RESPECT Intellectual Club

Please visit this link to watch a video about the RESPECT Intellectual Club (RIC) at the Buduburam Refugee Settlement in Ghana:


http://www.goodevidence.com/the-evidence/respect-ghana/

RESPECT is an international organization concerned with refugee education, raising awareness and encouraging action on refugee issues globally and locally, and making connections between non-refugee and refugee students. One of the organization’s associates, RESPECT Ghana, supports Liberian refugees both on and off the Buduburum refugee camp in Accra, Ghana.

Within the refugee camp showcased in this video, RESPECT Ghana fosters an environment of self-respect and dignity through their Smart Kids Program, an intellectual club, competitive sports teams and challenging extracurricular programs for grade and high school students. RESPECT Ghana focuses on integrating refugees into the wider Ghanaian society and changing traditional assumptions and patterns in the way refugee camps are run. In teaching respect for humanity, the environment and one’s self, RESPECT Ghana seeks to provide education, self-agency and support to reduce the harmful impacts that forced migration has upon young people.

Get involved!

RESPECT Ghana: The first step is to understand refugees are not a threat, but are themselves threatened, and they need help and protection. Refugees are ordinary people who could well be an asset to your community.

• You, along with other members of the public, can encourage governments to adopt policies at home and abroad that help refugees find peace and safety.
• You can also support RESPECT Ghana financially through donations and providing International Reply Coupons for Our Global Letter Exchange Programs in schools across the world.
• Your ideas and information as well as proposals for projects or educational materials for refugees can be a useful resource for the Liberian refugee community we serve.
• Individuals and organization willing to partner with RESPECT Ghana and help make its dreams and plans become a reality, should not hesitate to contact the Country Coordinator or the International coordinator.
• (be sure to visit Respect's website for further details)http://www.goodevidence.com/the-evidence/respect-ghana/

Pre-Departure Reflections: A Look at the Years Behind

                                  
RESPECT Intellectual Club, Meeting before I left Ghana

Time went bye so fast. I can still remember when I first landed on JFK International Airport in New York City on December 12 2006 before boarding a connection flight to Providence, Rhode Island where I was met by my mother and two staff members of the Lutheran Immigrants and Refugee Services (LIRS). LIRS was the resettlement agency that assisted my mother in processing my travel to the US from Ghana. I can still remember when I saw my mother after 14 years of separation how being reunited with someone you love so dearly can be. I still remember walking down the streets of the City of Worcester visiting the offices of Social Security Administration, Department of Transitional Assistant, Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles and other state and local agencies trying to find my way through these system. I still remember it was during the winter, falling as I walked to those offices. I remembered after a about 3 weeks I received my employment authorization card from the Department of Homeland Security followed by my SSN and card as well as my State ID. These processes took lots of thinking and frustrations most especially when you are not familiar with the system. However, as it went I was able to receive my documents and started to looking for job.


It was a difficult process most especially coming to the US during the winter after years living in a tropical climate like that of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. It was really hard for me to get use to the winter and to be sincere and frank with you it is still hard for me to this day. I like the winter, but not when the temperatures are in the single digits or below zero. It becomes really challenging and difficult for me. I usually suffer enter frequent headaches and bloody nose during most of the coldest periods of the winter. However, it's a good experience.


I still remembered getting my first job as instructional assistant at the Worcester Public Schools. Its turns out that my teaching experience in Ghana is going to be very instrumental in my new life in the US. I started working as a teacher assistant on February 2, 2007; that is, I started working just about two months in the US. That was a good thing. I received assistance both financial and food stamps from the department of transitional assistants (DTA) for about 6 months when I first arrived in Worcester. These assistance were cancelled in the 7th month stay in the US on grounds that I was making enough money from my current job as a teacher assistant and I was no longer qualified for such assistance. It made really good sense. I wasn't moved and I never wanted to keep receiving these aids anyways. I wanted to make new life as independent as possible and also help others as much as I can be helped by others.


Overall, I was able to understand the system so quickly that within the first 7 months in the US I applied to become a permanent resident and within those 7 months I received my Green Card. It was such an amazing experience to be able to navigate through the system with no assistance from my resettlement agency or anyone else for that matter. I process my application and submitted the appropriate documentations needed and within just 7 months I got my status changed to Permanent Residence. It was such an experience. One I never ever thought I could have done all by myself. It was also educational and it made me to generate the needed skills to also help my mother and niece and other refugees with their paperwork. This may sound as easy as you think, but these processes requires lots of time, patience, endurance and commitment on your part. If you want something go for it. Just don't do anything out of the usual that will risk your chances in the process. Live and obey the laws and all will be okay with you.


I could write an entire full blog with just every little information about my experiences thus far, but I will just like to summarize. I just want to say that it has been an interesting 4+ years for me. A lot has been done and these were only possible because of the good people of this City (Worcester). Within the 8th month of my arrival I started taking classes at Worcester State University where I graduated from 2010 with a degree in Sociology and Geography. I worked with several local organizations and agencies in different areas of specializations. I volunteered in assist newly arrive refugees integrate within the City of Worcester and also volunteer as a mentor for the community-based organization that seeks to assist refugee students within the Worcester Public School systems bridge the gaps in their educational experience. I am currently pursuing a Master degree in International Development and Social Change at Clark University where I am also currently working as a Graduate Student Career Research Assistant a position that I started in April 2011. 


At Clark University, I was able to receive funding from the Compton Foundation to conduct a research in Ghana. The post on this blog will not be related to my study, but it will only reflect my personal experiences at the refugee camp where I once lived for 11 years and my experience and travel in Ghana generally. Please visit this blog as frequent as you can, because I will keep posting information here as I go through.

What’s Wrong with Micro-Finance?: A Book Report

Edited by Thomas Dichter and Malcolm Harper

The idea of microfinance has been in existence for about six decades even before the ideology of development could be thought off.  Microcredit first kicked off momentum after the 1997 Microcredit Summit in Washington, D.C. and the concept reached its peak in 2005 and 2006. The United Nations declared 2005 as the year of Microcredit and the micro finance scheme became well known in 1983 when Mohamed Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize. This led to a change in the perception how microcredit is been viewed and conceptualize by the world; that is, the poor were now seeing as major entrepreneurs, who have the needed skills and expertise in business, but needed financial resources to initiate and jump start their own businesses. At the core of the micro-finance ventures, the poor are considered people who when provided with the right financial resources are able to removed themselves from the cradles of poverty.

The purpose of the book "What's Wrong with Microfinance?" is aim at policy makers, politicians and money philanthropists who have enthusiasts in the view that microfinance is one of the effective means of eliminating poverty in the world’s poorest regions. Another goal of the book is to re-examine the microfinance revolution and see how to delimit the growing expectations that are currently clouding the minds of development practitioners and those benefiting from the micro-finance scheme. It contains articles written by 22 authors in diverse fields related to microfinance and whose combined professional experiences account to about 300 years of specialty in microcredit and micro-finance.

