The question in the title was asked by a business development manager of an NGO in Uganda to a colleague of mine in a meeting yesterday. So I tweeted it:
"You're an why can't you lay bricks?" "Because I'm not a brick layer!" The trouble with of engineer's abilities."
....and another friend came back with the following point:
"They do have a bit of a point - how do you supervise/QA bricklaying if you don't know what to do? Ditto basic plumbing, carpentry"
This wouldn't be a question asked of an engineer in the UK. The engineers have specific roles related to design and management. The engineering company then employs skilled professionals to construct and supervise the construction. The site engineer ensures that the construction is put in place as per the designs and liaises with the foreman to ensure that the quality of construction is as expected.
So why not do this in Uganda?
The response from twitter is valid - as a civil engineer (not necessarily as any other type of engineer) you should know what good brickwork looks like and how to check it but I wouldn't say you need to be a fully qualified brick layer. Somebody, however, has to ensure that work is done properly.
Even the development community is waking up to the fact that you should only pay a contractor when they complete work to a pre-agreed standard - this is the basis of Output Based Aid. As the World Bank consultant put it to a steering group on water and sanitation in Uganda last week, "If you employ somebody to lay a pipeline and a tap stand, you shouldn't pay them until there is water running out of the tap." Seems pretty simple to me and surprising that this hasn't been the norm.
My point is that NGOs try to do too many things themselves and all at once. They should be collaborating with skilled professional companies or employing targeted skills for specific jobs and not expecting one professional within their organisation to be able to do everything vaguely related to their field. This seems, to me at least, why many projects are completed at a sub-par standard - I reckon the good people over at Admitting Failure would have more specific evidence on this. But hey, it's okay it's only for the poor people.
As Diana Jue pointed out in her exccellent article "Seven expert tips to help your invention succeed where others fail: Distribution" on Engineering for Change:
"From what I’ve seen of the availability of products in rural stores, most companies assume that because rural customers shave lower incomes, they won’t pay for nicer, higher-quality products. As a result, most products that reach rural markets are low cost and low quality......You will stand out in the marketplace if you position yourself as a high-quality brand. This means treating rural customers with the respect that all customers deserve.."
I'd argue that this goes for construction projects, products and services aimed at and involving low income people in general. If I, as an engineer, were to go about laying bricks for a latrine then we'd only be able to build as many latrines as I can manage at once. Even if I, as an engineer, employed a load of brickies to do it for me and personally supervised their work we'd only get to a limited scale because I, as the implementing individual, would be the limiting factor.
At the Sanihub project what we're aiming to do, on the other hand, is to use engineering analysis to determine the key factor in our product. In this case it's a low-volume U-bend in a pour flush system which only requires 2 litres of water to flush. We've taken direct inspiration IDE.org's EZ Latrine and are focussing on producing a standard chamber box/U-bend product that can be installed in to any latrine construction to allow people to have a water sealed toilet with an offset pit for a similar price to a standard long drop or VIP latrine. The parts have all been developed elsewhere; you can buy standard low flush P-bends in India, IDE,org developed the box in Cambodia, you can get good concrete slabs in Uganda and high quality ceramic squat pans are imported as standard. I've also been told that the low volume flushing pedestal that PiD demonstrated at the FSM2 conference in Durban is being developed with Envirosan, so will be available for import soon. Adapting the products and designing systems for them to function within is the important role of the engineer.
We'll then work with entrepreneurs to deliver the product to the market. We intend that these entrepreneurs (as construction professionals) will employ masons (brick layers) and ensure quality of construction or else they'll face a loss to their reputation and their revenue. Or they could simply sell the product with instructions and allow households to employ the mason themselves as the current system works - this 'hands-off' approach has worked well for Watershed in Cambodia. The important thing is that they'll have a high quality product at the heart of their latrine which will ensure better performance.
