Remarks by the US Ambassador to Cameroon, Janet Garvey, to the American Chamber of Commerce – Tuesday, June 9, 2009
…the biggest obstacle to Cameroon’s development, the biggest obstacle that prevents Cameroon from achieving its full potential, is Cameroonians’ lack of ownership for their own nation, their own government, their own communities.
I am troubled by the spirit of resignation, almost of despair, that seems to prevail among many of my Cameroonian friends these days.
Just put up a new post at Our Man on Planet Earth that might have been equally at home here.
It essentially deals with the scenario whereby the aid and development workers of today may be the international foreign correspondents of tomorrow.
As far as my employers VSO are concerned it is something that, hopefully, they are already thinking about.
It’s not about hijacking the news gathering process or becoming a single source of news from troubled hotspots – it’s about growing your voice, being a part of the debate and providing, perhaps, a differing point of view.
The reduction of news budgets, the death of the foreign correspondent and their increased inability to question official sources, leaves a gap for NGOs to come in and play their part.
I got so annoyed with this piece by Tori Hogan that, well, I wrote a long and angry response – I’ve cut and pasted it below.
It’s mostly concerning Kiva (an organisation that I have a huge amount of time for) but it also touches on the wider issues of the current fashion for pulling apart development and aid organisations.
There is a lot wrong, and there is a lot that could be improved, but I am tiring of this post “White Man’s Burden” witchhunt.
Everyone knows the sound bites – very few understand the arguments. Most people appear to have an opinion.
***
Oh my god..where to start:
Firstly I think it’s tragic that every blogger suddenly wants to become the next “White man’s burden” writer.
While all organisations and industries should be open to suggestion and criticism you would hope that those working in developing industries with the aim of supporting the poorest people in the world would have some respect for each other’s organisation.
Tori may write: “I should start by prefacing my comments with the fact that I have total respect and admiration for the hard work and passion that the entire Kiva team has invested in their work. ”
…but in inability to even check the Kiva website to answer some of her own queries doesn’t do her any favour as a blogger or journalist. Where is the respect? Also she appears somewhat naive about a number of areas:
1. High interest rates:
Any blogger worth their salt knows about the importance of “link love”. Here’s a link where Kiva explains the situation regarding high interest rates:
http://www.kiva.org/about/m[…]_microcredit_interest_rates
I think the explanation is entirely fair. If you want to pick an argument with Kiva why not find out what their angle is instead of making one sided claims?
For the record there are six links in the article above – all for Tori’s own site (nothing like getting your pound of flesh plug-wise)
2. “none of them had succeeded at pulling themselves out of poverty”
Again..Tori didn’t bother to look at Kiva’s site:
http://www.kiva.org/[…]/microfinance#11._Is_microfinance_the_solution_to
Re Poverty, What did you expect – that they’d build a pool and buy a car. These are micro loans – how much money do you think you can make with such a loan? There’s a huge way to go before anyone steps out of poverty. But, where it works it puts food on the tables of families where perhaps there was none before. This is no magic wand. The sums we are talking about are tiny. Did the writer really believe that these people, once they had their Kiva loan would join the middle classes? It’s a step and a chance and hopefully a slight lightening of the load and a little bit of hope.
Of course they will still worry and business will be hard and some businesses will fail. They are in the developing world. But it’s a chance. A chance that Tori obviously doesn’t think is worth taking.
3. “one woman in Mozambique started a vegetable stand… right next to the other 5”
As has been pointed out that…that is the deal. I used to live in Hanoi and there was a shoe street and a cloth street etc. That is how it works in countries where there is no money for marketing. You go where people go to buy your product. I too have been involved in trying to look at income generation for poor families and I know it’s frustrating and difficult to find gaps in the market that are open for investment but the people you are selling to are poor too.
What are you going to do, start selling flat screen tvs in an out of town supermarket? They are farmers looking for a route to market – in every sense.
