Britain: you want to work abroad? Get some skills and learn some languages.

My mate Steve recently asked the question "Britain: Is it time to consider living, studying or working abroad?" With a stereotypically British response I say, perhaps.

For a start, I implore you, the British public, to get out of our wonderful rainy little island and explore the rest of the world. We, as a socio-economic entity, need to have a more outward facing view on the world. We cannot do this without people understanding the rest of the world's challenges. We must get rid of our eurosceptic government, our selfish Chancellor and become a driver for sustainable world change. We cannot do this unless a large part of Britain understands the rest of the world.

So in this respect I couldn't agree more and deeply regret not taking the opportunity to study abroad whether on a free Erasmus scheme as part of my degree or by taking a full degree over the puddle. Europe has excellent Universities and you can learn a second language while you're at it. You could even take up the opportunity to do an apprenticeship in another country like the two thousand or so young Brits apprenticing in Germany with Siemens and earn while you learn.

But to counter this, if you're studying an employable post graduate degree in the UK there are plenty of funding opportunities. The Panasonic Trust with the Royal Academy of Engineering, for instance, provide opportunity for £8,000 of funding for sustainable engineering MSc courses. I've found that if you put engineering/science, environment and sustainability in a funding application then people fall over themselves to hand you cash.

Then there's working in Europe and this is where it becomes more tricky. I've done it and know plenty of other linguistically challenged people working in certain hubs of Europe. I was in Geneva (Switzerland not Sweden, I'm astounded people really do get this wrong) where there are many businesses and international NGOs all working in English. The same can be said for Brussels and I've been assured that many of the large international corporation's lingua franca is English too. But that's where it ends.

The simple fact is that if you want to live and work in a European country you will eventually need to speak a European language. And we're terrible at it! I've been relentlessly ridiculed by my European friends about this, most of whom could speak 3 languages (their own, English and often French) but often multiple. Five isn't uncommon and some people are even on ten. These aren't linguists or teachers, they're everyday run of the mill people, like me and you. And it's a similar story on every other continent in the world.

Britain, we suck at speaking other languages! Repeating what you've just said but slower and louder is just not good enough.

I'm a shining example of this. I've had the opportunity to learn French since I was 6 years old and I've never taken full advantage of it. I even lived in a French speaking country for six months and had a two year relationship with somebody that spoke five European languages. Can I do anything more than order a beer in another language? No and I can barely do that! So if I, Steve, you or any other British person truly wants to go work in Europe I'd suggest we take a long hard look at our linguistic capabilities first.

Steve also suggested we go work in Germany because they've got terrific employment rates. They've also got a terrific education system and primarily operate in German - but they are nice about speaking English. It's certainly not impossible, I have good friends doing just that, but it's not as easy as he portrays.

Or how about we all emigrate to the colonies for the good life of cheap beer and endless sunshine? Well, first of all, Britain tried this a while back and it didn't really go according to plan. Secondly, just like Germany, to work (or indeed get a work visa) in many of these countries you need a productive skill set. Fortunately for me Engineering is on the list for most visa fast track systems.

Uganda, like many African countries, has a skills shortage and a huge unemployment problem. Unlike Germany it has an education system that is not meeting the needs of the populace. This has a lot to do with the teachers and lecturers regularly going on strike because the system doesn't have enough money to pay them on a regular basis. Probably because at some point, or perhaps all points, officials are skimming money away. To be charitable that's probably because they're not being paid properly either. To be uncharitable it's perhaps because the Ministers are embezzling funds somewhere else. This is conjecture though.

Furthermore the economy, although growing, isn't big enough to provide jobs for all of the young people that do have skills and education. So unless you, dear British comrade, have useful skills to offer or can produce employment opportunities for the thousands of unemployed Ugandans, the government doesn't really want you. And so it shouldn't. Just because you've got a sociology degree from the University of Hull and a burning desire to help poor Africans (or perhaps just to live the good life in a sunny country) doesn't mean you should come to do a job that you wouldn't be qualified for in the UK.

Britain does produce many highly qualified and useful people. I passionately believe that we could be leading the way in socially beneficial business, engineering and research. As a country we really do have the experience to do that and as a global population we need more people doing it.  But if you want to export your skills to another country, whether in the EU or the rest of the world, you need just that - skills. Apart from that we all need to pull our collective fingers out and learn some languages. Britain, the world is laughing at us.

What Madiba taught me about living in Kumasi.....

A few things have happened to me recently. The most prominent of which is that I’ve moved from Kampala, in Uganda, to Kumasi, in Ghana. And Nelson Mandela has died.

