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‘What the hell are you doing there?’
I’m getting this question a lot. When I got in touch with CARE, John Perry, the Program Coordinator, explained that they were considering applying the Participatory Action Research (PAR, not to be confused with PRA) methodology to their programs in Upper Nile. They needed somebody to come and assess the challenges of doing PAR in this area.
This was very much in line with my research interest in how local governance needs to be considered towards development effectiveness. So, I accepted the challenge.
I think I did not know fully what I was getting into.
Patty Joyce, at Maryland, tells me she is sharing the blog with her students at the School of Public Policy this Summer. Cheers fellas, any suggestion or question based on what you read here will be greatly appreciated.
This is by far the most complicated (and educative) field experience I have had so far.
The guy that ‘received me’ at the airstrip was James, the SSRRC director for the Maiwut county. SSRRC stands for Southern Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. They are basically the link between the NGOs and the local government, the
Payam.
James explained to me and the CARE supervisor that, as a foreigner, I would need to go everywhere in Pagak with an SSRRC person, ‘for my own safety’, according to him.
It didn’t take much time to realize that what the SSRRC guys wanted was money. Money for going with me to show me the place, meaning money for doing their job.
Pagak, a district (or Payam) right on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, has seen an exponential growth in the past three years. John Amaza, the local director of the Norwegian People Aid NGO, showed me pictures from 2005, right after the Peace was signed between the North and the South: a square, a few houses, and a UNICEF compound.
Nowadays, nobody has a clear idea how many people live here. A census was conducted earlier this year, but no results have been released. I have heard accounts of between 10,000 to 75,000 people.
The main reason for this growth is the inflow of people that were refugees in Ethiopia during the war in Southern Sudan. All of them ‘pass’ through Pagak: for between 1 to 3 days they stay at the UN-ADRA Way Station,
La ultima tecnologia en Pagak...
untanque de agua distribuyendo a siete puntos de acopio en el pueblo, cortesia de PACT Sudan right outside town.
I visited the Way Station with Junko, the same charming Japanese I met at the airport in my first attempt to come here. During the rainy season, the refugee flow stops. ADRA had less returnees this year, not because they are few, but apparently because the Ethiopian government does not want the flow to continue at the same pace (maybe because of the resources they receive from UN for having the refugees??). On top of that, the bridge between South Sudan and Ethiopia collapsed early in the year, and has not been repaired yet.
ADRA personnel receive the people and take them to their place of origin, where their clan lives. Many decide to stay in Pagak or close. The reasons vary, but have to do with the fact that Pagak, compared with the areas around, has a relatively good access to water, and land is better for agriculture here than in other Payams around.
People are extremely nice here, and wherever I go, I am greeted with curiosity and enthusiasm. Not that many foreigners work here.
However, politics and the transition from emergency relief to development that the communities and NGOs are
Comida de WFP para los ex-refugiados
ADRA no puede repartir la comida, a pesar que no habra mas ex-refugiados viniendo a Pagak este anio undergoing here, might prove a tough obstacle for what I would like to do. At least for now.
First thing to remember is that this is a country that, officially, still does not exist. The peace agreement of 2005 between the North and the South established a unified government with Sudan’s Bashir as President and John Garang, the leader of the resistance in South Sudan, as Vice-President, with a referendum scheduled in 2011 to decide if the South becomes a separate country or not. Garang would shortly after die in a plane ‘accident’.
Southern Sudan, however, does have its own administration. But the agreement also established that two out of the ten states in Southern Sudan were to have authorities at the state and local level appointed by the Sudan’s government party.
Upper Nile, from where I write this, is one of those states, despite being the place were the Sudanese People Liberation Army (SPLA) and Movement (SPLM) were born. Or maybe precisely because of this. Local people feel that if Khartoum is able to win back Upper Nile for the 2011 Referendum, the SPLM might fail in achieving independence for the South.
So, the State
Governor, and the County Commissioner are decided from Khartoum. And they appoint the local authorities. People here, however, are SPLM all the way. Even the Payam Administrator, a guy not older than 18, appointed by the County Commissioner (to control him easier?) has a cartoon in his office calling to support the SPLM and crossing with an ‘X’ the Sudanese flag.
The impetus to please people around here and gain them for Sudan sometimes goes a little too far. Four days ago, for example, the Commissioner for the county called a few friends and broke into the WFP compound in the county capital, Maiwut. They stole all the food stored there, only to distribute it as they deemed proper. A modern Robin Hood, but nothing romantic about this tale. WFP had no chance but to accept it.
Whoever controls the development money here, controls the area. This has derived in some bitter arguments between the local government and different NGOs. As in other places and under other circumstances, if things work, the government officials were the ones pushing for it. If things do not work, the problem is the evil NGO.
True, NGO’s have their own problems.
But more about this in another entry.
So there was James ‘suggesting’ giving money to the SSRRC so they can help me. I politely refused. This has already gained me a few problems. First one when I suggested, smiling, that I thought that collaborating with NGOs was their job (somehow, James didn’t like the comment). The second a few days later, when I was leaving for another Payam, and I was ‘forbidden’ to take any pictures ‘because he said so’. Not precisely my best friend around here, let’s put it that way.
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