. The whole process of my visited by Xaveir institute of managment, Bhubaneswar and NGO "SAMBHAV".

Agriculture is the main source of livelihoods for people in the villages I visited. The majority of holdings are small and marginal or semi-medium land holdings. Almost all people in the village I visited are living in countryside, the size of the majority of farms suggests that agriculture is insufficient as the main source of livelihood for many people. There have to be alternative and diversified livelihoods, and so the expansion of non-farm activities may need to become the priority.
Paddy is the principal crop folloId by sugarcane, vegetable, ragi, pluse (mainly green gram and black gram) and oilseeds. Potato, radish, onion, brinjal etc. are produced in the winter season especially in December. Lack of permanent irrigation and major sugarcane consuming industries prevents the expanded production of this crop, though the potential exists. Agriculture, keeps the villagers fully occupied only in the months of July and August (paddy transplantation) and from mid November to mid January in harvesting. The other crops grown are also in the same season. The lean period for them is from February to June, and there is no work at all done by men during April to June. Men go outside the village if there is any waged labour available in road construction. Women keep themselves engaged throughout the year, in transplantation, harvesting and processing, and leaf-plate making throughout the year (except in February and March when the leaves are not available in the forest). During this period, they keep themselves busy in collection of other forest products like mahul. Fruits like mango are collected in the month of May and June, and also some edible roots from the forest during the lean period (Feb-March) for self-consumption and for sale if there is demand from the middleman.
India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, but only one percent is processed, suggesting that there may be scope for increased livelihoods in this sector. The main crops that are normally grown in this area are mango, guava, lemon, coconut and cashew. The soil and climate of this area provide ample scope for development of plantation and horticultural crops. People are also doing mushroom cultivation but in small scale. The NGO “SAMBHAV” has given training to many people in this respect.