The editors and authors talked about the issue of over-inflated expectations that are clouding the microfinance arena and how that has to be systematically addressed to be able to meet the needs of those who would benefit from such scheme. If these over-inflated assumptions are not addressed appropriately, this may likely result in more harm than good. The evolution of microfinance was a gradual and systematic process that evolved over time starting in the 1950s through the early 1970s. Development endeavors during this stage focused specifically bridging the gaps between the developed and the developing world by focusing on the issues of replication and imitation by developing countries based on the successes and weaknesses of the developed countries. As such, the introduction of direct aid in development agenda shifted the need to reconsider how development apparatus function and thus give birth to the introduction of ‘micro enterprises.’ In the 1970s, the progress of supplying capital to small-scale business entrepreneurs prepared the foundation upon which microfinance emerged. The term “informed sector” coined by Hans Singer in the International Labour Organization’s report in 1972 paved the way in the 1980s for the progressive, rapid growth and development of the microfinance scheme in the development agenda.

This led to a development paradigm shift in the target audience of funding for micro-finance ventures, because poor people were willing to engage in productive projects with funding they received. At a meeting in Washington, D.C. in 1988, it was suggested and debated that Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) considering their scope of operation and proximity to the targeted population were best fit for initiating funding for poor communities to engage in microfinance ventures than the banks and governments because they claimed that these banks and international financial institutions could not reach the poor people effectively and efficiently. As a result of this process, a new financial atmosphere emerged and developed, which led to the establishment of the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) responsible for coordinating the processes of getting funding opportunities for poor to engage in micro-business schemes. This led to the widespread establishment of diverse institutions responsible for making sure that poor people had access to financial resources.

The issues associated with why formal financial institutions such as banks did not lend money to the poor people is their inability to provide collateral and this issue became the discussion among the new leaders in the microfinance sphere. Discussions among the new microfinance institutions were centered on what could potentially replace the gaps in providing collateral by the poor in order to receive funding for their micro-projects. Several questions were raised to see how effective this new scheme could be in addressing the needs of the poor and these questions give rise to new ideologies one of which states that “women became the main clientele, because they are better repayers and they invest in their families welfare then men. This change in paradigm led to the development of several strategies that are geared towards microfinance lending to the poor and this gradually attracted the view and interest of the World Bank, which provided funding and research opportunities to engage in new approaches to enhance the delivery of micro-finance funds.

Nevertheless, as the scheme took shape on the local and global landscape, some malfunctions started to emerge in terms of its operations and efficiencies. Institutions became to be distracted from the core principles of microfinance; that is, providing financial assistance to the poor to being more business-minded and the need to become financially successful clouded their agenda and this led to the failures of the microfinance. Long on its table is the current and long debate between two relatively old schools of thoughts; that is, the issues of outreach versus sustainability on one hand and the issues of subsidizing microfinance versus commercially viable microfinance became the form. Other equally important questions surfaced in the debate relative to microfinance and that repayments rates were high, but these debates and questions did not prevent the microfinance field from expanding exponentially, receiving more growth in operators and funders.

Micro-Finance: A Reflective Essay

Micro-finance, Gender and Neoliberalism

     Micro-finance, Gender and Neoliberalism are some of the most important subjects in development today. Over the years, microfinance has long been considered as an instrument of development through which the provision of micro-loans to communities is considered to be unworthy of credit by the traditional financial institutions. The idea of microfinance has been in existence for about six decades even before the ideology of development could be thought off.  Microcredit first built momentum after the 1997 Microcredit Summit in Washington, D.C. and the concept reached its peak in 2005 and 2006. The United Nations declared 2005 as the year of Microcredit and micro-credit also became well known in 1983 when Mohamed Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize. This led to a change in the perception as to how microcredit is been viewed by the world; that is, the poor were now seeing as major entrepreneurs, who have the needed skills and expertise in business, but needed financial resources to initiate their own businesses. This led paradigm shift on how microcredit is been viewed by the world; that is, the poor were now seeing as major entrepreneurs, who have the needed skills and expertise in business, but needed financial resources to initiate their own businesses. At the core of microfinance ventures, the poor are now seen as people who when provided with the right financial resources  and technical support are able to removed themselves from the dumpster of poverty.

Microfinance is the provision of financial services, which include credit, technical assistance, savings and insurance to the “entrepreneurial poor”[1]  In this class, we learned the historical, developmental, operational, and methodological perspective of microfinance paradigm in development discourse and how that process developed over the last few decades providing microloans or credits to the rural poor that have been marginalized regular financial system. In this course we also learned that at the very core of microfinance are microfinance financial institutions (MFIs), which provide technical and financial services to rural and urban poor in both developed and developing nations. It is understood that while microfinance seeks to bridge the gap between the poor and the wealthy it also seeks to target a specific demographic population and in this case women most specially those that work in the informal sector who end up been marginalized and undocumented by the formal financial systems.

Over the years, microfinance through different techniques and strategies have achieved significant progress towards its overall goal; that is, the provision of financial capital to the poor especially women to engage in economic activities as well as enrich their own lives and the lives of those in their respective localities. However, this claim of the successes of microfinance ventures has been met with several critiques. Notwithstanding, these criticisms have yet to provide significant alternative in meeting the financial needs of the poor especially women and children who have been marginalized by the formal financial institutions.

           During the course, we explored the discourse of microfinance as a “development apparatus” from different but interrelated units of community engagements in development. These units of community engagement in development were divided into seven (7) sub-fields from which students’ groups researched, held groups’ meetings, developed annotated bibliographies on those topics, developed a strategic plan on how to carried out such project and also presented their work to the class. This process was engaging, because students took the lead in their educational processes and developed the needed skills necessary in developing and implementing a micro-finance project that is geared towards economic empowerment of the poor especially women and young adults in poor urban and rural settings.

         As stated in the preceding paragraph, micro-finance, gender and Neoliberalism was broken into seven distinct, but interrelated development project areas and these included: poverty alleviation, empowerment, micro-health insurance, housing, monitoring and evaluation, food security, alternative energy, climate change and post-conflict and post disaster. The next section of this paper will present reflections on our group work as well as presentations and strategic plans proposed by other students in the class in addressing the specific topic of their micro-finance development project.

