The First Country
Gender
There I was listening to the pragmatic conversation between a grand lady colleague from the richest country in the world and a humble young farmer’s wife from a truly poor country, and all I could think about was that, Boy! If gender were an issue here, we men could clearly be in trouble.
A rural road to the town
Oh yes, we were helping out, providing a small school, some minor irrigation systems, hopefully some electricity and better roads. But wait! What on earth was this family producing 600 kilos (about 1,300 pounds) per year of rice going to live on, especially when this country’s accession to the WTO—and indeed it is lurking around the corner—could put them out of a job? How come we do not work exclusively on job creation, so as to give them a chance to work themselves out of poverty and despair, instead of making their poverty and despair more livable and sustainable? Dear Colleagues, we should never invest in a rural road if it is only to facilitate the no-return-trip to the town.
Motorbikes
A hoard of motorbikes is coming at me. How on earth am I going to cross the street? At the end—just like marrying—there comes a moment of truth when you just have to close your eyes and walk down that aisle to the altar with faith. I did just that, closed my eyes, and crossed the street. I did great! Just as in my marriage.
There are too many motorbikes on this road so they should build a bike lane. Forget it! There are so many motorbikes that what we need here is a car lane. Boy, if they just went from bicycles to motorcycles, and last year over 1 million motorcycles were sold, which at only a thousand US dollars each means more than a billion in sales, just think what would happen if they went over to cars! With what would they power those cars? Has anyone considered this in the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) of this country?
But these motorbikes must be different from the motorbikes we used to know. We cannot even begin to fathom their significance in the local supply chain before we have witnessed the transport on a motorcycle of … FOUR FULL-GROWN PIGS!
Are we few track-minded?
I listened for a presentation about how this big gas electricity-generation project matched the energy requirements of this growing country, but was instead served information on safety, environmental friendliness, and social participation during construction. I thought, if these are the only things that they think we want to hear about, then this might very well be what is wrong with us.
Death penalty for corruption!
What does it really mean to have a death penalty for corruption—and still they tell you that corruption is rampant everywhere? In effectiveness, how does it compare to OECD’s[1] recent huge step forward of not allowing tax deductibility of corruption payments any longer? Are there any anticorruption patches to be found that might make it easier to break the bribery habit? Or do you have to go cold turkey?
Note: OECD The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and that represents a group of thirty countries, most of them developed and rich.
