In my next life I'd like to come back as a European consultant in Africa

How many times have I offered my knowledge , expertise and lived experiences in Liberia to roving consultants in Liberia? I can't count the number of times. Enough is enough.  

I'm infuriated because my opinions and knowledge are freely consumed to benefit international consultants who often times have never lived/worked in Liberia or even the region yet, somehow landed consultancies. 

I'm getting supremely annoyed by this. Is this development? And who is being developed? Salary bank accounts or who? 

Moreover, it seems that the donors are driving the same recycled agendas concerning youth, education, health, capacity building, governance, what have you. NGOs and these interesting characters called contractors (which USAID uses) respond to these thematic calls by writing the same proposals over and over again. 

Just recently I donated more than 2 hours of my time to a meeting with not 1 but 3 consultants who wanted to know how my business could use youth trained by their project. 

I hired 2 such apprentices for our company a few years ago through another similar programme implemented by an American NGO where I worked at a few years ago. I have applied several times for a Youth project at this NGO (where I incidentally worked before) demonstrating my knowledge and expertise in the area of business, management and development (an intersection which few folks have) and failed to even get an interview. 

I am livid at this system.  

So, I actually hired 2 young women in good faith through this Youth programme, wanting to play ball with the system. I lost one of the apprentices to a higher-paying NGO after putting in years of time training her from scratch. I am glad she is better paid but it seems the development agency is merely appropriating everything in its self-serving mission. 

Both Haresh and I were shocked with the shallow analysis and level of discussion: 

1 ) But how many people were trained by that American NGO (no clue and instead advised to go look at the USAID website)?

2) What lessons were gained from that and similar previous projects? 

3) How integrated is this project with the state and its structures? 

4) Does the youth really need bookkeeping skills ? Marketing skills? 

5) How many Liberians are self employed in small businesses ? Carpentry? Tech repairs/services ? Mechanics? Tailors? Salons? Masons? Do you have such numbers? 

6) What is the economic weather ? What are the market conditions? Is this what is really needed right now? 

7) Do small businesses need capital and state support or a 3-month workshop in bookkeeping? 

8) There is such a big informal economy in Liberia where both men and women are doing small business to survive? Is lack of bookkeeping keeping them back? What analysis have you done there? 

9) Why should established businesses continue to employ apprentices , train them from scratch, support them, absorb them in our business so your project can succeed and look good for your final report? 

10) Which institutions will you use to train the youth? The ones they listed are all pre-war institutions like BWI or YMCA (which I know from my DDRR days and these same institutions were used by the same agencies to train ex-combatants). Has any investment been done in these institutions ? Have you all helped to build world-class facilities? Do these institutions have stable electricity? Do they have qualified world class instructors and teachers?

11) How many jobs are even out there?  

The obsession with youth and their potential for violence and attempts to distract them from their own frustration and anger at their own condition is one of the core pillars of development policy. This youth is being gobbled up by right wing political waves from Trump's America to Modi's India to militarised and mullazied Pakistan. This youth is hurling abuse at the Black Lives Movement. This youth is voting for Brexit. This youth is refusing to be vaccinated. This youth is selling socks in wintry Islamabad in December. This youth , often time university degree-ed, is driving cabs in the Gulf. This youth is selling biscuits on the streets of Monrovia. This youth is cooking and selling food on the streets of Monrovia. This youth is lynching Muslims in India or poor Christians in Pakistan.  The right wing states and powers distract this youth while chances to get a piece of an ever shrinking pie are getting slimmer. And what do policymakers have for them? Little small workshops in bookkeeping and business skills so they might learn how to do business which might then help feed them. 

I am frustrated and angry at so many levels. The development industry's analysis of socio-economic conditions is extremely shallow and predicated on such artificial capitalist short term assumptions. But it is also severely hypocritical and racist. In more developed countries, the state as a minimum has to invest in youth through quality education, education and vocational institutions which have decent facilities, stimulus for small businesses , decent healthcare and functioning infrastructure. What do they do in poor countries? 

They want youth to give up their time away from making money to feed themselves to participate in workshops to learn how to add columns and write reports for a few weeks, throw them at businesses for free and, then claim they supported the youth. Not only is it patronising but so disingenuous. 

International development is so short term and so devoid of structural analysis. They are not interested in building or supporting structures. They are not interested in ensuring structures are permanent. Everything revolves around pimple-faced consultants flying through , whirlwind meetings and workshops. Everything can be solved by these geniuses. And, everyone agreeing to giving them a free ride.

To this, last night at a lovely party, my cynical artist friend who is going back to his home country in Europe because nothing works and things aren't really improving : "In my next life I'd like to come back as a European consultant in Africa." 

My father played with snakes

Humans of Monrovia. Meet Willie Kalli. 

"Where did you learn painting from?"