Poverty Alleviation

        According to the United Nations (UN), poverty is defined as a condition that is characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, such as food, clean and safe drinking water, and sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and access to information. It is also noted that poverty is not limited to only access to financial resources, but also access to appropriate services and resources. Poverty on the global stage can be categorized under two main headings; that is, absolute and relative poverty. Absolute poverty can be classified as objective poverty or living standards. Relative poverty on the other hand by comparison between families or one individual against the other. This form of poverty is usually subjective in nature is susceptible to problems. According to the US Census 2010 it measures 48 potential poverty thresholds of which every individual or family member are classified. It is said that if families’ income is lower than that which is defined by their appropriate threshold they are considered to be poor. Internationally, the poverty line is $1.00 a day and in 2005 and 2008 this category was revised to $1.25 per day. In the United States however, the poverty line is around $11,161.00 a day for a single person under 65 years of age and about $21,756.00 for a family between 2-4 individuals.

          Socially, people are classified as poor because of their lack of access to resources and this include pregnant women who cannot afford prehealthcare, education and bureaucracy. Crisis risks that confront the poor centers around death and illnesses of close relatives and friends, natural disasters, fire and accidents as well as theft, robberies and other unexpected shocks. Life-cycle risk includes age, socio-cultural environment and prolongs illness. The group also presented some significant facts about poverty in India, a country in Southern Asia that was used as their case study. It is stated that economic problems in India are intensified by inflation, poor educational standards, and poor infrastructure, balance of payments deterioration, high levels of foreign and domestic debts, increase inequality, large budget deficit and rigid labor laws. The group proposed that the tools for poverty alleviation in India are building assets, mitigating risks and reducing vulnerability.

           Notwithstanding, the group proposed some significant microfinance tools that could be used by India in the process of alleviating poverty among the poor. These microfinance poverty alleviation tools include but are not limited to increasing the income of the poor and broaden their assets base, diversification of the sources of income and the establishment of insurance mechanisms to make sure that the poor can have access to these resources. It is also estimated that in India MFIs gross loan portfolio in USD account for about 4.4 billion as of 2009 and of which about 27 million individuals are active borrowers. It is also asserted that the average loan size is $144.40 and initial deposits in USD are around 204.9 million. Almost the top ten micro-finance institutions in India SKS Microfinance Ltd, Spandana Sphoorty Financial Ltd, and Share Microfin Ltd are the predominant microfinance institutions in the country among the top three.

           In the process of poverty alleviation, microfinance institutions in India and the world over have developed and implemented different microfinance models. Each of these models of region specific; that is, one model has to be tested based on the demographic characteristics of the targeted population of that region. These proposed microfinance models include individual model, group lending, and partnership or intermediaries’ model. The most commonly practiced microfinance model used in India is the Selp-Help Group model and Joint Liability Group/Grameen Model. Each of these models have yield different results, but there are still criticisms that these models still robes off the earnings of the poor which end of profiteering at the expense of the poor.

            The strategic plan on the page 5 details that group conceptual framework in implementing micro-finance initiatives that will reduce the levels of poverty in India. The conceptual framework divides the services of the micro-finance project into non-interest based source funding and interest based source of funding and how that process interplay with poverty alleviation in India. Another aspect of their strategic plan that needs to be pointed out here is that partnership in healthcare and education. This is significant because the micro-finance institution by itself cannot solve India’s problem, but will rather need to network in partnership with other institutions to achieve this goal.

Empowerment

       This group presented their work on microfinance and empowerment with the motto “Let’s Empower and Develop” (LEAD). The vision of their work is to strive for effective microfinance institution to create endless opportunities for disenfranchised women throughout the world social and economical empowerment. The mission of their work is to empower women in rural villages in India by providing them with small loans. The goals of their project is to link women to existing services and infrastructure, build information networks, increase women’s economic activities and set up large programs to enable funding from international donors as well as develop sustainable livelihoods, community development and social services and at the same time increase women’s contribution to household income. Empowerment was defined in their work as a “process by which individuals’ and groups gain power, access to resources and control over their own lives thereby gaining the ability to achieve their highest personal potential and collective aspirations and goals. Chart 1:2 shows the links between microfinance initiative and women empowerment and how that has led to economic growth. The chart also demonstrates that woman’s decision making capacities can be enhanced and improved if they have access to financial resources in which they can also have a saying in the family decision-making process and also contribute to the larger community.

The group also proposed five essential steps that are relevant in the process of implementing the micro-finance framework for women empowerment and this process include training, facilitation, advocacy, illumination and liberation which is the final stage of the general framework. However, they also proposed several steps in reaching these essential steps and those include taking stocks, setting goals, developing strategies and documenting processes.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Microfinance

         The presenters assert that microfinance which understands the economic activities of women and knowing the difficulties they are in can help to empower women. Building the empowerment focus in to the microfinance project or program also can help to empower women. Moreover, concentrate in empowerment will lead the microfinance lenders maintain high levels of operational and financial sustainability. However, focusing on women’s empowerment limits microfinance lenders to access funds from bilateral and multilateral donor agencies. They also point out that microfinance impacts the decision making of women for their lives and their families. Microfinance also makes women more confident in lives and improves their status and gender relation in their homes.

Furthermore, microfinance can improve women’s family relationship and reduce domestic violence. In addition, microfinance improves women’s status and involvement in their communities. In political pint of view, microfinance can help to enhance women’s rights. Besides, they also portrays some negative impacts limitation to empowerment of microfinance such as controlling of loans, burden that microfinance activities place on women.

For example in Rural India the focal point with a particular survey of 6000 people with the aim to analyze the access poor people have to finance and the reasons behind it. There is a discussion surrounding the Self Help Group linkage model (SHG) and the various pros and cons that are associated with the model. Also there is a focus on the need to ‘scale up’ the approach so that more poor will be reached and have access to microfinance.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of microfinance initiatives are relevant in checking the “bottom line” of development work; that is, checking to see if the MFI making a profit and what difference is that process creating? It is only through M&E that we are able to review our progress and make significant changes to our projects for desire outcomes. We are also able to identify problems and challenges through M&E during the planning and implementation stages. Through this process we make adjustments to on-going projects and future projects to minimize shortages or risks. It is essential to conduct M&E because it allows us to determine if we are reaching our objectives or not, review progress, makes assertion about our methodology, improve best practices and document credibility and legitimacy of programs’ objectives and scope.

         In order to conduct an effective M&E for microfinance initiative, there are some relevant questions that need to be asked during the M&E process and they include whether or not the program is gender sensitive, how is it addressing issues of a specific community, what is the host environment of the relevant MFIs, how many jobs have been created, what is the relationship to the local environment in which the project is been implemented, how open is the program to others, how accessible is it to members of the community, are the goals and objectives been met? These are some of the many questions that need to be asked during the M&E processes.

