On the Subject of Sustainability

A discussion developed recently on Linkedin that caught my attention.  An organization was offering start-up grants ranging between $10,000 and $20,000.  One reader challenged the organization to increase the value of their grants, because no truly sustainable project could be funded by such small amounts of money.  A debate ensued about the meaning of sustainability and the appropriate methods for funding such projects.  While the necessary funding depends on the scale of your project, I think we are often deceived into believing that the more funding somehow equates to more sustainability—the bigger the better!  But, I don’t think this rule applies to development work.  In fact, I think this kind of perspective is often detrimental.

The core of a truly sustainable project is empowerment.  It’s not technology-enhancements, subsidized resources, loans, or hand-outs.  And I don’t believe any of these things lead to or facilitate empowerment.  They actually do quite the opposite.  They foster dependence, lack of confidence in one’s own knowledge or tradition, and complacency.  In addition to that, they are often the unnecessary things that bulk up a program’s budget.  It is not necessary to buy people things to empower them or develop them.  Often times, if it’s not something already obtainable to them, they won’t know how to use it anyway.  And more importantly, when it breaks or runs out, they won’t know how nor be able to fix or replace it.  All too often I have seen shiny, new solar panels crack and become storage shelves in peoples’ homes.  Subsidized fertilizer becomes someone’s new retail venture.  Broken or unused farm tools and computer parts are used as toys by children. 

Any development project looking to be successful (and which isn’t?) needs to assess the skill-sets and resources already within reach and educate the people in maximizing these potentials first.  When they have, a whole new set of potentials should arise, and the people will now have the skill-sets to go after them.  They will also be able to pass these skills on to their predecessors.  That is empowerment, and that is sustainable. It is not always very flashy, but it is effective and much lower in budget.

Placing Blame for the Doctors’ and Pharmacists’ Strike

                                                      A clinic in rural Nkwanta District.

To continue with the same theme as my last post, I’d like to discuss the current doctors’ and pharmacists’ strike.  Ghana is going on almost two weeks with no functioning physicians or pharmacies in the public hospitals—the primary healthcare providers in the nation.  This, for obvious reasons, is a very stressing circumstance for our citizens who rely on these institutions in times of emergency, as well as for day-to-day health concerns.  It is they who are undoubtedly suffering most from this strike.  And I wonder if either party, the government or the doctors, are truly concerned about this suffering.  And if they aren’t, than that is the true travesty.

There are definitely grounds for incriminating the government, much of which revolves around the single-spine salary structure that was implemented under Atta Mills.  I make this point objectively with no interest in aligning myself to any political party in Ghana.  This system was supposedly designed and implemented to create greater salary equality in the country.  It was proposed with a number of grand promises to make a more comfortable livelihood for all workers and to fix all of the salary issues faced by public servants in the past.  Such lofty promises require as much follow through, and that is where the government has failed in the first place.  As evidenced by this strike and the recent teachers’ strike, these promises have not been fulfilled.  In the second place, the government failed to shed light on both sides of the story.  They never publicly acknowledged that, while such a system would lead to salary increases for some public servants; it would simultaneously lead to salary decreases for other public servants.  For the purposes of this discussion, these other public servants are the doctors and pharmacists who expressed disinterest in being a part of the single-spine system from the outset.  Lastly, these decreases often come as a shock to the workers who don’t even realize they are going into effect until they receive their paychecks.  Those implementing the single-spine system sit down with the various labor groups (i.e. teachers, doctors, pharmacists, police officers, etc.) to enter into negotiations.  Both seem to walk away happy from these negotiations; but just a few months later, when the paychecks are received, we find ourselves in situations like the current strike.

Given the government’s actions, it’s understandable why the doctor’s would be frustrated.  However, I can’t help but wonder if their greatest concerns are not actually about their pay, but about the pay of their counterparts in other fields.  Those who stand to benefit most from this single-spine system are those who were formally paid least, which may be why we haven’t seen public servants in the police force, for example, moved to strike.  While their salaries are still smaller than the salaries of doctor’s, the margin between the two has definitely diminished.  I believe this may be root of the doctors’ frustration.  They have expressed concern since the introduction of the single-spine system about being paid similarly to those who may have failed out of school at the junior or senior high level (but who still qualify for the police force)—afraid that their hard work was being overlooked.  They have also used terms like “essential service” to describe their work as something unique and more valuable than the work of other public servants.  While they may be making some strong points, I don’t know that this perspective is justifiable.  Is it right to favor certain public servants over others?  Aren’t all positions necessary for our society to function?  The arguments become a little less clear under this light, and it becomes difficult to place blame.  In the meantime, it is our people who will pay the consequence.

We Don't Need Schools.

In light of the recent public school teachers’ strike in Ghana—a phenomena that has become far too regular in our country (practically annually), I wanted to discuss a couple of points that I feel are relevant and pressing in regards to our government’s ineffectiveness at dealing with the education of our future generations:

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• There are only enough jobs in the formal sector for 40% of our university graduates.  80% of our university graduates will turn to teaching in the public school system, despite the fact that they are often discouraged from doing so by Ghana Education Services; and even though they have no formal training in education. 

• The majority of Ghana’s public schools are staffed by unqualified teachers from the communities where the schools have been built.  Most of these teachers only have secondary school certificates and did not qualify for any tertiary institutions.  We often fondly refer to these people as ‘pupil teachers.’

•  A larger number of schools ‘operate’ without a single teacher.  Children actually put on their school uniforms, sit in their respective class rooms each day, and never once see a teacher. 

Now, I’m not claiming to know the exact solution that will save our public school system, but I do have a few questions that could lead us in a better direction than we are going now.

• If 80% of our university graduates are becoming teachers due to lack of employment opportunity, why aren’t we offering training for such work in our university programs?

• What are the teachers who were not able to pass the national exams themselves teaching to their students who are currently working to pass those same exams?

•   How can we spend resources on the construction of so many schools when there is not anyway these schools could possibly operate?

And, I have to wonder if government officials have ever asked these questions.  And if they have, how did they answer them, and what did they do about it?  I don’t want a government official, when he or she is running for re-election, to tell me how many school have been opened or constructed during his or her term.  I want to be told how many trained teachers were hired during their term.  I want to hear about how the teacher’s salaries have increased, how literacy has increased, or how admittances to tertiary institutions have gone up.  We don’t need schools.  We need effective educators.