High up the hillside beneath the imposing ramparts of ko-e-murgh
(literally mountain of nails) lies a school which serves the children of the
surrounding valleys. The high altitude and long winters mean the students only
attend classes for about seven months of the year. The terrain is difficult and limited
educational service provision leaves some of them walking three hours each way
if they are to get any schooling at all. Latrines for boys and girls have been
installed and a protected water source high on the mountain delivers pure, cold
water in great abundance to the campus. I filled my bottle direct from the tap
stand and drank with confidence – something I have rarely done in four years of
aid work and is surely the crucial test of faith in our work. Before Medair
started this project three years ago, children were regularly getting sick and
missing school because of waterborne diseases. Since the implementation of the
water, sanitation and hygiene programming (WASH in NGO jargon) diarrhoeal rates
have decreased and student health has improved. This is the kind of success
story that makes this work seem worthwhile – the vulnerable assisted in their
time of need and given hope for the future.
Further down the valley women and children hunch over an open drain
and scrub teapots, pans, plates, cutlery and glasses. The ditch runs down from
the mountain, along the road, through the village and then into the fields back
towards the stream from where the water it carries came from. It is open and
exposed to run-off from this route used by livestock, vehicles and people on
foot. The water is dirty and yet it is a popular place among local women and
girls for doing the dishes. Simply put, if clean, potable water is not used for
drinking and washing people get sick. The children at the school know this and
yet something has gone wrong here in a project which was supposed to serve the
school and this village from which some of the students come.
There is a tap stand less than twenty metres away but the source
was never protected at the head wall and the four hundred metres of sturdy
plastic pipe to ensure delivery of potable water to the holding tank was never
fitted. Consequently, dirty water from the ditch is used for washing up rather
than the much needed clean water. Clearly there was a failure to get the work
done and the community will have suffered as a result. That said, within the
population there is knowledge about good water practice and this ditch is not
their only option. A large percentage of the community would have also received
the same messaging as the school during this project on health and appropriate
water usage. Water can be boiled (one simple option but not the only one) and
there are local means and knowledge to create a good water source independently
of NGOs. While this situation reveals the inadequacies of humanitarian projects
there is also a question to be addressed about who takes responsibility for
WASH provision and good practice. Even when all the necessary information and
resources are available it does not follow that people will adopt new
behaviour. A disconnect exists in such contexts and communities clearly have
different priorities and motivations despite attempts at local collaboration.
Unfortunately this sorry tale and variations on this theme are not
that uncommon across the poorer nations of the world. You do not need to travel
far to see wells that do not function for lack of an easily available part,
even with a water management committee in place to maintain it. When you
enquire about why a water source has fallen into disrepair or observe poor
hygiene practice the response will invariably end up with requests for more
projects even though the evidence suggests little would change if another
project was implemented. During a project you may see changes in practice but
once the resources stop flowing into the community the trend appears to be that
people will return to their earlier habits. You could argue that there are deep
cultural and personal reasons for it but it could also be said that durable
results are rare and that behavioural change is very slow and may take
generations. Worse, if by engaging with such communities it actually
disempowers them and makes people dependent on outsiders then it could also be
argued that in the longer-term the relief sector is not helping. It is a deeply
unpopular but not original idea to suggest that doing nothing may be better.
Doing no harm is a central tenet in humanitarian work but the sector systematically
creates dynamics within societies which often seem to disenfranchise them from
ownership and responsibility for significant aspects of their lives. This is
where aid and development is akin to colonialism and the civilising mission
whereby it claims to be a redemptive intervention while trapping people in a
subservient condition.
The aid and development sector always bandies on about
accountability, integrity and compassion and uses images of the child with
distended belly or women doing dishes in ditches to engage them emotionally and
move them to give money. If the humanitarian sector really made the difference it claims to then perhaps this PR machinery would be
justified. The reality, however, is much more convoluted and deeply informed by
ideas of race, economic exploitation by the West and its militarism for
geo-political ends. This is not to undermine the good intentions of many aid
workers who dedicate their lives to serving the poor but to say that we are all
caught up in an industry which is; not accountable in any meaningful way; committed
to the status quo; and driven by powers which do not seek first the dignity and
interests of the people they claim to serve.
You would think clean water, latrines and hygiene training in
rural Afghanistan could never be a bad thing and, in and of themselves they are
not. But, writ large, what can be observed is a troubling development during at
least the past fifty years in its current form which bares an ugly resemblance
to aspects of Europe’s imperial past. Moreover, it is simply not bringing about
the change it seeks however noble or good the stated goals.
C’est la vie humanitaire.
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