It should however be noted that monitoring and evaluation is an on-going process of the MFIs. It could be quarterly or done at the end of the year. The decision as to when to conduct the process is organizational specific and also depends on other factors. It must be a part of an organizational strategic plan. The M&E process include impact assessment, learning and action, empowerment, utilization and Meta Evaluation. All IAs have a conceptual framework at their heart. There are three main elements to a concept framework:  A model of the impact chain that the study is to examine, the specification of the units, of levels, at which impacts are assessed, and the specification of the types of impact that are to be assessed.

 Microfinance for Housing

This group presented their research on micro-finance for housing and looked at specific references to MFH in Ghana, Afghanistan and India. They presented a specific model of housing micro-finance as a model for improving housing units for poor people. They are also presented information on the scope and objectives of micro-finance for housing initiatives, which are aim at providing affordable housing units for poor people, loans to purchase land and provision of technical support in the process of attaining the right legal documentation for their land.

This presentation explored the issues of providing finance to individuals and families who can’t afford the current global crisis with the increase in mortgage finance for their homes. It is “estimated that about one-sixth of humanity-1 billion- currently lives in slums.” Thus, the need to provide microfinance availability to individuals and families for housing is the focus of the study. Microfinance is a tool that can be used in reaching this goal, which developed over several decades ago. In most cases, microfinance loans and enterprises were used explicitly for financing housing, but there were no framework and structure for microfinance for housing (MFH). Microfinance for Housing has two parents’ initiatives and these are: “microfinance institutions and group advocating and supporting low income housing.” Microfinance for Housing (MFH) first started in Latin and Central America and spread throughout the world. 

MFH is a subset of microfinance, which is designed to meet the housing needs of the poor, especially those without access to the banking sector or formal mortgage loans. It is strategically designed for low-income households who wish to expand or improve their dwellings, or to build a home in incremental steps, relying on sequential small loans.

The above conceptual framework provides a detail of how micro-finance for housing can be developed and implemented to yield potential results. According to this model, micro-finance for housing products includes housing construction, housing improvement, land acquisition. The legal aspects include lending requirements, beneficiaries profile, relevant government policies, norms and procedures. The repayment factors include technical assistance, loan disbarment, repayment records, and interest rate; while, the institutional factors include organizational structure, funds mobilization and actors.

Microfinance in Post-Disaster Haiti

This group presented on how micro-finance can be used as a development tool in post-disaster settings. Plagued by tropical storms, floods, and hurricanes, Haiti has a long history of struggling with Mother Nature. Every two years, and sometimes more often than that, the country is inevitably struck by a serious natural catastrophe.  On January 12, 2010, Haiti was devastated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The quake took the lives of 222,570 people, left over 1,000,000 homeless, and destroyed most public service buildings, ranging from schools to hospitals to the presidential palace. The country was devastated by the historic earthquake.

Haiti currently has over about 196 formal micro-finance institutions yet the poverty rate in the country remain very high and it is even increasing at a fast pace. A total of about 240,000 Haitian are involved in some kind of micro-finance initiative from one or more of the above MFIs lenders. The credit portfolio of MFIs in Haiti is around 82% petty commerce, 5% services, 4% consumption and 4% housing.

Most Haitian like any other citizens of developing countries that were stroke by natural or human–made disaster cannot be qualified to get loan from the formal financial sector, thus their peculiar situation to rely on MFIs for the needed microcredit or loan to engage in some sort of micro-business.

The Staircase Model-Haiti

The model helps clients to gradually climb up the stairs as they build their micro-loan portfolio by taking loans and paying off the loans on time. This model was developed in response to the earthquake and they have scaled up the first two steps as a direct response in order to expand and retain our clientele, bolstered by our cash grants It was impossible to continue with our group lending focus Scaled down the staircase model to focus on individual grants to circumvent the problem.

Microfinance for Health Insurance

This group presented on microfinance for health insurance and look specifically at micro-health insurance. Microfinance for health insurance can be defined as the protection of low-income people against specific perils in exchange for regular premium payments proportionate to the likelihood and cost of the risk involved and they specifically looked at full service approach to coverage, partner agent linkages and social health insurance.

There is a link between microfinance and health insurance and this is such that low-income people do not have access to private health insurance plans for a variety of reasons. The provision of microfinance health insurance coverage and services to the poor has the potential to decrease risks associated with health shocks, smooth consumption patterns, and increase savings as well as improving their overall health.

 Full Service Model

This group also focused their work on Nepal as a case and recommends that in order for the health needs of the poor people to be address the “Full Service Model” is essential towards that direction considering the country’s history, geography and sociopolitical climate. This model involves MFIs having a dual role in the process of providing healthcare and running the insurance process.

Social Health Insurance Model

They also recommended that considering the status of the poor people in Nepal the social health insurance model is the ideal strategy, because government run; price-scaling system. This process will ensure economic security which will involve the payment of higher premium and poor pay low-premium.

The Partner Model

This model will involve other national and international actors in the process of providing microfinance health insurance coverage to rural and urban poor people. By this process, the cost of the services will be shared by all major players and not only rest on the MFIs.

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[1] Fernando, Jude (2011). “Course Description of Microfinance, Gender and Neoliberalism.” Spring 2011.

Project Management: A Personal Perspective

In January 2004 I established the Sustainable Agricultural Program for Liberia (SAP-Liberia) a non-profit, community-based organization in Liberia to address the felt needs of returnees and internally displaced people created as a result of the fourteen (14) years civil crisis. I decided to establish this local community-based organization, because I believe that grassroots community-based approach to development, which encourage and promote local participation, is an effective way of engaging a community in the process of addressing their own problems. The organization was established with the purpose of rendering services at the frontline of community-based recovery developmental programs without discrimination to race, gender, ethnicity, religion, culture, and political affiliation. SAP-Liberia seeks to achieve the above stated purpose by collaborating with local institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), schools and religious organization as well as international agencies such as the Germen Technical Cooperation (GTZ), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Government of Liberia in implementing the below listed goals: to engage in sustainable agricultural programs; promote environmental conservation; engage in sanitation programs; participate in the rehabilitation and construction of roads and bridges; facilitate the process of formal, non-formal and informal skills training programs; renovate and construct  public facilities that were damaged as a result of the civil war; collaborate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the repatriation, resettlement, and reintegration process of returnees; to promote and participate in the distribution of relief items (food and non-food items) to returnees and internally displaced people and to encourage academic research in the areas of social change, environmental sustainability and education .

As a result of this project, SAP-Liberia is one of the well-known community-based organizations located in the Southeastern of Liberia that is touching and rebuilding the lives of internally displaced people, returnees and refugees from the Ivory Coast. A total of ten community based vegetable crops production sites were established throughout the City of Zwedru by local farmers who participated in our micro-agricultural loan initiative funded by the United Nations Development Programs. Please see enclosed project brochure for more details on current projects. SAP- Liberia also trains teachers in local primary, junior and senior schools through partnership with the Ministry of Education of Liberia and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). To date, a total of 50 teachers in have been trained in effective teaching strategies, lesson plan formation and classroom management techniques.