Now this isn’t to say the Mandela’s life or his death had much of a profound impact on me. I am, as has been stated before on this blog, a British white middle class man. I am almost the antithesis to Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. If I had been born further south than I was I would’ve been part of the system that oppressed him and I hope, although doubt, I would have had the courage to oppose it. I did not grow up with Mandela as my hero although I have learnt to respect and admire his courage, principles and actions; whilst understanding that there are many unsung people fighting similar battles to this day.

His death has provoked a reaction in many of my friends, as well as millions (probably billions) of other people, to express publicly their profound respect for a man that stood in the limelight and led, eventually, a process of peace and reconciliation probably unparalleled in modern history. Many have deep connection to him and his work for various reasons and he was an incredibly important figure in their lives; which is hugely important.

I too was one of those millions to eulogise on Facebook, to which my somewhat right wing British cousin questioned eulogising a man that was convicted as a terrorist – something he was categorised as until 2008 by the US. I was also contacted by an Afrikaans friend who fully accepted the great work that he’d done for their country but suggested I not forget that he and the ANC did attack many people who were not directly involved in the Apartheid system. A Nigerian/Ghanaian friend also posted Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won’t Talk About and a fantastic piece from Okwonga called Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel.

Both pieces were filled with passionate intent to remind the clamouring masses that Mandela’s struggle was not a unique event and that what he fought for still very much needs to be fought. To quote:

“You will make out that apartheid was just some sort of evil mystical space disease that suddenly fell from the heavens and settled on all of us, had us all, black or white, in its thrall, until Mandela appeared from the ether to redeem us. You will try to make Mandela a Magic Negro and you will fail. You will say that Mandela stood above all for forgiveness whilst scuttling swiftly over the details of the perversity that he had the grace to forgive.

You will try to make out that apartheid was some horrid spontaneous historical aberration, and not the logical culmination of centuries of imperial arrogance.”

I lapped this up. Having been educated in the UK we were starved of British history's context outside of that which we had triumphed. The Nazis were spoon fed to us. Nobody ever mentioned that Colonialism was morally abhorrent or that it led to horrific decisions being taken with, at best, misinformation from far off lands about people we didn’t understand and at worst specific bias towards dividing and subjugating foreign populations for our own benefit.

Furthermore a British history teacher won’t mention that it was not the Afrikaners who first suggested Apartheid in South Africa, it was the British, having forced the wives and children of the Boers in to concentration camps (we dreamt them up too), we were very much in charge back then; or that our Thatcherite Government didn’t even oppose it when it was in full flow. Smuts (ironically the only man in history to sign both peace treaties for WW1 and WW2 which the Declaration of Human Rights is based on), Churchill and Rhodes all supported the idea. Even Ghandi, educated in London, has been quoted in support of separation.

It was that last sentence “culmination of centuries of imperial arrogance”, then, that hit home. That’s me! As a British Citizen my position in the world and my privileged education is just that. Therefore, is my stance on this really a true belief in equality between all people or just a reflection of fashionable humanitarian sentiment of the moment? Will it dissolve when tested and will I revert to the stereotype of an arrogant expat?

Having had free time to take stock of myself I can’t honestly say that I have always stood for what I’m arguing Mandela stood for. Let me explain.

Kumasi, in contrast to Kampala, appears to have limited external influence and, as the Capital of the Ashanti Kingdom, the people are very proud of their heritage. Apparently for decades now there have been many Lebanese expats trading in lumber and real estate but other than that there aren’t many expats. Much of the wealth (and there is plenty), upon first glance, appears to be owned by Ghanaians with what seems like a more equal distribution.

The people of Kumasi also seem more conservative than many Kampalalites and with far fewer expats or tourists in the city there are far fewer accoutrements that go with them – including expensive foreign restaurants and racially divided standards of living. I’m not suggesting that expats in Kampala are implementing any form of separation (quite the opposite) but even the lowliest of European interns lives in a better house with a better standard of living than many of the people in the ever increasing unplanned urban sprawl across the low lying areas of the city; or, to be honest, than many Ugandan people working for NGOs or other companies. That must feel pretty raw.

Kampala had a large and vibrant expat community and it also had a young liberal Ugandan community which I, to my chagrin, didn’t interact with that much. When chatting to one of my few Ugandan friends about Kumasi she sarcastically suggested, “Well, you’ll just have to make friends with the locals.”

I’m more than happy to jump on the bandwagon of Pan African liberation and I often wax lyrical about how wonderful the countries I live in are or of the talent and latent potential to develop socially oriented businesses here (which I truly believe). But when put under the spotlight in Kampala I quickly retreated to the comfort and security of familiar faces and shared cultural identity; just as my Colonial predecessors would have done when presented with cultural differences far greater than that which is present today.