"My bossman who died. I've been doing it for 20 years. I'm a Lofian. I never went back since the war. My mother and father died and my one sister is here and the other one is in Lofa. I don't have a mother or father. I got to work so I can eat. I have 2 children but cannot have more children. Too expensive. I need money. Not easy. My father was Kalli and played with snakes. He was a great man."

Bats in the sky and a hill

Seeing the bats in the evening sky on top of Snapper Hill is one of my favourite things to do in Monrovia. All the noise, all the trash, all the chaos and stress disappears on top of this hill where many other Monrovians have come for their own moment of peace and exercise. 

Kavita tried her Heelys and, she's still terrified of them. She fell badly back in Islamabad and, here , too, she fell down. I tried to help her but still she was scared of them. What to do? 

Feminist Eid

Kavita and I are away from Islamabad for Aurat Azadi March but there in full spirit. My journey as a feminist includes nurturing and training of Kavita as one, too. She and I made our own posters showing mother and daughter in our own feminist space.  

How many lies are too many?

Coming back to Monrovia after a 3 year gap has been deflating and discouraging. It's been a crash landing and, the plane has still not come to a complete full stop. 

The almost-2-hour ride from RIA to central Monrovia is enveloped in complete darkness at night. Crashing into another vehicle with broken headlights at night on the RIA Highway is a recurring what-if nightmare and, to experience this road after an exhausting series of flights from abroad is a terrible way to come back. 

They are widening the Highway which is good, but meanwhile, you have to come through this depressing darkness , riding for hours, hoping not to have an accident, if you flew in at night. 

When you finally make it to the edges of Monrovia, you will see an insane an amount of traffic on the same small road, chaos, some lights, garbage, even fully visible at night. From the edge of Congo Town all the way to central Monrovia, everything was dark, hardly a few street lights here or there. 

If you aren't a saving-the-world international development worker, living a humble life in a fully serviced compound, you will arrive in a house or apartment building which is yet again dark. If you are lucky enough to have a back up generator, you can have that turned on and, then sit and weep , wondering what you are doing in a country which doesn't have electricity. 

Not having stable electricity has been the bane of my existence here. I'm getting close to my mid-40s so I'm really not a fan of living like this. 

But, we have to pretend like everything is good. So good that 200 years of Liberia's history was being marketed and celebrated in a grand style. There are - or rather, still are, and will be there, rusted, for next 10 years -  hoardings everything talking about this grand event. I believe some of these hoardings mention a Monrovia that is green and clean. 

Speaking of cleanliness, Monrovia is filthy. It is exponentially more filthy than before I left. There are mountains of garbage on Centre Street. I literally exclaimed in horror when we passed by it. 

The controversial 'Monrovia is the dirtiest capital' comments by the EU Ambassador which I'd seen on my Facebook feed started to make sense. 

The state celebrated 200 years of existence by a very grand event at the SKD Stadium, attended by dignitaries from neighbouring states and the United States of course. In fact, the celebrations were launched end of last year, marketing the Bi-Centennial celebrations as Year of Return, copying what Ghana has more successfully done, attracting African Americans 'back home.' Ghana though is far more advanced as an economy and has thriving sectors and markets compared to Liberia. 

Liberia has already implemented the 'returnee' policy in its earliest post war era under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Many appointments in administration were made to Liberian diaspora but how many of these professionals actually returned? Everyone talked about how the merely channeled their salaries back to the US where they still had rents and school fees to pay. 

From what I understand with Ghana is that the Diaspora is welcomed back to live and work. I am not sure how many appointments are being made in its state infrastructure, at least not critical ones. Ghana is a much more thriving and stable economy but I can't imagine who wants to come back to Liberia given that literally nothing works. 

And more, importantly, these Bi-Centennial celebrations are hollow if they don't engage with Liberia's problematic past and, the contradictions of the 2003-present post-war era. And, they haven't. It seems it's all been pomp and glory. That this particular populist, anti-establishment , anti-elitist government has promoted such a narrative points to the supremacy of power and that of the state. It is vital to keep promoting a grand narrative of Liberia as a free and unique state for black people and, the symbolisms of the first independent republic, despite its horrific history as a settler colony, have to be perpetuated at all cost. Not even a from-the-slum-footballer-turned-President is going to tinker with this image. So, we keep playing this tune and even amplify the notion of freedom so much so that we continue to be a beacon for return to the continent. 

See this piece: CONFRONTING DUPLICITY Liberia bi-centennial celebration: why it needs to reconcile history and identity. 

In the midst of this grand farce, the price of produce knocked me out. I couldn't believe that a rather small pineapple costs 700 LD! 4 mangoes which literally fell off a tree cost 200 LD. 4 bananas cost 100 LD. Shitty, over ripe bananas. There is no cultivated fruit in Liberia. They all fell off a tree. I'm livid. 

Everything is so damn expensive and nothing works. 

But somehow we have to participate in the falsehoods of narratives, the lying propaganda that state machineries and hegemony operate with. How many lies are too many?