Personally, I learned a lot not only from this project, but also from my previous experiences working in Ghana at the Buduburam refugee camp with RESPECT Ghana a non-profit, community-based organization as the Program Coordinator and as the one time representative selected by local organizations at the camp to be a part of the UNHCR and Ghana Refugee Board (GRB) annual meetings to discuss development issues confronting refugees in Ghana.

Throughout my work as a development agent in Ghana and Liberia, I came to the realization that in order for development to be efficient and effective in achieving its goals the holistic participation of the local community in project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation is paramount to its successes and failures. Development projects based on my previous experiences should take the bottom up approach as oppose to the conventional approach of project formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation which tend to ignore local participation and belief systems. When the local community is fully involve in the project development process as well as implementation and evaluation they tend to take ownership of the project and that minimize the possibilities of failures.

The Fundamentals of Economics for International Development is a course that not only exposed the economic aspects of development initiatives and theories or frameworks that shaped these initiatives, but it also created a new ideology in my perception as to how development projects should be carried out in developing countries so as to achieve sustainable livelihoods and create economic stability for individuals, communities and the nation at large. My quest to learn and understand how international development theories are formulated and the discourses associated with these theoretical frameworks was significantly shaped by this course and other courses most especially Development Theory with Dr. Ellen Foley.

This section of my paper provides an overview of what I have learned and understood throughout this semester in relations to International development theories and how that has changed from my previous understandings of how development is carried out and how I anticipate to use these theories and concept in the construction and implementation of development agenda in meeting the felt and real needs of communities that I will be working with as development practitioner and agent of social change. Throughout this course, I have come to the realization that development or “international development” as we know it to be has failed to bridge the gap between poor and rich countries. It has failed to break the barriers between the “West” holding about 80% of the world’s wealth with only 20% of the world’s population and the “Rest” holding 20% of the world’s wealth with about 80% of the world’s population.

I learned how Development discourses shape the way in which development projects and initiatives are implemented and how those discourses are Eurocentric in their scopes and operations alienating local knowledge, belief systems and traditions, which significantly contributes to their failures. The concept of an alternative development as a possible option for replacing development discourse to me is possible if and only if these alternative forms of development acknowledge local knowledge, belief systems and traditions and encourage the local participation of community members and community-based organizations. Participatory grassroots development strategies to me are the best forms of discourse that will be effective in addressing local needs of the targeted population in developing countries.

The Term "Africa" at a Crossroads of Misconceptions and Reality?

To some, the term Africa is at the crossroads of becoming a "single country" among university and college students in the US and other western countries as oppose to a continent with 52 distinct countries with culturally different peoples, languages, governments, geography, and economies.

To some Africa is considered Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, surprisingly enough Iraq and Afghanistan and most recently ebola...what a bumber! This is partly due to the fact that what makes the headlines for that day, week or even month constitutes the definition of Africa among western university students. Yet to others the word "Africa" can be associated with their travel plans even though they might be traveling to a single country that is part of a huge, diverse, geographically different area.

We usually hear statements on diverse social, political, economic, development, tourism, and other issues such as "in Africa" this is like that, or "when I was in Africa" or something like "ebola in West Africa is sporadic." I experienced that or you sometime hear "people in Africa" speak lot of difference languages. These are just few cases. I think you get the bigger picture here.

Now, what is responsible for this naivism among western students about referencing Africa as a single country even though their discussions or experiences may be associated with just a fraction of the entire continent? Is it that their secondary educational systems do not focus too much on learning geography to be able to distinguish that Africa is a continent of 52 countries? Or could it be that most of these western students are using the term "Africa" to mean a single country out of the love to see the continent as the United States? Well, the fact is and will always be that those thinkers who felt that Africa could be well governed under the banner of the "United States of Africa" are all dead, primarily their deaths were facilitated by detractors from the west who felt that Africa, if united would put their national security interests at stake? Sounds familiar. Yes, it does because we all know that most of the world's natural resources are not manufactured into usable goods on the continent, but are exported abroad, processed and resold  back to them are significantly huge prices (the development nightmare). So, if Ivory Coast (one of the world's largest producer cocoa), Ghana (Gold), Congo DRC (diamond & minerals), Liberia (used to be rubber, but now timber), Guinea (bauxite), etc. Or are they just using the word out of just total ignorance? Well, the answer to these questions remain unclear.

Fortunately for us, we still have a small proportion of western university students that use the word "Africa" in its appropriate context specifically stating their experiences in individual countries on the continent. I was fortunate enough to have share courses at the department of International Development, Community, and Environment (IDCE) here at Clark University with few of these domestic students. An example of the misappropriate use of the word "Africa" to be considered as a single country or even a fraction of the continent (either West, South, East, Central or North Africa) was highlighted at the 2011 Undergraduate Clark University Gala held few years ago.

I must first applaud the excellent performances of the team that represented a "fraction of Africa" portrayed in the music and dance. In the issue of "The Scarlet: The Student Newspaper of Clark University" that followed after the event it was stated that their performances represented "Africa." In this case, the issue referenced the performance to be a totality of African cultures, music and dance, which I can state is misleading and did not appropriately represented the continent. This is because the music that were played and the dances that were performed are from South Africa (the country not Southern Africa), and mostly Ivory Coast and Ghana. Now, so how could this very little fraction of Clark's students performance at the 2011 Gala capture in just three countries represented in their music and dance the totality of African music and dance? You could say, well, you are just making a deal of this thing. Well, it is a deal because this mentality resonates into behaviors that are acted upon and if these misconceptions aren't address at the undergraduate and graduate levels, they would translate into policy construction in the future by those of today.

It will make the world a better place if we explicitly state our experiences about issues in Africa in context with specific countries and region on the "mother continent" and stop generalizing issues.

Liberian Student Seeks to Empower Refugees Through Education

Much like fellow students at Clark University in Worcester, MA, Jenkins Macedo (pictured right) spends most of his time attending class, completing research projects, and studying.  But what makes the 24-year-old graduate student stand apart from most of his classmates is his past: He spent 14 years living as a refugee in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. 

That’s why instead of going to parties and other social events, like many college and graduate students do in their free time, Macedo dedicates his spare hours to working with local youth, volunteering, giving lectures on the importance of diversity, blogging about social and economic change, and otherwise doing his part to make this world a better place.  He is especially passionate about protecting the rights of refugees, a cause that’s very near and dear to his heart. 

“As a refugee myself, I have decided to devote my life to creating awareness about refugee issues and creating change in the process,” he said.  He is collecting educational materials to send to African countries affected by war.  His goal is to open community resource centers in Liberia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Ghana, which would give local residents, schools, and community workers access to textbooks, computers, Internet, printers, scanners, and fax machines.  He believes that making education accessible to refugees would drastically improve their quality of life and prospects for the future.  

