The Gritty World of Development, Kurtis in Tanzania

I spent the first half of 2010 working on a water project. This was out of my comfort zone but really gave me an opportunity for some “classic” development work. The objective was to lay a foundation for a regional water project and there were two aspects towards that end. First, a learning tour where a group of us travelled around the region interviewing stakeholders from the village to the government level. The second component involved a hands-on project mainly as a way to provide some meat to all the talk that went on during the tour.

I'm not sure how I can phrase this best but in short: the tour was a who's who of water project failures and the small project, although good, was filled with all the classic development roadblocks that I had previously read about.

Driving around the Serengeti revealed failed project after failed project. Three out of 300 shallow boreholes still working after 10 years, hand pumps broken or stolen, a school water tank that had collapsed, a massive spring that was now harbouring more parasites in it's “protected” state than it ever had previously and I will stop there. Most painful were the projects that were in disrepair (and destined never to help the community) before they had even been completed!

It is tempting at this point to get into a critique of what exactly had failed and what should have been done differently but the point is simply that these projects had failed. We [development workers] have had 50 years to find the best way to bring clean water to communities in need (by modern standards) so there is not much more room for should haves and could haves.

I will not list the organizations behind these projects; they and their staff were all working out of the best of intentions. The one organization I will mention is Mennonite Central Committee. In the mid-nineties MCC protected a few natural springs (ie provided a way to harvest the water before it was contaminated) and 15 years later those protection mechanisms were still being used daily by hundreds of people.

My own small water project was extremely interesting. I do not have the time nor space to relate the whole project but in short, we tried to protect one spring to provide clean water to a small, rural community. It certainly wasn't a spectacular failure but in reality I do not feel as good about the process as I would have liked. The final product was good and I hope that it will still be going after 5 years but I am not so certain about 15. The main result for me was a very clear picture of what grass-roots development can look like and a lot of questions.

As for that regional project; we inundated the head office with ideas about what could be done and “how to” reports from all the lessons we had learned.

The truth is that I was left very hesitant about any outside initiated water project in the region but could not bring myself to voice that because it was so different from what the local people wanted & needed and what I, as a development worker, was sent to do.

So now you know a bit more where I am coming from,

Kurtis (Waterloo)

ps. For an example of a water provision technology that does seem to dodge the typical development short falls do some research on “sand dams”.