Friday 29 April

I wake up early this morning.  It’s been raining again.  Very heavily.  Eyrun’s better today.  I collect her on my way to work.  It’s another hop-skip- jump-andmostimportantlyavoidbeingsplashedon-walk.  

Development strategies and technology

Today Julie and I have a meeting with another new funder.  I do not know it yet, but today will mark the beginning of a new learning curve for me on the relationship between local funders and development organisations, or at least one angle of it.   I do not know the details of the meeting as information about it was communicated to Julie by phone.  Here in the development world, workplace communication with grassroots organisations relies heavily not on emails but on phone calls - I suppose as a way of dealing with the challenges of local organisations that are not so technologically conversant or do not have access to current technology.  It’s a good strategy as mobile phones and subscriptions here (or pay as you go) are very affordable.  However, the downside is that if one is not the receiver of a particular phone call, one has to rely on information passed on from someone else.  Julie tells me that she is not clear on the details of the meeting  but together with three or four other Community Based Organisations (CBOs), we are meeting with the key funder and their two other technical partners.    

Two matatus, a short walk and a few minutes later, we’re at the meeting venue for about 11am.  I reckon the meeting will run for about an hour.  I have not forgotten that today is 29 April, it’s a bank holiday (in England that is) and it’s the day of the royal wedding!!!   We’re two hours ahead of London time and I’ve already said to Julie that I’m working half day today.  The plan is to get home by 1pm Kenyan time and catch the ceremony as it’s being shown live on Citizen TV here.

Relationship building or what?

After a little waiting, the meeting starts at about 11.30am.  Now there is only so much I can say here as meetings with funders can be sensitive.  To cut a long story short, it turns out to be the one of the most peculiar meetings I’ve ever been to.   My assessment of the meeting is this:   On the one hand, there does not seem to be any trust between the funders (ie the funder and its technical partners) and CBOs – the CBOs find it difficult to grasp the concerns of the funders; and the funders seem to be very disconnected with the challenges the CBOs face in terms of their own growth and their work at the grassroots level.   There follows what I can only describe as a tag of war between the two parties  but the result is positive, on the face of it that is.  A Terms of Reference is developed by the CBOs for the funders to consider.  

(Two weeks later however, feedback on the Terms of Reference is inconclusive despite the fact that CBOs are already implementing work ‘agreed’ on with the funders.  Also two weeks later, it turns out that there is a similar situation with a second local funder and it seems to me that either CBOs, like the organisation I’m working with are being used as a medium to gain access to beneficiaries directly and are therefore being provided with even fewer resources which is simply not beneficial to them.  The local staff implementing the field work (excluding the heads of the CBOs) receive training, day allowances for being at training sessions / meetings, and a monthly allowance.  It seems to me that in this non-relationship between funder and CBO, the local staff have the advantage of benefiting greatly from it much to the disadvantage of the CBO).  

The organisation I work with is not happy with this new ‘strategy’ of funding as the relationship with their previous funder of 6 years was an equal relationship respected by both parties.   We leave the meeting at 2pm with CBOs feeling rather disgruntled. By this time I’ve had enough and I’m yearning to get home and watch the royal wedding.  

Technology and the royal wedding!

I rush home only to be faced with a power cut!  There hasn’t been one since I’ve been here but today of all days!  Eli’s in the same situation so we go to the shopping mall where it is being screened.  But we’ve missed the ceremony.  We catch the reception though and some playbacks of the wedding ceremony itself.   What a stunning wedding dress!  I see Brits making the most of this celebration.  It’s so cool.  I think about what party plans I’d have had were I in London.  I exchange a few texts with my mother who is also watching it in Ghana.  I love the good feeling that comes with worldwide events like these.

More on leadership in Africa

Royal wedding over, I get back to politics in Africa.  Tonight on the news, there is more on the Ugandan opposition leader ‘s arrest the day before.  His arrest was violent, disgusting, inhumane and totally unnecessary.  The security forces were caught on camera – it clearly does not bother them.  The impunity with which they carry out the arrest of a man who is unable to defend himself and already has one arm in a sling, is rather shocking, to say the least.   Tonight he is being flown into Nairobi Hospital for treatment.   

Even more ironic is the fact that the Ugandan President Museveni will be paying a visit to Kenya tomorrow.  In his address to the Kenyan press the following day, he says that the opposition leader did not seek permission to go on a demonstration against rising costs, that his democracy is one with discipline, that the opposition leader was the first to spray the police officers with pepper spray, and he questions why the opposition leader is seeking medical care in Nairobi and not in Uganda.  He is heckled by someone in the audience.  Security forces take the heckler out and he is apparently questioned by Kenyan police for a few hours, an action I cannot quite comprehend.  

What I find most interesting is that while the heckler is led away, Museveni suggests that it would have been more prudent for him (the heckler) to wait for him to finish his address to the press and then he would have been at liberty to question him.  Rightly so, he’s making a statement about his right to speak first and voice his opinions before being questioned.  I agree with him ... but is he giving his opposition leader and Ugandan demonstrators the same right and freedom to express themselves?