The other challenge that households, entrepreneurs and masons face is in the inconsistency of the building materials available on the market. There are no standards in local brick manufacturing; unless the household trusts the mason to buy quality bricks they need to do it themselves which seriously increases the transactional cost due to lost time for work and other earnings. Influencing the national brick manufacturing industry is not our role as a WatSan organisation but it would be a fascinating project! What if, however, there was a standardised construction system that would be specific to latrine construction in Uganda (and potentially the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa)? If that were available then standard, high quality and low cost products could be produced to reduce the transactional cost for households, reduce the time taken for construction, ensure a decent standard of construction and, this the ultimate aim, allow more people to build better toilets which would have a positive impact on their quality of life.
If you start writing a blog and people actually read it, it feels pretty good! I've not exactly picked uncontroversial subjects and have friends with strong opinions and substantial experience to back them up. So this blogging malarkey is proving positive!
One of the most interesting insights has come from a friend who's leading the debate on the construction of the new dam. His argument is hinged on the role of adventure tourism providing a unique hat trick of tourism opportunities in a relatively small country. No other country in the region can provide wildlife safaris, Gorillas and adventure to the extent that Uganda can and certainly not squeezed into such a small space. Giving Uganda a unique selling point which can be developed to provide even more revenue than is currently being generated. But some of his financial arguments seemed slightly self serving to me, so I set out to see if I could find statistical evidence to support or refute them.
As pointed out by the Government owned New Vision paper. the Ugandan Investment Authority state that tourism in Uganda brought in between $197m and $444m in 2004/5 which is substantially more or possibly double the income due to coffee exports ($145m) and could be equal to all agricultural exports ($452m) for the same year (Table 4). Furthermore, 70% of hotels in Uganda are owned by the domestic private sector (Table 1). In the interests of presenting an unbiased picture, UIA also state that 560,000 people rely on tourism as opposed to 3,000,000 on coffee production. The number of households reliant on coffee farming has dropped from 650,000 to 500,000 between 1999 and 2005 whereas the number of households reliant on tourism has nearly double in the same time.
The UIA points out that, other than visiting friends or relatives, tourism is one of the main reasons for visiting Uganda. If this is then compared against the average daily spend of a tourist at around $120 as opposed to $68 for a business traveller and virtually nothing for somebody visiting friends of family (Table 12); protecting the industry seems ever more logical. They even point out the main reason for tourism is "national parks, white water rafting, fishing and travel around the country". Furthermore, the tourist arrivals in four years from 2002 to 2006 have doubled and the approved investment from 2009 to 2010 have has gone from 2 million to 85 million dollars; ownership of investment being split 61% local, 4% joint venture and 35% foreign investment (Table 11).
Not only is tourism a rapidly growing sector within Uganda it's also a blatantly longer term revenue stream than extractive industries. If managed properly, the wildlife and rivers can attract tourists from all over the world forever. As can be seen from the lessons learnt in Dubai oil and minerals are finite resources. This isn't to say that industrial development shouldn't be promoted, just that it should be done so with appropriate environmental impact and social performance management.
The fact is that you can travel from Eastern Uganda to Western Uganda in a day if you push it or in a few if you stop of on the way at Lake Mburo or Queen Elizabeth National Park. So within a few weeks a tourist could go rafting, go on multiple safaris and see gorillas. But if you removed the rafting by building a dam a tourist could go on larger safaris in Kenya or Tanzania and have a shorter journey if they saw gorillas in Rwanda.
The rafting and kayaking community in Jinja are making the point that you can have the best of all worlds. There are three options:
- Build the biggest dam possible and flood the river right back to the middle of the commercially run section and create flood plains across much of the farmland directly upstream of the dam;
- Build a smaller dam (5m lower I think) and flood less of the section; or
- Build the smallest suggested dam (12m lower I believe) and flood none of the rafting section.
