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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Fighting the AID Virus: Towards the Indigenisation of Development Facilitation in South Africa
Author:Wassermann, IngeISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:South African Journal of Ethnology
Volume:20
Issue:4
Period:December
Pages:211-218
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:development cooperation
aid workers
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
Abstract:Most of the nearly 100,000 'imported' development consultants who are presently in Africa contribute very little to the development of the continent. In fact, their aid is often so self-centred and culture-insensitive that the 'aid virus' poses a greater threat to humanity than the AIDS virus. The author, who has worked as a community developer for the Pella community, a Tswana settlement in the Northwest Province of South Africa, since 1994, motivates this point of view by referring to problems experienced with 'imported' development consultants in the facilitation of project planning in South African communities. She focuses on facilitation errors often made during planning workshops. These errors can be ascribed largely to the consultants' inadequate knowledge and experience of the local situation, although there are also some general errors in the facilitation which are related to the facilitation process itself. Reference is made to both types of error in an attempt to increase the application value of the article for the training of local development facilitators. In each case, the error is described first, after which its impact on the participants is indicated, and an attempt is made to lay down a rule in order to prevent the error from occurring. Bibliogr., sum. in Afrikaans and English.
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