Can aid worker swim in a pool?

I found a poignantly funny blog in which an aid worker asked his readers’ opinion on whether an NGO could run a swimming pool in Africa.

The Head of Research for the British NGO Oxfam, Duncan Green, told in his (very recommendable) blog From Poverty to Power that Oxfam’s regional office in Nairobi, Kenya, had realized some years ago that they could save money by running  their own guesthouse, rather than parking the numerous visitors in hotels.

“As a large converted house in a nice part of town, and like most such houses in Nairobi, it has a swimming pool. But the swimming pool is covered over and closed, even though it would be cheap to keep it open. Why? Reputational risk – back in the UK, where swimming pools are luxury items, Oxfam’s big cheeses saw a tabloid scandal in the making and closed it."

This was the most popular poll ever on Green’s blog and “Open the pool, provided it operates at zero cost to Oxfam”  got 59 per cent and ‘Open the pool right away got 26 in Wrapping up the great Nairobi guesthouse pool debate. (Some of the comments are pretty witty such as "Use the pool but don’t enjoy it.") 

The arguments included the fact that swimming is good exercise and exercise is difficult to get in a big city like Nairobi or out on the field. Good argument, but hey, I am in the aid business so declare an interest here.

The pool blog sparked a discussion on aid workers and luxury, and the discussion extended to the current state of the development  and emergency work.

By googling “swimming pool” and “Oxfam”, I found Spectator magazine’s very good and extremely critical story on aid industry and media. The main point of the “Big charity”  story is that media is not critical enough when dealing with charitable organizations.  

Perhaps it isn’t. And several of the grievances in the story are exactly the same things that go round my tired head when I wonder about the state of aid. E.g. that some countries receiving a lot of aid become poorer. 

"As Gaetan Drossart, the searingly honest head of mission for Médicins Sans Frontières, told … there is a failure in the development model — we do not know why it is not working.’

Many say that development aid makes recipients passive and helpless. But what if development cooperation is not working because of the stupid arrangement of this world of ours? Aidwork alone can not save the world; fair politics, just trade and good laws are needed as well.

Inequality is wasteful

But back to the pool. Although it really is no longer just about the pool. The pool was simply a telling example of not only the state of the aid industry and its public image, but also about the state of inequality in this world.

Some of us have access to a pool, some don’t.

You can substitute the word “pool” by e.g. “school” or "clean water", or “job with sufficient income to support the family”.

All men (and women) are created equal and blaah blaah blaah – but in reality we are shockingly unequal. Out of all the things that I find are wrong in this world, inequality is the thing that angers me the most. Angers, sickens and saddens. The gulf between rich and poor is enormous.

During work visits I have conducted interviews at people’s homes, aware of the fact that I had more stuff in my suitcase than there was in the whole house. And these were no refugee shelters but real homes where people had lived for years.

According to Green, the current level of inequality and injustice is wasteful. If women are not involved in the workforce, half of the potential of the workforce is wasted. As poor people lack not only money or food but power, they cannot change anything about their lives. Green has also written a book called From Poverty to Power – I watched his fine video introduction to the book here: http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/from_poverty_to_power

Development cooperation also develops, as it should. For me, the most motivational aspects in the work of Finn Church Aid are found in advocacy work and in the empowerment of people to defend their own rights. This kind of work can start to change the world towards a more equal direction.

Ulla

P.S. I swam in a pool on my last work trip. Bye-bye credibility?