Macedo attributes his passion for education to his mother, who single-handedly raised her five children.  “My mother didn’t complete middle school” he said.  “But she fought hard to make sure that all her children got the education she didn’t receive.”  

Childhood interrupted by war

Growing up in Zwedru, a town in Grand Gedeh County in southeast Liberia, Macedo and his siblings attended a local Catholic school.  His favorite after-school activity—apart from soccer!—was helping tend the gardens in the back of the guest house for the European Economic Community in Zwedru, where his mother worked as a manager.  He didn’t know it at the time, but his love of gardening would help him survive during one of the toughest periods of his life. 

When not gardening, Macedo could be found fishing or playing soccer.  He remembers his friends and family always sharing meals, eating with their hands from a large, communal dish.  “It’s not that we didn’t have spoons or forks to eat with,” he explained.  “But we felt connected to nature when we ate with our hands.”

On Dec. 22, 1989, when Macedo was five, he went with two of his older siblings to Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve with their oldest sister, who lived there.  Their mother stayed in Zwedru with her youngest child.  Two days later, the Liberian civil war started, separating the mother and her children for the next 14 years.  

Monrovia became a ghost town, its streets and drainage system a burial ground for fallen soldiers, rebel fighters, and innocent civilians.  Stray dogs roamed the abandoned alleys, feeding on corpses.  “You could not even hear birds chirping,” remembered Macedo. “Only the noise of flies on dead bodies and the sounds of rifles.” 

Macedo and his sibling sought refuge in downtown Monrovia at the Olympic Hotel.  The capital’s leading hotel became a shelter for thousands of displaced people.  They stayed there for nine months, not knowing whether they would survive from one day to the next.  Fearing for their lives in the rebel-occupied city, the siblings were eventually forced to flee the capital. 

When they arrived at the St. Paul Bridge checkpoint, they were instructed to join a single-file line of men, women, and children.  The line seemed to go on for miles.  Macedo remembers seeing elderly people pushed in wheelbarrows because they were too weak to walk and hearing babies cry.  Each person going through the checkpoint had to state his or her ethnicity.  Innocent people who belonged to certain ethnic groups, including Krahn and Mandingo, were taken out of the line.  Some were killed with machetes, others shot to death or tied and thrown into the St. Paul River.  Piles of human bodies were visible  behind a building just a few feet away from the checkpoint.  Macedo recalled, “I can still remember my sister placing her hand over my eyes to prevent me from seeing the horrifying scene.” 

He and his siblings, despite belonging to a tribe targeted by the rebels, were lucky enough to make it through the checkpoint alive by lying about their ethnicity.  From there they walked another three weeks to Bomi Hills, where they stayed for about a month before continuing across the border to Sierra Leone. 

Growing up in refugee camps

For the first three years after leaving Liberia, Macedo and his siblings stayed in refugee camps in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast. They were separated in 1995 during an attack on thousands of Liberian refugees living in Ivory Coast.  Macedo fled to Ghana, where he remained for the next 11 years at the Buduburam refugee camp. 

Life at the refugee camp in Ghana was very difficult, to say the least.  “You have to have a strong heart to live and survive at a refugee camp,” he said.  “You are discriminated against by the host country.”

Macedo remembers going to bed hungry almost every night.  “Sleep was the only way to stop worrying about hunger and thirst,” he said.  But thanks to his love of gardening as a child, he was able to start growing vegetables.  He survived off the fruits of his labor and even sold some.  He used the money to pay for school fees required to attend the Buduburam Refugees Community Schools.  

Mother and son reunite

After more than a decade of struggling to survive in the refugee camp, Macedo came to the United States through the U.S. Refugees Resettlement program.  He learned that his mother was alive and well and living in the United States.  The two were reunited in Worcester, MA, after being separated for 14 years.  His siblings still live in Ghana, Benin, and Niger.  

One of the most difficult aspects of acclimating to life in the United States for Macedo was getting used to the brutal east-coast winters.  Mastering the American accent was a close second. “At first, a lot of Americans found it difficult to understand me when I speak, because of my accent,” he said.  “While I may never be able to speak like a typical American, I’m doing my best trying.” 

His favorite things about the United States? “Having a warm place to sleep,” he said, adding “and endless educational opportunities.”  Macedo earned his bachelor’s degree in 2010 from Worcester State College, where he received a community engagement award for volunteering with the African Community Education program as a mentor and math instructor.  He is currently pursuing a master’s in international development and social change.  His academic research focuses on refugee issues, such as local integration, anti-warehousing, and sustainable development. 

He said of his dedication to education: “I want to make my mother proud!”

Giving back

Throughout his life as a refugee in West Africa, Macedo helped other refugee youth gain self-confidence through skills training and education.  As a volunteer for an organization that focuses of refugee education, he helped spread awareness of refugee issues among local and international students by sharing his personal experiences as a refugee.  He also established a non-profit organization in Liberia called Sustainable Agricultural Program for Liberia (SAP-Liberia), an endeavor inspired by the vegetable garden he started as a refugee in Ghana. 

“I understand that refugees are humans and humans have rights,” he said.  “Therefore, refugees should not be denied their rights. They need the support of everyone to make their lives worth living.” 

Photos from top to bottom: Macedo giving a lecture at Worcester State College about his experience as a refugee; Liberian refugees at Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana (source: RESPECT Ghana); Macedo working on his agriculture project in Ghana; on campus at Worcester State College; working with Liberian refugee youth in Ghana (source: RESPECT Ghana).

Source: USCRI: http://www.refugees.org/refugee-voices/ Accessed: 03/21/2011

Tentative Research Topics for Master Thesis in International Development and Social Change at Clark University

Research Topic Brainstorming List



By: Jenkins Divo Macedo,
Institution: Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts
Department: International Development Community and Environment (IDCE)
Program: Master of Arts in International Development and Social Change (IDSC)

Tentative Research Topics of Interest

 The Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations in Development Projects in Ghana and Liberia.


 The United Nations Refugee Agency in Ghana: A Case Study of the Social, Economic, Political and Environmental Impacts of Liberian Refugees in Ghana.


 From Refugee Camps to the US: The Untold Stories of Liberian Refugees Living in the Diaspora.


 The Emerging State of Environmental Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Relief Aid: A Case Study of the 2010 Haitian Earthquake and Beyond.


 Reconsidering the Past of Development Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana.


 The Environmental and Social Impacts of Warehousing Refugees in Camps: The Roles of the State, Development Organizations, Civic Institutions and Religious Organizations in Ghana.


 From the Farm to the Markets: Trends, Challenges, Impacts and the Organization of Small-scale Vegetable Growers in Western and Central Ghana.


