Homegrown Development? (English)

William Easterly, in his book White Man's Burden, introduced the notion of “homegrown development” and argued that imposed development never works.

The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

What does this “homegrown development” mean? Maybe, the idea is coming from the reflection of imposed development projects in the past, which ended up failing in many cases.

So, in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes, we should listen to the real voice of local people and implement projects that they really need.

This is the meaning of “homegrown development.” Right?

************************

Few years ago, when I was in Nicaragua, I came across a situation which made me deeply think about what “homegrown development” is or should be.

I was in a small village, interviewing local people for a research project. The purpose of the project was to find out the root cause of the default of microfinance in the area.

Several years ago, there was a financial crisis in microfinance sector in Nicaragua because of the movement called “Movimiento No Pago (No Paying Movement)” in which people refused to repay their debts.

I visited a house and started interviewing a housewife. After a casual conversation, I got into the main topic: how she fell into the default situation.

She explained,

“draught was the cause. We were cultivating crops but because of the draught, we were not able to harvest them anymore. We lost jobs. This was the cause of default. We are unemployed even now. You are from Japan right? I want some Japanese companies to come here, build factories and create employment so that we can earn jobs.”

She was partly joking, making fun of themselves being unemployed, as many Nicaraguans always do.

But I felt the seriousness behind her words.

*******************

There are several important implications in her remark when we think about “homegrown development.”

Firstly, it was meaningful to listen to their real voice. When I was in Japan, my friends were generally against the exploitation of cheap labor in developing countries. When I was talking to them, they were always saying “Trans National Corporations (TNCs) are exploiting cheap labor and making huge profit. That is injustice.”

However, local real voice was a bit different. They want TNCs to come to their place and create employment as the local Nicaraguan housewife said. I felt a gap between real local voice and opinion from outside. I thought, “according to the notion of homegrown development, it is important to listen to the real local voice. That is what I learned in undergraduate school too.

So we should encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and invite more TNCs to Nicaragua to create more employment.” Should we?

Second point was that they were unable to repay their debts because of draught. They said that draught started in recent years. So, it is highly likely that the cause of draught is climate change. What is the main cause of climate change? Isn't that an economic activity of developed countries?

Recent report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly concluded that the cause of recent climate change is increased CO2 emission from human activity.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fifth_Assessment_Report)

What if the housewife knew about this fact? Japanese TNCs that she wants to invite to their place might have been the cause of the draught, and consequently caused their poverty.

If those TNCs did not exist, they might not have lost their jobs from the first place. If she knew this, would she still want to invite TNCs to her land?

*****************************************

I learned a lessen. It is important to pay attention to the local real voice. But at the same time, we have to see the structure that exists behind their statements.

Homegrown development does not and should not mean blindly listening to what local people say. If that is the case, we need to invite many TNCs in the area where the housewife lives and let them destroy the environment in stead of creating employments.

But perhaps, this is not a good idea. If we keep destroying nature and polluting environment, the earth as a whole will be in trouble.

This is not what we, people in developed countries, want and what they, people in developing countries, want either,

********************

The problem of the concept of “homegrown” is that it supposes that there are lots of "homes" in the world.

This notion supposes that “our home” is different from “their home.” Therefore, we have to appreciate the voice of “their home” and try not to impose the values of “our home” to their home.

However, in the age of globalization, there is only one home: the spaceship earth.

What is home for them is also home for us.

Our home is their home too. We should stop dividing our homes and try to integrate divided values.

We should learn from them as well as they should learn from us.

We are already connected.