Dan Root
INDEV 401 Bi-weekly Report
November 5, 2012
Last week, an opportunity arose for me to leave the office in Lima and spend some time working for GEA on an assignment en campo. As a result, I was able to spend five days in the beautiful mountain village of San Lorenzo de Quinti, getting a closer look at the project which I have been marketing and meeting many of the people involved in its implementation. In San Lorenzo, as in Tanta and Canchayllo, GEA is overseeing a painting project intended to improve the appearance of several houses, providing the village with a more attractive and tourist-friendly facade. My job was to coordinate with the local construction workers contracted by GEA to record the measurements of every house in San Lorenzo that will be included in GEA’s project. In the evenings, I also accompanied my co-worker Anna to meet with those villagers who had recently inscribed themselves into San Lorenzo’s community tourism association. The people whom I met during these meetings have led me to new questions regarding inclusion and exclusion in capacity-building development projects.
When discussing development in University courses, we often contrast capacity-building forms of development, which seek to equip individuals and communities with the tools they need to take advantage of their own ingenuity and hard work, with a ‘charity’ model of development, which simply offers hand-outs to those in need. It is generally assumed that capacity-building is a more effective model for sustainable development because it allows beneficiaries to take control of their own economic situations, thereby instilling the necessary sense of project ‘ownership’ and breaking a potentially endless cycle of donor dependency. This is clearly the goal of GEA’s rural community tourism project in San Lorenzo, which aims to provide hard-working and entrepreneurial community members with secure and managed access to urban markets through tourism. GEA’s capacity-building model of rural community tourism is, I believe, an effective tool for meaningful rural development. Yet as a result of their exclusively capacity-based approach, GEA’s project may be leaving behind many in San Lorenzo who are in most desperate need of development assistance.
The situation of many whom I met in San Lorenzo de Quinti was epitomized by one elderly señora whom I met through these meetings, living alone with no education and no real marketable skills with which to earn a living. Throughout her life, this individual has provided for herself by working as a subsistence farmer. Yet time has seen her body weaken and her children leave for the opportunities of the city, leaving her alone in a state of near-abject poverty. Now, she has signed up to participate in GEA’s community tourism project, in the hope that it might provide her with some form of economic stability. Unfortunately, her situation is such that she has very little to offer the project, and therefore very little to gain from any rural community tourism operation. GEA’s project is designed to be an effective tool to help rural Peruvians help themselves, providing those who are able to run businesses or work as tour guides or artisans with access to larger and more stable markets. Yet, by exclusively focusing on ‘building capacity’, GEA’s project may be leaving behind those who are in the direst need of development assistance: those with little or no ‘capacity’ upon which to build.
This problem has not gone unnoticed by the members of GEA involved in this project. Still, no simple solutions seem to be available. GEA’s project is clearly designed to be a capacity-building project, with no budget availability for hand-outs. This fact may mean that GEA’s capacity project could actually increase income inequality within San Lorenzo, a fact that would run counter to the goals of any rural community tourism project. Currently, I do not see any easy ways for GEA to address this issue, but I will certainly continue to reflect on this issue as I continue to experience Peru.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully, I'll have some pictures and information about my trip to Chachapoyas (and my previous trip to Huaraz) available for posting.
Dan
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