 The Emerging Economies at the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana: How Western Union, Vegetable Crops Production, Microfinance Ventures and Businesses Revolutionalized the Local Ghanaian Economy.


 Successes, Challenges and Trends in the Educational Needs and Development of Refugee Students in the Worcester Public School Systems: The Enrolment, Placement, Evaluation and the Special Education Program.

An Open Essay on Development Theory: A Critical Perspective

Over the past fifty years there has been significant shifts in development paradigms throughout the world. The sole intent of these paradigm shifts is to provide humanity with a better system of addressing issues concerning the social, cultural, economic, political and environmental wellbeing of its people. Development practitioners the world over have established several theoretical frameworks upon which development projects and organizations operate sometimes with limited or no connections or contributions from local systems in developing countries to which these development projects target. This essay evaluates the establishment of yet a new theoretical framework within the development discourse such as gender, participation, the rights movements, and how these processes interplay within the context of mainstream development operations building on the ideological framework of "Common Sense" proposed by Gramsci and expanded by Philip McMichael in his work about "Green Neoliberalism" and how these processes interact with the state, international financial organizations, and development agencies, such as non-governmental organizations in the collapse of the development project.

Development theorists and practitioners in the late 20th century formulated a new paradigm in the field of international development by providing a unique experience and opportunity for restructuring the development discourse through the industrialization of the agricultural sector. This process led to the subsequent replacement, subordination, and exploitation of the rural population with a higher form of authoritative regime; that is, the globalized industrialization development paradigm (McMichael 1996 in Robert & Hite 2007). This new shift in the development paradigm and discourse significantly impacted rural populations of developing countries as their agricultural sectors improve to a more capital-intensive industry, thus marginalizing local issues, which also points to the fall of the development discourse associated with this new theoretical construct.

According of McMichael (1996), “firstly, development as a master conception of social sciences promise to give rise to improve standard of living; secondly, that development project as a political agenda in the process of instituting and managing national economic growth; thirdly, that the applicability of developmentalism as a tool for organizing states and international institutions with the purpose of maximizing national welfare through technological advances in both the industrial and agricultural sectors; fourthly, with the 1980s debt crisis this development paradigm collapse and lastly, the perpetuation of the globalization project as a new alternative to the development project with the goal that nation-state no longer “develop;” rather proposing that nation-state should position themselves in the global economy.”

The agenda upon which the formation of the development project was constituted was for the systematic stabilization of the global capitalist economic system. The shift in development discourse from the development project to the globalization project had a global impact affecting every binary within the development sphere ranging from the North to the South, and from developed countries to developing countries. This new shift in development paradigm promises a future, which globalists theorized would be dominated by efficiency in trade, which has been exponentially influenced by technological advancements in the process of alleviating the burdens that are associated with time and space (Levitt 1998:99 in McMichael 1996). With this new development paradigm came the issue of financialization, a system which provides liquid assets as oppose to fixed capital in the domains of the private and institutional sectors link to their historical context in decline to the power of the state (McMichael 1996 in Robert & Hite 2007). This gives rise to the ideological formation for the process of restructuring the state through which globalization as a historical globalist economic management system seeks to achieve perceive failures of the development project through the “powerful global elite financiers, national and international bureaucrats, and corporate leaders” (McMichael 1996 in Robert Hite 2007:218).

The development project was significantly influenced by the eurocentric ideologies and discourses categorizing their outputs as advanced living standards in opposition to the “Rest.” The creation of the Bretton Woods financial institutions following the agreement in 1944 serves as the landmark for the formation of fixed exchange rates and the mechanisms through which the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) could maintain a stable currency exchange through the process of extending loans that are short termed to nation-states with imbalances in payments (Block 1977 in Robert & Hite 2007). This shift created a system of the stabilization of national economies and the provision of state-based subsidies, which significantly increase employment rates and job stabilization, thus increasing consumptions. This process was later reinforced by the US introduction of the Marshall aid, a “program that redistributed dollars to capital-poor regions of the world, which included parts of Europe, East Asia and Africa” (McMichael 1996 in Robert & Hite 2007:219). As a result of this initiative another economic barrier was created in which the US currency (Dollar) became the “international-reserve currency”, which also symbolizes the freedom of enterprises that became the hegemonic litmus test of the free world. During this postwar period, developmentalism emerged from within the center of institutional frameworks at which time goals associated with the development project were centered around “raising and protecting living standards and through this effort massive military and economic assistance programs emerged” (McMichael 1996 in Robert Hite 2007: 220).

The development project, as we know it to be, was a construction of the world order to stabilize the world capitalist economic system and thereby promise to bridge the gap between the “West” and the “Rest.” However, development projects failed to enclose the increasing gap between the First World and the Third World, because of its eurocentric discourses and approaches in addressing the needs of the targeted population, which fails to acknowledge local systems and disregard local participation in decision-making processes of development agenda (Escobar 1995). It failed in its universal terms and as such created the opportunity or platform for a new paradigm that could later shift how development initiative are carried out and this new development paradigm is what McMichael classified as the globalization project. Development project, which was a system created and understood in the process of ordering the world systematically through institutionalization, thereby recreating and restructuring the nation-state, globalization project on the other hand, in its historical context is also a systematic process of ordering the world systems. Globalization seeks to accomplish this process through the “stabilization of capitalism through global economic management through the lenses of specialization rather than replication” (McMichael 1996 in Robert & Hite 2007: 220). The issue of specialization as a core aspect of the globalization project is differentiated between states and regions with specific reference to marginalization as a paramount part of the project’s cores and objectives. The globalization project encourages the formation of analogies of views among key players and how they share similar understanding of a particular institutional form of capitalism. Unlike the development project, which elites were basically, state managers and bureaucrats who essentially share similar interest in stabilizing the global capitalist economic system, the globalization projects added a new group of elite; that is, financial and corporate elite combined with the IFIs such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Center (WTO) (Goldman 2005).

Moreover, Goldman’s expansion on Gramsci’s work of Common Sense and how that process interplays with the mainstream development thoughts taking into account how gender, participation and the rights movements speak into the process of knowledge production within the World Bank system and how it has established itself and created a power relations between the North and the South bringing into existence a new hegemonic regime in development. Gramsci once wrote that “Common Sense is not rigid and immobile, but it is continually transforming itself, enriching itself with scientific ideas and with philosophical opinions, which have entered ordinary life” (Gramsci 1971 in Goldman 2005: 32). His argument is that popular belief systems and scientific ideas are paramount ingredients in shaping the universe. He asserts that these ideologies and thoughts commonly accepted by the populace should not be merely overlooked, because they contain powerful forces and energies that have the potential of serving as obstacles to achieving our goals for change (Goldman 2005). These common thoughts and perceptions become powerful, because of civil hegemony; that is, “the dispersal of power through civil society, such as, through schooling, religious life, scientific, cultural and voluntary organizations, and popular forms of communication and the media” (Goldman 2005:33). The acceptance of popular knowledge and opinion as a general rule of thumb either forcefully or by consent according to Gramsci is significant to understand the issues of hegemony. After carefully considering the arguments that Gramsci raised one is left with series of thoughts about who are the benefactors of such hegemony. For the World Bank and the from the perspective of Green Neoliberalism, the issues of state restructuring, good governance, and an active civic society as well as environmental sustainability are constituted within the parameters of what the World Bank classified as capital-driven, hydra-headed and authoritative.

