TV stardom beckons ....

Last Thursday I went to a regional forum for development projects where one of my colleagues was speaking;  we drove to Gaoua which is about 2 hours away, got there for 9am, and the South West governor (a woman) opened the assembly.  There were about 150 of us in a hall – air-con – whooo! – and wireless mikes and everything.  A lot of ‘How wonderful this all is, what a diversity of development projects is represented in this room, how great for Burkina and especially for the South West’ from the governor, then about an hour from the regional development director, showing a really, really poor PowerPoint presentation with click-through to Excel – crap! – then each NGO/development project got to present itself and its progress over the last year.  All the figures had previously, of course, been given by the regional chap …. So it all became rather long ….  and a touch Stakhanovite – We have exceeded the number of tractors in the five year plan by 150%!!!

Half way through we had a coffee break: and after doing the ritual politesses around the hall, Mme La Gouverneure came and found me – toady much, Mrs Governor?  [Was this wise? Ed.] – and had a long chat, welcoming me to Burkina, saying how much my presence would bring to the country – determinedly flattering and also captured on national TV cameras ….. me, mouthful of breakfast bun and also holding a cup of coffee – argh – not cool.  I accidentally caught it in a bar on Saturday night, cringing …..

After that, the governor left – as the Great and the Good do on these occasions - with expressions of great regret etc., and we went back for more presentations.

There were two white guys in the room – one working in a real a real grass-roots project on agriculture trying to increase subsistence to a just above subsistence level, and at that doing really well – he was about mid-sixties and has obviously been here forever – and the other clearly couldn’t wait to be heard and in deference to his complete pushiness and barracking from the floor etc. he was given the mike eventually and in sum said – ‘You are all wasting your time.  This country has 16 million people and by 2050 will have 30 million people and all this individual well-sinking and crop-extending and bio-digestion system installation is not worth a hill of beans and will not feed the country.  You need the private sector, now, you need to forget nomadic herdsmen, and women with micro-finance, and extending the crop range and growing season – these measures will never produce enough to feed Burkina.’ 

Then, just before my colleague had to present, the electricity went off – standard – and poor Raissa had to deliver her PowerPoint verbally, without projection or a mike.  Tough gig!  And, having contributed to it, I may say her PPoint ws really, really good – a shame no-one saw it.  She is a good speaker and delivered the good news about la plate-forme multifonctionnelle against a background of some murmurings from the women’s movement about selection of projects – all normal.

There were about 10 presentations;  lots of agencies, lots of projects, and as current theory suggests, there is much emphasis on sustainability and participation. Apparently the biggest challenge is not getting the participation in planning stages. It is often quite a challenge to get the participation bit at the delivery stage; I have been to a village where an EU-sponsored latrine-building programme is underway – signified by 20 large concrete disks with keyholes and footplates outside the mairie – waiting for the village to buy in and build the walls.  But the agencies are not to be discouraged, which is admirable. 

 

My favourite was the bio-digester-building project – and not only because of the Archers, but also because of the amount of concrete necessary to build one – the guy next to me in the assembly shouted out you could build a house with that amount of concrete – and I suspect that might just be the reaction everywhere.  It certainly got a laugh.

So between 9am and 3pm with a short coffee break, we reviewed each other’s progress, and found it in the main good, and felt pleased at what was happening;  but I have taken away the Frenchman and his concerns.