Inside Africa: When Best Intentions Go Wrong
Enrique Ramos Lpez / EyeEm
When many people from Western countries think of Africa, they think majestic lions and peaceful elephants roaming on wide plains along rivers. They think of poor schools and small villages where the people work to survive. With these images in mind, many set out with the best intentions to advocate on behalf of the wildlife and people spread out across the vast continent. Ricky Gervais, an English comedian, has been a long-time promoter of animal rights internationally, having worked on the “Stop Circus Suffering campaign and helping the African lion get the greatest protections from the international community. In 2017, he received the Lord Houghton Award for his contributions to the animal welfare movement. In 2020, Gervais was one of the several European celebrities named in an open letter from over 50 community leaders in Africa asking for respect of the local conservation efforts and the people involved.
It is an example of when the best intentions do not have the expected response. The letter was written by leaders from Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe and addressed to Gervais, Joanna Lumley, Peter Egan, Ed Sheeran, Dame Judi Dench, and Piers Morgan. The message was very clear. In the letter, the African leaders wrote, “We acknowledge that you are doing so with the best of intentions and we welcome your interest in our wildlife. But you have expressed these views without full appreciation of the implications for our people or wildlife, and without consulting us, who live with and manage African wildlife and who will ultimately determine its future.” These African development and conservation leaders went further to explain their own home-grown conservation efforts, including incentives for sustainable and regulated hunting methods supported by science and beneficial to both the regional habitats and communities without the “romantic, idealized lens” most Westerns use when thinking of Africa. The letter also detailed how without living in the region and experiencing the hazards that are often associated with living alongside wildlife, these European good Samaritans can’t understand how the communities face potential loss of livelihoods or even lives.
The letter criticizes the celebrities for falling into the same patterns European colonizers fell into years ago when they first came to the continent - ignoring the voices and perspectives of the diverse African peoples and devastating the natural habitats and local communities along with all of their traditions and ways of living. These leaders’ request to the European celebrities advocating on the wildlife’s behalf to listen to the local voices and don’t believe all the “myths” of Africa they have been led to believe.
The criticisms presented in the letter are not new ones. As the presence of non-governmental organizations in Africa continues to grow, bringing nonprofit groups and their missions to address poverty, health care, and education across the continent. There is no central database tracking all of the NGOs operating worldwide, which makes pinning down exact numbers difficult. However, in 2018, 18,802 international public charities were registered in the United States. It is important to note that this number does not represent the number of nonprofits operating in Africa, though it does indicate a strong international presence. While well-meaning, these groups have been the subject of some negative feedback. Often they are accused of not only not doing much to improve the overall lives of those they set out to help, they face allegations of undermining local and regional governments and promoting their own countries’ influence over these areas.
In some cases, whatever service or product an NGO is providing to a community might create as many problems as it solves. In 2018, a trio of Kansas State University graduate students explored this in rural Uganda, where promoters of biogas technology were missing the bigger impact of what they were providing to cattle farmers in the country. The students were able to find evidence that while the benefits these promoters were advertising were in fact there, they did not consider the general maintenance, resource allocations, and labor - all of which can be an unreasonable burden on households who adopt the technology meant to provide alternative energy for cooking and light. Their study showed that the burden of keeping up with the water requirements was usually put on women and children, who already had their own sets of responsibilities in the households, something promoters did not consider - or if they had, never said anything.
The graduate students’ study serves as one example of the broader impacts of the actions of international actors who have the best intentions. It can also be seen when a Peace Corps volunteer writes a grant to set up a library in a West African town but leaves wondering who, if anyone, will have the time to open it every day for the children or if the new books will gather dust in a room that will end up only being used for storage.
On the government side, many have raised concerns that international groups overseas might have ulterior motives beyond being helpful. As many countries across the region work to establish themselves in the global economy through their own initiatives and trade agreements, as this column has previously reported, more wonder what need there is for these groups besides remaining present to influence the states they operate in. Approximately 40 years ago, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund required that African countries with debt to reduce public expenditure, paving the way for more NGOs to come in and work to address the issues they see in their own ways.
The open letter addressed to the European celebrities brings up one point that these Western groups are not always looking to see what local communities have already put in place to address their needs. South Africa issued new protections for rhinos in September. Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, the founder of SoleRebels, created hundreds of local jobs with her eco-friendly shoes. These are just some of the success stories that don’t also get told. The last statement of the letter reads: “We want you to hear our voices; our conservation successes and lived realities are not ‘myths’.”