Moreover, the issue of grassroots movements and activism has also play a significant role in challenging major institutions of development such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO) with respect to some of its Neoliberal development agenda such as the privatization of water, electricity, public transportation, communication, forestry and the healthcare system (Goldman 2005). These actions were taken by people of different socio-economic, political, and cultural backgrounds all aiming at one goal; that is, challenging the status quo “to the right-to-livelihood, against military repression, environmental destruction or degradation and the privatization of natural resources and public goods” (Goldman 2005:44). These grassroots social movements form against the development giants swept throughout the global sphere representing diverse population in terms of nationalities, languages, cultures, and traditions. Transnational networks of activists and agents of change and social justice whose interests include, but are not limited to mega dams, human rights abuses, genetically modified foods imports, food sovereignty, corruption, cronyism and development lead projects supported their efforts. As a result, Gramsci states that these institutions and grassroots organizations and networks become at war with each other leading to a new form of hegemony. Just as one critiques the other a new system of hegemonic sphere emerge and becomes dominant for that time which will later become criticized yet by another (Asher 2009).

The World Bank’s system of economic and ethical style is always changing and this process is based on external pressures from wide range of political atmosphere. The shift in development paradigm from previous development theories to Green Neoliberalism by the World Bank arises as a result of “series of events and practices centered on professionals working in government, firms, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the scientific community” (Goldman 2005:33). Just as Goldman rightly put it that these institutions and grassroots transnational and national networks are engage in “wars of positions” which he borrowed from Gramsci’s famous phrase, which are “not so much a matter of creating movements outside the hegemonic order but rather on its terrain, radicalizing the meaning of democracy, appropriating the market, democratizing sovereignty, and expanding human rights” (Burawoy 2000 in Goldman 2005: 45). Green Neoliberalism as a new development framework instituted by the World Bank in partnership with other actors such as professionals in governmental offices, multilateral corporations, NGOs and the scientific research community thought that for the gaps between the developed and developing nations to be bridged

To conclude, since the end of World War II there has been significant changes in development paradigm. Most development discourse has been influenced by Western ideologies and perceptions, which shape the way in which development projects are initiated. Development project failed to achieve its objectives, because it created a divide between developed and developing countries instead of bridging that divide. The failure of the development project gives rise to the globalization project, encourages the formation of analogies of views among key players and how they share similar understanding of a particular institutional form of capitalism. The World Bank after receiving several complains of how their projects were negatively impacting communities in developing countries developed the Green Neoliberal development framework, which functions on these key elements or principles, which include but not limited to the privatization of water, electricity, public transportation, communication, forestry and the healthcare system (Goldman 2005).


2. This semester has been an adventure for me in my quest to learn and understand how international development theories are formulated and the discourses associated with these theoretical frameworks. The search for a better way of life has always been for people throughout the ages. Development theories are instituted or established within the context of major world events, which help shape how these theories are formulated and constructed. It involves the tearing down of traditional structures and institutions for the sake of modernity and human progress (Lemert 2004). The purpose of this essay is to provide an overview of what I have learned and understood throughout this semester in relations to International development theories and how that has changed from my previous understandings of how development is carried out and how I anticipate to use these theories and concept in the construction and implementation of development agenda in meeting the felt and real needs of communities that I will be working with as development practitioner and agent of social change.

The end of World War II left the world at the mercy of the United States of America whose power both economically, politically and militarily stood at the peak of the world’s powers with its physical and economic infrastructures in place (Robert & Hite 2007). As a result of this, the need for a market was paramount for the United States to market her industrial products as well as continue to have access to raw materials for her industries to keep functioning. However, this could only be possible if functioning economies to buy these products were available in other countries as the continual existence and stability of the US economic growth rested on these factors (Robert & Hite 2007). This led the US to formulate several policies and institutions that could assist bridge these gaps in an effort to create a sustainable future for the US economic prosperity and the development of other countries. Some of such policies included, but are not limited to the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Wood, which give rise to significant structural changes in providing aid to developing countries as well as other developed countries. All these institutional restructuring took place at the epicenter of major world historical events, which trigger significant movements in shifting development paradigm to meet the needs of those events.

Throughout this course, I have come to the realization that development or “international development” as we know it to be has failed to bridge the gap between poor and rich countries. It has failed to break the barriers between the “West” holding about 80% of the world’s wealth with only 20% of the world’s population and the “Rest” holding 20% of the world’s wealth with about 80% of the world’s population. It has failed to bridge the imbalances within the market economy where there continue to be dependency between industrial nations and developing nations in foreign exchange rates, import and export, and the marketing of their produce (raw materials) and products (manufactured goods and services). This imbalance has led to the increase dependence of developing countries on developed countries, international corporations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loan, which comes at a high cost, because most of the developing countries borrowing these loans end up paying more than they actually received (Goldman 2005).

During this course, I learned how Development discourses shape the way in which development projects and initiatives are implemented and how those discourses are Eurocentric in their scopes and operations alienating local knowledge, belief systems and traditions, which significantly contributes to their failures. The concept of an alternative development as a possible option for replacing development discourse to me is possible if and only if these alternative forms of development acknowledge local knowledge, belief systems and traditions and encourage the local participation of community members and community-based organizations. Participatory grassroots development strategies to me are the best forms of discourse that will be effective in addressing local needs of the targeted population in developing countries.

Reference

McMichael, Philip. (1996). “Globalization: Myths and Realities” in The Globalization and

Development Reader, Roberts and Hite, Eds. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 216-232.

Roberts, Timmons J. and A. Hite (2006). The Globalization and Development Reader: Perspectives on Development and Global Change. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Escobar, Arturo. (1995). “Encountering Development.” Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Asher, Kiran (2009). “Black and Green: Afro-Colombians, Development, and Nature in the Pacific Lowlands.” Durham: Duke University Press.

Goldman, Michael (2005). “Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization.” New Haven: Yale

Lemert, Charles (2004). “Modernity’s Classical Age: 1848-1919” and “Social Theories and

World Conflict 1919-1945” IN Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings. Charles Lemert, Ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press