Sustainable Development Goals Will Fail Too
The Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) recently came to a near (or) failed end and planners crafted
the so called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Commenting on this matter, Boniface
Mabanza argued that even without radical
rethinking, the new project of setting a post-2015 agenda is in danger of
suffering the same fate as its forerunners. Development in its classical
understanding, he maintains, is of no use now. What is needed are real changes
corresponding to the various local and national necessities of the people.
Majority
of the people in Africa are peasants; a good number of them live in conflict
zones and in areas recovering from conflict. Most of these people only work for
survival and look at development as an alien concept with no immediate significance
to them. In fact, I think we need to conceptualize and contextualize
development. It is time we asked what development means to Africa and whose
development, for instance, has been the MDGs directed at?
On
his part Gwain Colbert argues that it is because of indigenous African women’s
strength and resilience that our families and communities have been kept alive,
not western development concepts, ideologies and models. I agree too. Things though
in armchairs in Geneva, New York and Nairobi are less known for making
significant impacts on the lives of peasant people across the remote parts of
Africa but those peasant people, especially women who remain in the villages
tending to their small farms and families are.
Some
would think this is radical but how often do we design projects and programs
from distant lands in furnished hotels and pretend they will solve people’s
problems in rural Africa? How often do we pretend we know exactly what plagues
the people and pretend to prescribe instant solutions to the challenges that
people face? All actors are guilty of this. The more reason we implement wrong
projects, come up with bad policies, or/and implement good projects and
policies wrongly. The result is a series of failed initiatives and continuation
of the plight of the people.
The
way forward is this; we need to invest in comprehensive and ongoing research; we
need to involve all actors in these processes in the spirit of popular participation; we need to continually search
for the truth. I know no better way to search for the truth other than
researching and I know no better way of learning other than sharing. But when
do we invite the peasants to come and share when we cannot mix with them in air-conditioned
hotels and when the villages are too remote for us to reach? We need to conceptualize development policies, plans and
strategies that can be at the service of life, with a genuine attempt at
reduction if not eradication of poverty. Social justice and equal peace for all
should be the ingredients of this. Such society will be secure and at peace
with itself.
Sustainable Development Goals Will Fail Too
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
June 23, 2016
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