Poor Economics and the state of mind in my ‘development dilemma’

In my search for meaning (in life and the situation of Mbandaka), I have continued my reading-frenzy in the hope for finding (some) clarity. Maybe ‘A white man’s burden’ by Easterly should have been on the list – ideally prior to arriving in the DRC, as burdened I do feel indeed. Instead it was ‘Poor Economics’  by Banerjee and Duflo that shed some light on my ‘development dilemma’. Throughout the book the authors rely on a surfeit of empirical data to identify and evaluate aid strategies (backed by RCT - Randomized Control Trials). They juxtapose the two ideas of “aid will bring an end to the poverty trap" (embodied by the works of Jeffrey Sachs),   and “aid tends to make people dependent and less capable to solve their problems” (best known support being the aforementioned William Easterly). The authors list instances where one or both or neither are true, all based on their ‘numbers’. Yet as my professor Dr. Jasny warned me many years ago “only believe the statistics you manipulated yourself”

Nevertheless they also included stories and insights of the lives of the poor, and underlined the imperative quest to first understand the poor, before making policy recommendation on how to change their lives. However the most interesting part appeared in a small section of the conclusion.

It reads:

“Finally, expectations about what people are able or unable to do all too often end up turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. Children give up on school when their teachers (or sometimes their parents) signal to them that they are not smart enough to master the curriculum;
Fruit sellers don’t make the effort to repay their debt because they expect that they will fall back into debt very quickly; nurses stop coming to work because nobody expects them to be there; politicians whom no one expects to perform have no incentive to try improving people’s lives.
Changing expectations is not easy, but it is possible: After seeing a female pradhan [administrative leader in India] in their village, villagers not only lost their prejudice against women politicians but even started thinking that their daughter might become one, too; […] Most important, the role of expectations means that success often feeds on itself. When a situation starts to improve, the improvement itself affects beliefs and behavior.”

So is it all about believing in people? Like the inspirational teacher Martha Collins, who displayed limitless believe as well as high expectations in her students in the subburbs in Chicago back in the 1980s, having 4th graders reading Shakspeare after being labeled unfit for US public schools... Her belief in her students  led to extraordinary results within the ‘challenged’ neighborhood.  The message is in line with Viktor Frankl when he explains ‘why to believe in others’: 

https://www.ted.com/talks/viktor_frankl_youth_in_search_of_meaning

All these guys seem to suggest is that the belief we have in one another, matters. A lot. This is kinda bad news for my ‘Mbandka blues' in which I see this as a bad place with bad people’. Has my perceptions  shaped their reactions!? Or maybe it is in line with my Post-development theory that I cannot be of help to the people living here, and instead have to trust and support their development from afar.  

Harrison in the 1985 book ‘Underdevelopment is a State of Mind.’ identifies the creative capacity of human beings as the core of the development process. He writes:

“What makes development happen is our ability to imagine, theorize, conceptualize, experiment, invent, articulate, organize, manage, solve problems, and do a hundred other things with our minds and hands that contribute to the progress of the individual and of humankind. Natural resources, climate, geography, history, market size, governmental policies, and many other factors influence the direction and pace of progress. But the engine is human creative capacity”

Here his list of 7 conditions that encourage the expression of human creative capacity :

• 1.       The expectation of fair play  - Through the creation of an environment in which people expect and receive fair treatment, e.g. a working legal system -> enforcement of contracts.

• 2.       Availability of educational opportunities - Through an effective and accessible education system: one that provides basic intellectual and vocational tools; nurtures inquisitiveness, critical faculties, dissent, and creativity; and equips people to solve problems.

• 3.       Availability of health services - Through a health system that protects people from diseases that debilitate and kill.

• 4.       Encouragement of experimentation and criticism

• 5.       Matching of skills and jobs - Through creation of an environment that helps people both discover their talents and interests and mesh them with the right jobs.

• 6.       Rewards for merit and achievements and discouragement of nepotism and corruption.

• 7.       Stability and continuity, so that it is possible to plan ahead with confidence, as progress is made enormously more difficult by instability and discontinuity.

Looking at the list their seems mighty little I can do in my little world, to facilitate the implementation of any of the points listed above. Already the first prerequisite, the expectation of fair play, seems utterly impossible in a place that has been through the craziest injustices over the past century. Nothing seems fair here. The people that are supposed to support and protect you (i.e. government officials), use and abuse you. Investment into education has been lacking for decades; traditional education system destroyed a long time ago…  

To me Mbandaka is a mad place – unexplainable and intriguing at the same time – but I doubt that my perceptions of this city, which has been left to deteriorate since the 80’s could have made a difference. Hence, the search continues…

  “Striving to find meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man” (Frankl)