3 “None of the micro-lending organizations I met with were providing any type of formal business skills training to their recipients. ”
Now this is an interesting one…you don’t say Kiva..you say “organizations” plural. This suggests to me that while Kiva is taking the rap for all things bad in micro credit in this article – that you are actually talking about a number of organisations. Was Kiva just a high profile peg to hang your hat on for this piece? (you get more hits for your website that way).
Anway, I can’t speak for where you are – I now live in Cameroon ( and no I don’t have any formal links with KIVA except for admiration at their work and a friendship with employees and fellows there)
Here in Cameroon the local partner is GHAPE – and as it says on their website: “This package contains micro-credit, training in business development services, training in life skills, basic health issues including HIV/AIDS, gender equity and counseling, and base line research. Our motto is Service and Development. ” http://www.ghape.org/
From what I do know of GHAPE I know the above to be true. Ordinarily I’d take you at your word that you found otherwise but your angle and errors to date make me want to question it.
4 Over-burdened Loan Officers
I feel for them and it’s tough and I know a couple of KIVA fellows on the road here who spend a great deal of time documenting the people who have received KIVA loans. But that support regarding business remains. You already complained about the high interest rates (needed to serve such small loans as explained above) – perhaps you would suggest higher rates to pay for more people?5. ” * According to a UN study, only 10% of micro-lending organizations are self-sufficient. The majority (including the Kiva partners I met with) rely on donations and subsidies to stay in business.”
Was anyone claiming otherwise..and again – more misleading data of mixing micro lenders generally and Kiva as a whole. From a funding point of view Kiva is all about soliciting private donations to help people living in poverty. Where possible, their partners also look for donations. I know for a fact that the Kiva fellows I mentioned are, as we speak, leafing through grant application details to try and find further funding. This is not a commercial bank. This is people lending money and creating a method of repayment and a system whereby the poorest sectors of society have access to credit.
Again..some thoughts from Kiva on this subject that you didn’t bother to check, link etc:
http://www.kiva.org/[…]/microfinance#10._Can_microfinance_be_profitable
6. “I found it amusing that most of the Kiva loan recipients I interviewed had never heard of Kiva.”
Oh how hilarious. Oh how you must have laughed. You’re enjoying this aren’t you? Not sure your amusement is well placed in an article on poverty but..anyway…laugh on. You have already mentioned their partners – they exist. The people who lend on the ground (like Ghape in Cameroon) are the ones who have the day to day dealings with the loanees. I have no idea why you would think otherwise.
***
Okay – so you say you are nervous about this entry. Not nervous enough because you have gone ahead and printed this without any real research and any real understanding of your subject matter.
Those Kiva fellows I mentioned – they paid to be here – young bright people who could be earning money but they paid their own money to come and work in a place that is not excactly the most glamourous. This is something that makes Kiva very different from most orgs. This is a real job of work (not awful mural painting voluntourism) with people with real skills and experience and still they are not drawing a wage so that Kiva can help more people. They start at 6am every day, as do all their colleagues and they work till it is dark. Those online details you mention – they struggle to upload them on ancient computers with snail paced internet links.
They travel daily on dangerous terrain and I know what makes it worthwhile for them is to see the support from the local people and the genuine gratitude for their help. And yes, the success stories too.
Recently I saw the GHAPE members marching on women’s day – a huge group of staff and borrowers who wanted to show their support to such an incredible organisation.
It’s very easy for “first time film maker Tori Hogan” to chance upon something that largely works and try and subvert it to get a few internet hits on her site (those six links) by trying to be overtly negative about such an incredible organisation.
And people who know Kiva know that, compared to the success rates of most development practices, it works as often as can possibly be expected.
I’m tired of this post “White man’s burden” backlash of people travelling the world pointing their fingers as saying..that doesn’t work, that doesn’t work.
Because a great amount of it does work – and if, as a result of it, people haven’t yet reached the levels that you judge to be “successful” then perhaps that says more about your western perspective and negative frame of mind.