Obviously the kayaking and rafter industry are advocating for Option number 3. Arguing that if the Government of Uganda were to build a smaller dam they could still generate electricity and maintain a highly profitable aspect of the tourism industry. The main failing has been in the lack of engagement with those that will be affected by the construction; which is something the adventure industry in Jinja is hoping to change. Due to this it is not known what the power differential would be of a 5m or 12m drop in head compared to the entire generation potential of the dam. As an Environmental Engineer it seems that considering there are two conventional hydro-electric dams upstream of the planned project it may make sense to put in multiple run-of-the-river systems which would have limited impact on the river flow but would require more public engagement to construct additional channels off the river. Considering the more dramatic head drop across the rapids it may have been better to build the newest dam in this way too and a small conventional dam below the rapids. This might have meant lower flows along the rapids which could have spelled the end for Nile Special Wave but, as I learnt on Sunday, could have provided Club Wave at an amazing level all the time and all the rapids would have been generally intact; without the loss of Silver Back or Bujagali Falls.
Looking at the UIA website they, worryingly, seem to completely miss the thousands of tourists paying top dollar for a day of rafting. But have this to say about it:
"13.2 Water Sports and other related Activities
Uganda has a lot of potential to attract tourists to undertake water sports on Lake Victoria and other water bodies, which as underutilized. The investment opportunities include luxury boat cruises, boating services on the popular lakes and rivers (the Nile) create a unique tourist experience and water sports such as white water rafting, skiing, boat racing."
As a kayaker this statement seems odd to me. Though if you consider that almost all of the tourists that go rafting or kayaking are foreigners it then comes as less of a surprise that the industry is undervalued by the average Ugandan. Especially when you factor in that many people here do not learn to swim at an early age so are unlikely to go rafting or see its value. But it seems strange that the UIA don't include 'Adventure Tourism' as one of their 'Key Private Sector Players'.
It seems to me that the estimated annual value of Jinja's tourism industry needs to be better publicised and it's multiplier effect on the rest of Uganda's tourism better understood as this is obviously a substantial part of the Ugandan economy. The UIA stats are a bit out of date s if more recent ones could be found to demonstrate continued growth and compare them to revenue from energy production or extractive industries that would strengthen the argument further. In my mind the best example would be if the tourism incomes pre and post Bujagali dam showed a dip or drop in growth for the entire Ugandan tourism sector this would show that rafting has a substantial impact on Ugandan tourism at large.
I know my friend in Jinja and reckon that if there's somebody to do this he will. If you're the sort of person that can create a profitable business on the back of (basically) safely throwing tourists down big white water and developing highly skilled local guides; I doubt you're the sort to go down without a fight.
Obviously I have a vested interest in wanting the white water to remain because I enjoy paddling it but so do the hundreds of thousands of households (which is growing every year) that directly rely on Ugandan tourism for their income and the markets that surround them. I'm not one to jump on a bandwagon without doing my research and as an engineer I believe in cold hard numbers if they reinforce themselves when applied in a different manner. It seems obvious now that a badly implemented dam could have a severely negative impact on Ugandan tourism and therefore economic growth; so I'll keep writing about what I'm learning as this develops. Hopefully people will keep reading and discussing it!
If you'd like to show your support for Ugandan Adventure Tourism as it's evidently important to Ugandan economic growth like this Facebook page, it's only a little thing but it's a start.
Uganda has recently started construction on its newest dam. This will most probably wipe out all of the white water rapids up stream of the dam and put an end to commercial rafting in the area but will also generate a significant amount of power for the country.
I'm somewhat torn.
Personally I'm devastated. In an ideal world, the needs of the country outweigh the enjoyment of a relatively small number of rich tourists and those that live on the river would be compensated for their loses. But this isn't an ideal world.
On the one hand it's a tragedy, both personally for me as a Nile Kayaker and professionally for my friends that make their living on the Nile and have a great life there. I've good friends that own Kayak The Nile and run rafting companies such as Nalubale and Nile River Explorers. We've had great parties next to one of the greatest spectacles in the world and will hopefully have many more before it's gone. My friends are, quite rightly, angry at the Government for starting construction on a major new river based project without consulting either them or any of the other people that make their living from the river.
