27 August 2007
The present Government knows that before its 'Bottom-up Approach' gains traction special attention is needed to get it off the ground. The previous 29 years of 'top down' and BTO (Big Time Operations--Taiyo, oil palms, Gold Ridge, Honiara itself,etc.) pushed by pervious governments wasn't working for the whole of the Solomons. Yes, certain areas seemingly did well but most villagers not so.
Certain parts of our islands--the land and villagers close up to these big businesses got the jobs, were serviced with more education, medical, communication links and transport than those further away. Their local economies were strengthened by the infusion of big money from these firms. The 'Bottom Up Approach' won't work this way. It wants to act like a mighty ocean tide lifting all village groups and not just the select few close to big business enterprises.
Last week Government created a new unit within the PM's Office to show its commitment to achieve its development objectives through the BUA policy. This is but the first step on a very long and difficult journey. In other words, pain, lots of it, will be the lot of many villagers before they see great gain.
In the late 1990s I was touring villages along Guadalcanal's North Shore, between Honiara and Visale. I was sharing with villagers along the way how Solomon Islands Development Trust understood this thing called development. One point I raised rather strongly was the idea that as important as money is to life, on its own, it has little to do with development. Of course it's needed but if that is all you have--money, $$$, funding, etc.-- than you don't have much.
I shared with my listeners of that day that, for example, as important as a clinic building (church, school, community hall, etc.) is for health, it won't be developmental unless people's lives are changing at the same time. Buildings, roads, wharfs, etc. are important but more important is how much people have been changed in the building up of this infrastructure. Development is about people! Development should be about giving a people a chance to change, to grow, to become more.
Back in mid-1960s, for instance, when the anti-malaria program was just starting up the conventional wisdom of the day was to spray everything in a village with DDT. In a typical spraying, health department officials asked villagers to temporarily leave their homes (DDT was highly toxic and best not breathed in or allowed to touch the bare skin) while the spray team got on with their job. Village people were asked to wait outside the village while the walls of each house and building were thoroughly coated with a white spray which stayed on the walls for weeks.
This kind of spraying was quite effective. Malaria cases dropped dramatically. School kids, small children and adults were all helped and quickly so. But at what price! Yes, probably 99% of local mosquitoes died during the spraying and for more than 10 years we were almost free of malaria. Perhaps if people at the same time when spraying was going on were also asked to help out--getting rid of stagnant water pools, brushing back village tall grass, suspected malaria patients seeking treatment quickly, etc.--then our terrible malaria outbreak in the early 1990s would have never hit us!
When I shared these facts with my audience in and around the Aruligo area, I was met with hostility. I stopped my talk and spoke directly to the young men who were murmuring, rather upset at the things I was saying about development. Obviously I didn't know the Solomons, didn't have a clue what it means to live village life and most importantly was on the wrong track. I asked the group: "You're angry aren't you?" Their quick response was a sharp "Yes!" "Thank goodness!", I said. "You really do understand what I'm saying. That the secret of development is not in money but in people, going from can't to can do, for a people to grow and become empowered!"
This is what BUA is all about . . . the 'Bottom Up Approach' in which all people, all levels of society and all leaders focus on how to harness the power of people to change the Solomons from one that worked in past years for a select few and left the majority of people waiting on the side of the road while the big car/truck/bus sped by. The first years of BUA are going to be tough! So many leaders and not a few of their followers have over the past three decades hitched their development wagon to the old discredited BTO . . . logging, mining, companies, etc. Understanding that the village is the future will take them by surprise. Hopefully many, if not most, will see the errors of the past led the nation to the days of Social Unrest 1998-2003.
J. Roughan
27 August 2007
Honiara