Finally – I got here via a link on Twitter. Modern social media – this kind of stuff can be read around the world in several minutes. People read it – people cancel Kiva accounts, people living in poverty don’t get the credit and the chances they craved.
You did that. You did that based on anecdotal evidence, poor research and jumping to conclusions.
You know I really thought there might be something positive come out of the Pope’s visit to Cameroon – however already, all is lost:
Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.
“You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
And with that simple statement – thousands more will die. People will lose family members. Millions of pounds of NGO money is wasted and years of hard work by Cameroonians and visitors alike is wasted.
I am so angry but cannot find anything to write that is not stating the obvious. I hope these misguided words are seen for what they are and serve only to showcase the ignorance of the Vatican and further lessen the power they hold over people.
If you’re here you couldn’t fail to know that the Pope’s heading this way soon.
Not here in Bamenda obviously – not sure the Popemobile could deal with the roads, but he will be in the capital and ahead of his trip the Government has been doing some spring cleaning.
YAOUNDE, March 10 (Reuters) – Cameroonian security forces have smashed up the street stalls, where thousands of people earn a living, to give the capital Yaounde a face-lift for a visit by Pope Benedict next week.
The report continues:
“My 10 years of investments have been ruined. I don’t know now what to do to survive,” wailed Mariane Ngoupendji on Monday when she found her typing and printing shop reduced to rubble.
“Will the Pope’s visit replace what I’ve lost?” she said.
And:
“I saw gendarmes and police chasing after fellow Cameroonians, beating them up with such ferocity and smashing their goods,” said a Cameroon Telecommunications company worker, who watched from a third storey window as police cleared stalls near Avenue Kennedy on Saturday.
So far so horrible. I watched the story break on Twitter and there was plenty of coverage and condemnation. A new VSO intake were in town and saw much of the “clearance” going on. The Pope will arrive to a spring cleaned city – they arrived to one of ugly violence and intolerance.
You’d think it would be a hard job to defend the government on this one. But support for them comes from an unlikely source – a US missionary based in the capital.
He writes: (Post now removed by Impossible Missionary – see update below)
…even if these people were asked to leave, they would probably not do it anyway until they were forced to. So it’s easy to read an article and accuse the government of being so mean and nasty – which indeed could be very true, especially if the reports of police brutality are factual – but the vendors are not simply innocent bystanders in the whole process either.
He also refers to the stall holders as ignorant saying:
I’m glad that the city is getting a face-lift – it sure makes things look a lot nicer, and the big street lights make driving at night or trying to get a taxi along the main route so much easier and safer. But it’s sad that some of this clean-up has to mean the destruction of people’s way of life. Unfortunately, these people were simply ignorant, some willfully so, of the rules and are now facing the consequences.
Woah.
Street stalls are a way of life here. They are everywhere. It’s easy just to say they are illegal but they can be pretty solid structures. What’s more, if they are illegal I’d imagine that they have only been allowed to remain because someone, somewhere is taking a regular few thousands Francs in bribes.
People here struggle. You can bet these structures don’t turn over much and in a country where enterprise and entrepreneurship is so minimal…well what a way to reward it.
I ask you, if you are in general agreement with what I have written and also find the missionary’s take as ignorant as I do, to leave a comment. Not below but instead on the missionaries own blog. Go here.
Thank you.
Update 18/03/09: Our Impossible Missionary after posting something akin to an apology in his own comments box (you’ll also find it in mine), has decided simply to delete the post from his own website. Also, his apology has gone too. Anyone who knows anything about blogging will tell you that you live with your own mistakes and when you’ve messed up you don’t just press delete and pretend it didn’t happen. The home page of the IM’s blog is here.
On the side of that page he writes:
Whatever your hardship or affliction, bear up under it for the sake of the gospel.
I guess that doesn’t include comment box criticism – easier just to delete everything and pretend it never happened.
Elsewhere I particularly like this article on fasting – very relevant for Africa that one.
our man in cameroon 