On the other hand Uganda is in desperate need of power (as is the rest of the region) and my enjoyment is not enough to stop a major new piece of infrastructure. A project of this size will generate huge amounts of employment and, if done properly, could have a significantly positive impact on the income of communities around the area. There aren't that many people (relatively speaking) enjoying the adventure aspect of the river and the taxi drivers, hotel keepers and restaurant owners will still be in business serving the construction companies - probably at greater profit.
If this was a properly implemented, constructed and managed project I'd be really torn.
As you can see from the picture in the first link, the backers of this project appear to be the China International Water and Electricity Corps. Considering the mess the Chinese have made of the Three Gauges dam on both environmental and human rights levels, the omens don't look promising for a properly planned and implemented project. Then there's the tense politics surrounding the flow of the river Nile which could lead to even more insecurity in the region.
As the Daily Monitor points out, tourism is a huge income for Uganda and rightly so; it's a stunningly beautiful country. Rafting is a reasonably large part of that but nature tourism is the majority. Unsurprisingly considering that Uganda has one of the greatest ranges of biodiversity in Africa and forms the sources of many of the environmental phenomenon on the continent such as the source of the Nile, river basins for Lake Victoria's tributaries, one of the last tropical glaciers in the Rwenzori Mountain Range (and the highest range in Africa) and a major part of the Rift Valley in the Albertine Rift.
New oil or mineral exploration, however, could have seriously negative impacts on this because they're largely being undertaken in or near National Parks. At least, though, exploratory companies are making positive noises towards environmental protection and the Equator Principles may govern further financing for development - lending some degree of international agreement to resource development. This is particularly important considering the downstream impacts from the area. Before any of that, however, there are the rights of people to their land and the incentive for people with any sort of power to grab land in order to make a quick profit. Not to mention the worrying power politics that seems to come hand in hand with finite resource discovery.
Obviously electricity generation, oil production and mining will bring much needed income to Uganda. If done properly this should help millions of people gain a better standard of living and generally help the country develop economically. But considering the inequalities in the country, the examples set so far by the ruling elite and the questionable moral precedent set by the Chinese backers, that's not guaranteed. Yes this is development and development needs industry to fuel the economy, but at what cost? Will this cost be too much for Uganda and, considering it's position at the ecological heart of the continent, for Africa?
It pains me to admit that I am now part of the Development Set. I write this from a relatively expensive cafe in Kampala and quite often discuss the merits or failings of various interventions aimed at alleviating poverty whilst wolfing down dinner in some restaurant. One so expensive that the people my job intends to assist could barely afford to look in let alone eat in, but hey the exchange rate works in my favour.
This bothers me and it's bothered me ever since I moved to Uganda just over a year ago. It bothered me when I used to volunteer here during my degree on projects that were only a shade away from the voluntourism initiatives that I sneered at; whilst trying to balance that massive chip I had on my shoulder. "Don't you know I live in a village?! What could you possibly know about the poor from your gilded pedestal in the city?!" I now have to admit that I have become one of the people that I used to look down on with a false sense of superiority, not realising that my position of 'sacrifice' was fake. My passport and my skin colour provided a direct route out if anything went seriously wrong.
What I'm grappling with now is whether it is wrong for me and all of my friends to be in this position of authority and responsibility? Should we be prospering from above national average (and in some cases above international average) wages whilst the people we're supposed to be benefiting are still struggling to scrape a living? Even if its an improved living.
So this morning I intended to sit down to ask the world. Inspired by my friend Steve, over at Hynd's Blog, I thought I could enter the blogosphere and make my opinions heard - or perhaps just consolidate them in one place. Problem is, would anybody listen? The inspirational straw that broke the camels back of self doubt came later in the day when I read Ben Phillips' piece on Posh white blokes: holding back the struggle for a fairer world?.
That's me I thought.