Well what of it? You’ve plenty of friends with similar cultures and experiences. That’s no crime. But if you’re out to do something positive in a collaborative and inter-cultural way, understanding and accepting your differences is vitally important. The danger is in letting yourself get sucked in to a bubble where your views of and opinions about your host culture become clouded by misjudgement. How then can you make good decisions or know when is the right moment to leave?

The great thing now is that I have no choice because there isn’t much of an expat community in Kumasi to fall back on. What I must do is stop searching for the familiar and immerse myself in the unknown. What a fantastic opportunity!

Atimo Recreation

Over a year ago now I headed out on my first of many adventures with Charlie and Jenny of the Mountain Club of Uganda. So I figured it's about time I wrote something about it all! This is the first in a series of look backs on my time in Uganda.

I headed up on Friday evening after work because I wanted to meet up with some old friends from Gulu that I'd worked with on a previous project - a bunch of ladies we affectionately referred to as The Gulu Girls. So I hopped on a bus from the crowded Kampala bus park and sat through the usual hour or so wait for loading. I arrived in Gulu as fresh as a dried cowpat and found my hotel via the police who wanted me to pay them for their services. In the morning I managed to meet up with Sue and Mary who told me all about how my old friends were getting on since the last time I'd been in Uganda.

Gulu has been through protracted war for about two decades and is now maintaining a hard won peace. So The Gulu Girls all grew up in Internally Displaced People's camps on the outskirts of the city and have struggled along ever since. Having gone through a secretarial school some other friends were supporting from the UK, Sue's now a secretary at the St Mary's Sacred Hearts school for girls and Mary's working in an internet cafe. Both are pursuing further education and the other girls seem to be getting on well.

Charlie's not so happy queuing

Fortunately for our conversation the others had a puncture and comedy of errors fixing it on the way up, so we had plenty of time to chat. But finally Jenny, Charlie and V bumbled in to town in Porsch-a, J&C's beloved but battered Rav4. Following a breakfast of mandazi and milk tea, Jenny made Charlie stand in line for some kerosene and we headed off to The Recreation Project 

The Recreation Project is the brainchild of Ben Porter, a psycho-analyst that's been working in the area for about 7 years. As he said, "I got bored of sitting kids down and saying Now kids we're going to talk about the worst thing that ever happened to you!" So he created an adventure playground that you can only get round in pairs or as a group. The idea is to nurture trust and confidence in children that have been through horrific things. I've no idea if it's working, but at the very least Ben's given the children of Gulu a good time - which is often overlooked in Development Practitioners thinking. Everybody needs a good time!

Climbing at TRP

We came to Gulu to find a rock at Fort Patiko where Samuel Baker set up to see off the slavers and to do so we needed Grace, who worked at TRP. But we came to TRP to see their new climbing wall built by a bunch of Norwegians (I think) who set some pretty gnarly routes on a planks of eucalyptus.

After running around the playground, jumping off the leap of faith and lunch of beans n rice we headed out to find Tony, the badass Boda driver.

There is always a man associated with land in Uganda and this time it was no different. We arrived as it was getting dark and the men were getting drunk. Tony talked them down to a few thousand shillings and we followed him in to the gloom, bumping through the bush following the headlight of his tiny bike.

We set up camp atop the rock accompanied by a gaggle of little boys and the squeal of Tony's engine to provide enough light from his headlamp. Then headed off in to the darkness further up the rock to find deadwood for a fire. Fire set Tony had a go at breaking Charlie's new stove that he'd queued so patiently to get kerosene for and I broke out the waragi - then apparently proceeded to snore.

The next morning we awoke to silence and sunrise. We found that we were on a plateau with views stretching out across the plains, the first time I was to find that Uganda is full of plains or rolling hills then huge rocks just bubbling up out of the ground.

A view to wake up to

Rocks with no cracks! Which wasn't much use for my new trad rack. But we set up a top anchor and belayed from the top to scope out the route. There's a pretty bald bulge at the base with a finger crack that you can smear up before getting to some easier slab work and then you're up! Atimo (I did it!) Recreation.

Rapping down the rock

Charlie on the rock

Jenny on the rock

V 'I've never climbed or camped before' on the rock

The problem with adventuring on the weekends is you have to get back for work on Monday. So we headed on down, packed up Porsch-a, watched V's sleeping head bounce up and down on the cool box and chuckled at Jenny & Charlies friendly bickering over each other's driving.

5 hours later we were back in the chaos that is Kampala. 

(Most of the photo credits go to Jenny Farmer)

"You're an engineer.....why can't you lay bricks?"

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 #engineer why can't you lay bricks?" "Because I'm not a brick layer!" The trouble with #NGO #perceptions 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.

A dam update

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:

1. 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;
2. Build a smaller dam (5m lower I think) and flood less of the section; or
3. 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.

Well.....dam!

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?

I'm a whitie....get me out of here?

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.