NGO Graveyard

A crowded jumble of signs dominates the northern entrance to Baraka, like an overgrown graveyard for humanitarian actors whose work here has finished. The late afternoon sun paints these white memorials to UNHCR, ECHO, Oxfam and various others in an orange glow masking the rust streaks and badly faded letters. They stand testament to projects undertaken to save lives and relieve suffering in this war-torn village on the western shores of Lake Tanganyika. As I read the text and photograph the scene I can’t help wondering if this image captures the idealistic nature of aid work in profound ways. These monuments to justice and an end to suffering speak of a brighter future, but ten years on from the first interventions how real are those prospects? Whose dreams were they in the first place? Did locals cherish them about as much as these dilapidated signs suggest or has hope begun to set like today’s sun because it only ever existed like a false dawn which once promised so much? There are undoubtedly statistics and justifications for every well-meaning action taken and budget line spent, but really we must also ask how different are the baseline figures today compared with the days following the fighting, raping and looting which devastated Baraka’s its inhabitants before the outside world tried to help? So much of the project work undertaken does not take root in places like the Congo and others. Sure, any assistance will be embraced but it is more about a financial transaction than partnership which is locally owned and embraced as something of integral value. When the funding disappears and NGOs leave, the decline begins – training forgotten, best practice ignored, maintenance disregarded until people are living as they did before disaster struck. I’ve seen communities targeted for water and sanitation programmes receive tens of thousands of dollars in aid for wells, hygiene education and maintenance committees which were all realised. A few years later the wells are in disrepair, the latrines full, unused and people are drinking water direct from the lake. Much like a Congo that had functioning transport, industry and infrastructure (albeit on the back of Leopold’s heinous slavery) where barely an overgrown railway sleeper can be seen today, these humanitarian projects seem doomed to decline in the same way. Perhaps it’s simply better to do nothing (as some critics of development have argued) and allow people the freedom and responsibility to live their lives as they see fit. Some days it’s hard not to view people here as beneficiaries receiving unemployment cheques, dependent on aid rather than honestly tackling the challenges they face as a local community. Worst of all is the way they have been defined (by themselves as much as others) as victims in need of a handout. The loss of dignity and dehumanisation is shameful for all. I suspect international NGOs, just like the colonists who abandoned this country fifty years ago, are taking away a lot more than they are giving.