So where to begin? Well I'm an engineer working in Uganda via a classic send middle class whities to do good sort of gig - well we're not Peace Corps to be fair. EWB-UK is largely populated, and indeed was started by, Cambridge graduates. The most privileged of privileged students in the UK who live in 'colleges' and have 'formals'. Having grown up on a farm at the far end of Wales, the personal irony is that not only am I deeply engrained with EWB-UK, I was also accepted to Cambridge last year and genuinely believe that all of this can do some sort of good. But how?
Phillips says that key lies in shifting power, so that decisions are increasingly shaped by people with lived experience of marginalisation.........It goes to the roots of our purpose, it is central to the journey from "for" to "with" and "by". And I wholeheartedly agree, but how to do this?
The example he gives of rebalancing power and influence comes form employing more and more staff from the countries that his organisation works in. People that have living experience of the inequalities we're working to reduce. I agree and obviously doing this is a good step forwards. But do the people that NGOs employ have this experience?
Let's face it. A lot of the national staff that are employed by NGOs are 'posh coloured people', in the same way I'm a posh whitie, because they're the ones that had the opportunity to gain the education needed to operate in an NGO. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with this but there's the contradiction, the people that are employed by an NGO often have not gone through the same experiences as the poor people they're trying to help because, quite frankly, they're not poor people - although many people I know have worked their way up to their current position or have had opportunities due to tremendous sacrifice on the part of their parents. My question would be, are they getting the same opportunities to grow professionally as their posh white colleagues?
It's not that university level education is not available and it's not that it's not good. It's that the opportunities to expand ones knowledge outside of that are more limited in a country like Uganda than they are in posh white countries.
I think my posh white American friend struck the nail on the head when we were chatting about IT professionals he was employing to do some programming. Most people in the posh white countries have access to a computer and have done so from a very young age. So those that go on to become IT professionals have the opportunity to learn and practice these skill at their leisure; whereas IT professionals here may not because there isn't the same access to household technology; although this is increasing. These opportunities to develop skills are highly valuable and the people that possess them here aim for jobs which pay high wages. So is it so bad if we want to apply these skills (for less money initially) to improve the world and, lets be honest, have a good time while we're doing it?
From my own experience the fabricators and entrepreneurs I work with (and aim to benefit by developing technologies that they can use to make money) clearly have not had the opportunity to learn specific engineering or business skills so would probably not be employed in place of a posh engineer of any background. It's not that they're not capable of doing it or learning it, it's just that they've not been able to yet. The fabricators, for instance, are incredibly skilled and produce good products considering the equipment they have to hand. So is it that bad that I, as a posh whitie, am working to develop these skills and, lets be honest, have a good time?
Before I worked here I worked for Elrha where I assisted with a survey of professional development opportunities in the humanitarian sector. This showed that national staff working for INGOs were not receiving the same opportunities as their international colleagues. This finding was rammed down my throat one evening when chatting to a Ugandan lady who'd been on leadership development course run by a large INGO. She said that although she'd undergone the same training as her European colleagues she did not have the opportunity to work outside of East Africa whereas the Europeans were being flown all over the world.
To do what Phillips is suggesting, to rebalance power in international development, I say we must ensure educational opportunities for the middle class people from the countries we're guests in and while we're at we could level the playing field for national to international staff wages. Yes creating pro-poor solutions and advocating to ensure basic human rights in policy is obviously important. But how sustainable is it if it's only ever conducted by posh whities or people that have had the benefit of going to study in posh whitie countries? We need to bring the same opportunities to expand on the education that is available here as we have done at home and provide the same opportunities to travel to learn within the sector.
The great thing is that there are some exceptional examples of this. In Uganda there is the Hive Colab giving tech entrepreneurs a space to work and create. Or how about Fundi Bots, run by the self taught robotics engineer Solomon King, which goes in to schools to teach children about science. Internationally there was the Mondialogo Engineering Awards which paired students from the 'Global North' and 'South' to develop projects and share knowledge. We need more of these and we need to expand their scope past high technology on on to things like management, engineering skills, communications, planning and strategy. If we as guests in another person's country cannot offer the same opportunities we benefited from (and continue to benefit from) to the people we work with then our position is wrong.
