Ratio Blog: Untold Hardships of the Poverty Industry?

Monday, 11 January 2010

The UN in Kenya protested bitterly against the decision to reclassify Nairobi from Level C to Level B, which translates into a loss in hardship allowances. A tough life. Perhaps not quite as tough as life in the IDP camps, though. Or in the famine or flood areas. Andrea’s weekly column for the (Nairobi) Star. Ah no, I thought, feeling a wave of sympathy washing over me. Poor guy. That must be so difficult. It’s such a harsh decision for all his poor people, especially in these challenging times. And as he is their leader, all their hopes and expectations now rest on his shoulders. What a burden that must be. I wonder if there is anything I could do to help? Should I contact Amnesty? Or perhaps organise a little harambee? (Thinking about it, there might be some synergies since I was already planning one for JKIA to buy a generator for its runway lights or whatever it takes to fix the problem and basically get it to behave like what the I and A in its acronym stand for: an international airport) Mau Forest? IDP camp? Well no, not quite: When looking through the newspapers, I had come across several pictures of UNEP’s Achim Steiner displaying a facial expression that was a judicious combination of concern, gravity and focus. Here was a man clearly rising to the challenge, determined to take action, to right wrongs: The UN’s International Civil Service Commission had reportedly decided to reclassify Nairobi from ‘quite scary and rather difficult’ to ‘slightly less scary and difficult’ or, in UN terminology, from Level C to Level B. What that really means is lower ‘hardship allowances’.  Not that they got much sympathy from my circle of friends: “My heart bleeds! How will they afford their Lamu furniture? How will they fly to the Mara? What hardship! There will be much gnashing of the teeth and rending of garments. I'd love to read their country reports on Kenya after this grave injustice ...” And also this: “I know, Andrea. I was trying to talk to personnel about what a pain trying to get a drink at Havana on a Thursday night has become. And don't get me started about swimming for the kids: only an indoor one can work. I mean, TIA, mosquitoes breed in the one outside, don't you think?” Now I like the idea of the UN in principle – I do have a sentimental, romantic side, don’t tell anyone. And I recognise that the UN, alongside all the other donor organisations, is doing really, really useful things for Kenya’s economic development and business in general: Push up real estate prices, provide a ready market for big four wheel drives, generate demand in a variety of industries, from hotels to airlines, restaurants, office supplies and prostitution (the latter promoting the informal sector, I guess). Paying taxes? Not so much. But let’s not quibble. I am also grateful to the aid industry for having gifted us such a wonderful parallel vocabulary that includes ‘facilitation’, ‘stakeholders’, ‘empowerment’, ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘sustainability’. And yes, being ‘on mission’ and ‘in the field’ must be exhausting, as must be collecting airmiles on the way to ever more workshops and conferences and producing more reports than you can shake a stick at. Thankfully Kenya is not quite as aid agency dominated as Uganda. If donors were to stage a wholesale departure from Uganda now–highly unlikely, since they have jobs, portfolios and a lengthy track record of support to the Ugandan government to defend -, Uganda’s formal economy would collapse. The country’s aid industry is a fat tail wagging a slightly malnourished dog. In Kenya, this is a little different, and that has been Kenya’s strength. It won’t be the aid agencies that will pull this region out of poverty: if that were so, there’d be a few more results to show after decades and billions spent. Aid agencies (and also NGOs) are all very emphatic about their mission to eradicate poverty – but if that actually happened, they’d be out of a job. This drive to survive and expand without the efficiency-inducing pressure of having to face a market is probably the reason why organizations like the UN turn into chunky bureaucracies. I have a lot of sympathy for people in business – 2009 was a tough year, and a banker friend said ‘Anyone who has survived 2009 has actually done well. But UN staffers? Stay in your parallel universe. Or get real. You’ve got a comfy package in the poverty industry already. If Gigiri and its smooth roads are too tough, if Nairobi with its shopping malls and cinemas and bars, its proximity to world class holiday destinations, is too much, maybe it’s time to move or find a new job. Maybe try the private sector here or elsewhere for a comparable or better package? But don’t moan about your hardship allowances when flood victims, famine victims or the displaced are still out on their own with some actual hardships and no allowance whatsoever.  Republished with kind permission from the (Nairobi) Star Share this article with others: