How to revive the true spirit of Public Service

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

Introduction

Zambia has won the Africa Cup! What can my country’s latest achievement in football teach us about how to rekindle the spirit of Public Service? Does it take more than politicians to inspire a country? What are some of the missing elements in our effort to attain our desired standard of living for everyone? Are we paying the right level of attention to all those areas that are necessary for driving national development? These are some of the question I have been reflecting on as I write the subsequent paragraphs.

Many people would agree that national development needs committed political leaders and a robust or thriving private sector. Political leaders are largely responsible for initiating the laws and policies that govern the use of national resources (human and otherwise). The business sector is best suited to generating much of the wealth we need to attain the quality of life we feel everyone deserves. We can also easily see the contributions of civil society in making politicians and businesses accountable. The power of civil society showed itself in a very significant and extraordinary way when a number of governments collapsed in 2011 in what has come to be known as the Arab Spring. The Occupy Movement has also demonstrated civil society’s determination to influence a re-think of the role of the private sector in society. The entertainment and sports industry give us a glimpse of what we can do if we drop all our pettiness and focus on what unites us. Our performance in the just ended Africa Cup which has seen us emerge African Champions, for instance, shows that we can break new grounds if we push our boundaries just a little further.

I am of the opinion that we do not often sufficiently see and acknowledge the significant role that a truly committed and skilled Public Service plays in national development. By Public Service I am referring to the Civil Service (managerial/administrative of government) and all parastatal bodies or any other institutions that are set up by government to serve the citizens of a country.

Is the Spirit of Public Service dead?

Working in many African countries partly gives me the impression that the spirit of service in the public sector is dying. You begin to see this from airports of certain countries. You meet immigration officers and airport staff that show on their faces that they are at pains attending to you. They would rather be elsewhere.

You get similar experience as you go to the Ministry of Lands to follow up on your application for a piece of land you would want to acquire. The public servant sitting on the other side of the table looks very disinterested in attending to you. His attention is split between attending to you and listening to the small radio on his table. The story is the same when you rush to a clinic or hospital because you have suspected malaria. The officers attending to you are unable to hide their displeasure in the work they do. Things get a lot nastier when you go to the police station to report an incident. You are ridiculed for having your items stolen and then given a lecture on what you should do next not attract thieves.

In the end, you feel like you must inform the more senior public servant who might see things from a policy perspective. If you are lucky to be given an appointment with the ‘big boss’, you meet someone who is immaculately dressed, carrying more than one mobile phones and constantly answering both the mobile and land phones. In the end the big boss casually says, “I will ask someone to look into your issue”.

How can the true spirit of Public Service be revived?

Part of what it would take to revive the spirit of Public Service in developing countries is to make working in the public sector a prestigious experience. This has been the case before in Zambia and many other countries. To some extent, developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States have managed to make their Public Services environments where people who feel the need to contribute to their countries in a particular way seek to work – at least for a period of time in their careers. The Public Servants I have had the opportunity to work with in Rwanda display, with grace, great enthusiasm and exceptional professionalism.

What is it that makes the Public Service a prestigious environment to work in?

  • Perceived to be uniquely professional: When the Public Service is perceived by the general public to carry out its functions in a uniquely professional way, it gives a good feel to those who work in it. This perception becomes an attraction to young and accomplished talent. It must be easy for us to imagine how many young children in Zambia will in the next few years dream to play professional football after seeing the magic our National Team displayed in the last few weeks in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Many workers enjoy being seen as a special group of professionals – people who know how to perform their functions with great and exceptional distinction. The label “professional” in the Public Service comes from years of specialised training in and experience of how to make the bureaucracy (used in the positive sense of an instrument for making government achieve it reason for existence and objectives) function as effectively as possible.
  • Public Servants viewed as individuals with a special vocation: Working in the Public Service is and must be made to look as a special vocation. The Public Service is a special vocation in that it ought to attract people who have a special inclination to using their giftedness to serving the interests of their country. Public Servants are expected to be individuals who can be trusted with the privilege of wielding state powers, not for self-interest, but in service of the public-interest. In comparison to people who serve in other sectors, Public Servants carry a lot of powers to suspend, stop, and encourage the activities (and even existence) of other sectors.  It is expected that the men and women who work in the Public Service will not use these special powers in any manner other than promoting the public-interest.  
  • Recruited from among the best: When the Public Service is perceived as a special vocation in service of the country, it acquires the capacity to recruit its staff from among the best in the country. Sufficient numbers of young men and young women who are top of their classes in colleges and universities compete for their entry into the Public Service. Accomplished professionals in others sectors find it prestigious to be invited to offer their services – on a temporary or permanent basis – in the Public Service.
  • Quality working environment: Those dedicated to the service of their country must work in fitting conditions. They must have the physical environment that permits them to think hard about the needs and challenges of the country. It means their offices must not be over-crowded and full of dilapidated furniture. The equipment and technology must be top of the range to enable efficiency to be an obvious part of the culture of the Public Service.
  • Reasonably remunerated: Although Public Servants have a special vocation to serve their country, they need to be reasonably remunerated. This does not mean they should have conditions of service that are equal to those who work in the profit oriented private sector (although where conditions permit people must be remunerated as well as possible). There should be creativity in how to create attractive conditions of service for public servants. A healthy pension scheme, good working environment, quality facilities, the prestige that comes with the sector, and opportunities for professional development, among other sources of motivation and inspiration help to build the notion of worthwhile remuneration or reward.
  • Acknowledgement and encouragement from leaders: Public servants are often ridiculed and used as a scapegoat by leaders in situations of failure or underperformance. While this will definitely occur from time to time, public servants must be acknowledged and encouraged openly and publicly by political and other leaders for good they do. Acknowledgement and encouragement in word and deed invites the best in public servants. Leaders have an obligation to build a healthy and genuine positive perception of the Public Service.

Conclusion

Zambia, as a nation, has evidently found a way to inspire our national football team to great success. How can we transfer our learning to the way we run our public institutions? I suggest that we find ways to make the Public Service attractive to the best men and women with a calling to serve their country in this special way. Having had the opportunity to serve my country as a civil servant at Parliament, a lecturer at the University of Zambia and an adviser to the President, I have witnessed the significance of the work that public servants do. I have a lot of respect for those who consciously choose to serve their country by working for government or its sub-systems.

The honour of waking up every day and thinking about how best to use the instruments of the state to promote the interests of the country and fellow citizens gives immeasurable reward even before the pay roll is run. It is an incredible responsibility to know that what I do on a daily basis as a public servant affects whether the farmer gets his her fertiliser or not; that my work is directly related to the health of children, women and the rest of society; that how I spend my day in the office can determine the education level of a child; that how I perform in my job has an impact on the quality of infrastructure my country has; and that my work contributes to whether some families sleep hungry or have enough to eat. Being a faithful, efficient and effective Public Servant is one of the noblest of vocations one can be called to in life.

Why do African Presidents fail to deliver on their promises?

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

Introduction

I am writing this article with the assumption that many African Presidents (and their governments), with the exception of one or two cases, fail to achieve what they promise their people at the beginning of their term of office. This failure of leadership shows itself in the poverty that the African continent continues to suffer. The failure also shows itself in the untapped potentials (human and otherwise) of many countries on the continent. Rampant corruption is another indicator.

What then explains the failure?

If, for now, we work on the basis that my assumption that there is a failure of leadership in Africa is correct, what are some of the possible explanations for this failure? How can such failure be corrected or avoided?

As Dr Otto C Scharmer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) puts it, the failure of leadership (in reference to leaders anywhere in the world and in any sector) comes from two critical factors. Firstly, leaders are often unable to “access their own ignorance”. Secondly, leaders are unaware of the need – and often lack the skills – to engage in meaningful dialogue with those around them. Let me explain.

By “failure to access one’s ignorance” I mean the inability of leaders to know what they ought to know to be successful in their work. To be continuously successful, leaders must hear, see and experience what is truly going in the systems they run or manage. We all have our own leadership blind spots. Our challenge (and task) is to increasingly become aware of these blind spots so that we can access new data/information that should ignite new responses. One way in which leaders can access new data is by engaging in honest dialogue or conversation.

Believe it or not, although we hear and see that leaders are often in meetings, they rarely have dialogue with their equals. I am using the term dialogue in its etymological meaning – flow of meaning (dia – logos). In this context, true dialogue happens when leaders seek to co-discover or co-create meaning with their fellow leaders. Meaning is not always self-evident. It must be discovered. I have been privileged to observe those who serve Presidents or Heads of State in different parts of Africa through my work as an adviser to the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative and my own experience of having served President Levy Mwanawasa (Zambia’s third President). Through my work, I have learnt that those who work around Heads of State rarely engage the President or Prime Minister (or any person of power) as an equal. This situation tends to play at every level of leadership. Why might this be the case? The office of President or Prime Minister comes with such aura and some of form of mystery that, if not well managed, it tends to ‘drown’ or ‘swallow’ and even ‘smother’ the voices and thoughts of people around it. This, more often than not, happens under the guise of ‘respect for the highest office in the land’.

Respect for the President or Head of State emanates from what the office represents. It represents and embodies the ‘spirit of the nation’. It is the highest expression of the unity or oneness and collective will of a country. To this extent, then, the office of Head of State is sacred (deserving utmost respect). The office of President is even more mysterious in cultures and traditions were leaders are deemed “Father of the Nation” or “Father of our Liberation”; inviting reverence as the normal attitude and response before the leader. If this situation is not mitigate (by mainly actions of the leader himself or herself), those around the leader may not find it easy to pitch themselves as equals to the person who holds the high office. The job of those around the President is, subsequently, reduced to merely following presidential instructions. Presidential advisers cease being advisers and begin to compete on who carries presidential instructions, expressed or imaginary, the fastest.

Another way through which a leader can access his or her blind spot is through seeing and experiencing the system one is superintending. This means the President should find and establish processes and techniques through which he or she accesses the real world in which his or her citizens live. The visit of a President invites extraordinary efforts to make the place look ‘fit for a Head of State’. With the good intentions of being respectful to the President who embodies the spirit of the nation, people tend to go out of their way to welcome the visitor. As a result, the President tends to experience the life that his citizens do not live. He eats the food that people can afford only for important guests. He experiences surroundings that are far much cleaner than his people usually live in. People go out of their way to show respect for the head of state.

One of the jokes I have picked in the UK is that the Queen of England thinks all rooms outside her palace have the smell of paint. This is because rooms that the Queen visits are often re-painted just before she makes her visit to ensure that they are ‘royalty clean’. More often than not, Presidents have no idea what the real situation of most citizens is. Even those leaders who come to power on the strength of their ability to understand the people’s will and needs can fast slide into ignorance of what is truly going on. After operating and living in an ‘abnormally’ powerful and resource-rich environment for two to three years, leaders may tend to create a figment in their own minds. They take their circumstances as every person’s world. A few months of visiting only well adorned places, buildings that are properly refurbished, the natural environment that is nicely kempt (and often seen through tinted windows of a bullet proof Mercedes Benz car), and travelling without being hindered by traffic lights and on aircrafts that must wait for you; the President begins to think his personal efforts and those of government have paid dividend. Personal well-being becomes national well-being.

In conversations with fellow leaders (ministers and advisers), Presidents end up receiving half-truths and sometimes outright lies. My teacher, Lance Secretan – one of the world’s leading thinkers on the subject of leadership and bestselling author of numerous books, says, “The higher you go, the less truth reaches you”. People around the President tend to second guess what would please the ‘Boss’. From time to time, President Mwanawasa would invite me to Nkwazi (official residence) for lunch or dinner. Over a meal, he would ask me what my thoughts were about some of the issues that were going on in the country. He would often end with the question, “What do you know about what is going in the country that I should know?”  or “What is affecting our people that I should worry about tonight?” In those moments, I knew that the President was looking for ‘brutal facts’ rather than polite conversations that showered him with praises. He would often remark to me, “It is very difficult to have honest adult conversations when you are President. Many people I have a lot of regard for seem to lose their voice in my presence, what could explain this?”

President Mwanawasa yearned for peer challenge and rarely got it. I cannot count more than five names of people who I saw engage the President as equals. The rest grovelled and almost knelt before him. Their role was simply to oblige to the expressed or imaginary wish of the boss. Obliging is part of what it takes to work for a President, but it is only half the story. The other half is engaging the President in tough conversations so that he is well positioned and well informed to make the tougher and more critical decisions that the nation deserves and expects.

Dr Kaunda, the first President of Zambia, expressed similar yearning. He once shared with me that among the critical things he missed while he was Head of State was engaging in quality and honest conversations with colleagues. A few years ago, while I worked for Oxfam GB, I had the privilege of inviting Dr Kaunda to officiate at an Oxfam function in Lilongwe, Malawi. I flew from London to Lusaka in order to travel with the former President to Malawi. Recognising the status of Dr Kaunda, Oxfam flew the former President in business class while I travelled economy. He was the only one in business class that day. Thirty minutes after the plane took off from Lusaka; Dr Kaunda said to one of the air hostesses, “I have a friend sitting at the back of the plane. Kindly permit him to come and sit with me.” His request was granted expeditiously. I was delighted to sit directly opposite the former President.

I couldn’t resist asking Dr Kaunda, “With the benefit of hindsight, Your Excellency, what are the key lessons you picked from your time as our head of state?” He looked at me for a few seconds without uttering any word. He gave out his characteristic smile and then said, “My young man, that is a critical question”. He paused again. He then went on to share with me how difficult it was for him to have colleagues to genuinely think with. “There were a few exceptional cases, I must say.” He shared a moment when he met someone who was not willing to sacrifice the truth even if the President did not like it. “Soon after independence, a young Zambian judge ruled against the state,” Dr Kaunda began. “This was a case in which I, as head of state, was deeply interested. I felt that if the case was ruled in favour of the state, it would enhance our political independence from colonialism. The young Judge ruled against the state.” He paused, again, for almost minute. “When I had the opportunity to meet the young judge,” he continued, “I asked him why he had ruled against the state. The young judge said to me, ‘Your Excellence, while I understand and appreciate our nation’s political agenda, the law currently does not support what the state would like to do.’ I asked Dr Kaunda, “What did that make you feel?” He replied, “Young man, although I did not like the judge’s answer, I could not ignore his courage and was deeply humbled. Humbled, indeed. The young judge’s response made me realise the importance of working with people who are courageous and willing to tell the truth as they know and see it.” He remained silent for a while as if to let me internalise what he was saying. Dr Kaunda concluded, “A few months later, I invited the young judge to be our first indigenous Zambian Chief Justice. I knew that our judiciary would be in capable hands.” He was referring to Justice Annel Silungwe.

How can a leader constantly receive honest feedback?

In one of his articles to the Post newspaper soon after the inauguration of President Michael Sata (Zambia’s fifth President), Professor Hansungule stated that the one key quality of leadership in our time is the ability to listen to the people’s will. I totally agree with Prof Hansungule. However, the challenge lies in whether there are conditions in which the leader can engage in honest conversations so that he can access the will of the people. Anyone who has worked around powerful men and women can attest to how difficult it is to tell “the emperor that he is naked.” Prof Edgar Schein of MIT, under whose feet I have had the rare privilege of learning, says that there is one key lesson he has learnt in his more than 50 years of working with leaders in different parts of the world. The lesson is that unless the leader suspends, from time to time, social rules around his or her office, he or she would increasingly lose the ability to engage in honest conversation and feedback.

In most societies, if not all, there are ‘social rules’ or ‘socially acceptable ways’ or the ‘etiquette’ of how to communicate and relate with leaders. These rules are, in their original and purest form, meant to signify the importance of the role played by a given office. They are also meant to enable the office occupant perform certain roles with ease for the benefit of the constituency. What does suspension of social rules then mean? This is when a leader deliberately creates, from time to time, an environment or conditions were those around him or her can share what they think and feel without any inhibition. Some aspects of the Japanese culture developed its own practice of how to suspend social rules for the greater good of the military. It is called After Action Review (AAR). Upon accomplishing an operation, the commander or head of the platoon would call all those who were involved in the operation to conduct an AAR. During the AAR, social rules of the military (deep respect for ranks and seniority) would be suspended. The private soldier and the commander would temporarily have equal status as they review their actions. They both would have equal amount of time to speak and ask whatever (tough) questions they have. They would challenge each other’s views. At the end of the AAR, the truth was often found, enabling the military to learn from its actions for the future.

AAR is practised in some Japanese companies and other systems world-wide that have learnt the ‘ritual’. On a Friday, for instance, the managing director or head of department of a company would invite a cross section of staff – juniors and seniors – for a drink. As soon as staff step into a pub or bar, they are presumed to be drunk. This means that every member of staff, even before he or she sips his or her drink, can say to the managing director or any other staff, “I think that decision you made last Monday was really silly…” and gives reasons for his or her assertion. The whole drinking session, often without anybody getting really drunk, is a conversation about how serious issues affecting the company can be tackled and lessons learnt. As soon as the drinking session ends and the staff have stepped outside the bar, normal social rules or etiquette are expected to be in operation, irrespective of whether one is truly drank or not.

In December 2011, I was in Lusaka visiting my ailing father. One morning when I observed that he was not in so much pain, I asked him if there was any equivalent of AAR in our traditions and culture. He explained to me that among the Ba Bemba, for instance, were praise singers who had unlimited access to the palace. Although these singers were thought to compose and sing songs of praise for the king, they equally composed and sung songs of rebuking the King when he was perceived not to be running the kingdom properly. The King was not permitted to punish them even when they said something he did not like. Their ‘office’ was protected by tradition. My father explained that the skill of the praise singers lay in their ability to tell it as it was while still “saving the face of the King”. This means that the praise singers critiqued the King in the language that only those properly educated in this form of communication could decode. For the rest of the people, these were just ordinary songs. For those with ‘ears’, the King included, songs were sometimes tough feedback for the ruler.

Reflection points for our new national leaders in Zambia

There is a new air of hope in Zambia since the Patriotic Front swept to office. Generally, people have high hopes that the new leaders will make a difference. President Sata has made key and important pronouncements that if implemented should make Zambia one of the beacons of hope on a continent that seems to be stuck in mismanagement and, as the country’s current Minister of Finance would put it, ‘kleptocracy’ (theft). I offer the following as reflection points for our leaders in government, and perhaps, business and civil society:

  • Create opportunities where those around you can tell you what their honest thoughts are. The power of your office combined with our traditional respect for leaders will tend to prevent you from relating as an equal to those around you. From time to time, create conditions were others can communicate with you sincerely as a peer.
  • Surround yourself with men and women who have the courage to share what they think, feel and what they are learning from society, no matter how unpalatable that might be to you. Do not be shy away from employing those who are not enthusiastic about praising you.
  • Whenever you can, access the reality of the citizens’ living conditions when they are not camouflaged by the need to impress you. Find the time to see – by yourself – situations as they truly are. If you can, spend 40% of your time doing paper work in your office and 60% meeting and talking to people (customers, debtors and creditors in the case of business leaders) in their true or real environment.
  • Employ managers who are more skilled than yourself to take care of the managerial and administrative duties of your office. For the President, this means identifying a highly qualified and competent Chief of Staff and Senior Advisers. For Ministers, this means looking out (through the President) for true professionals for Permanent Secretaries and Directors of key public institutions.
  • Leaders need to create what one of my mentors and a celebrated author, Nancy Kline, calls “Think Environment”. Most leaders’ work situations are “Instruction Environments”. A Thinking Environment assumes equality between people, creativity in the search for solutions, and taking turns to make contributions. Failure to create a Thinking Environment leads to infantilisation of adults and poverty of ideas and the ensuing actions. A Thinking Environment leads to productive dialogue. When expertly facilitated, dialogue generates wisdom and new knowledge.
  • In today’s world, the currency is shared leadership. The era of single hero leaders or ‘lone rangers’ is gone. No single leader can find answers to the many complex challenges that confront our society. Collaborative leadership is the answer.

Blog written by Martin Kalungu-Banda. (The author of this article is an Organisation Development Consultant and author of the bestseller “Leading Like Madiba: Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela” and “It’s How We End That Matters: Leadership Lessons from an African President”).

Moments of Change for 2012?

by Hamish Wilson/

As we head into 2012, Wasafiri is asking where tipping points might lie for tackling poverty and related crises.

The future is uncertain. Of that much we’re sure. We live on a small planet with 7 billion people competing for rapidly diminishing resources, clamouring for greater political participation and a higher standard of living. New technology is stirring revolution and geopolitical power is shifting dramatically – all amidst a changing climate and an unprecedented economic crisis.

Such an outlook suggests that crises from conflict to climate change will be unpredictable in where and how they strike, but that we can expect the world’s poor to bear the greatest burden.

Yet amidst this volatility, we believe that new opportunities for tackling such problems will emerge in 2012. And it is often out of the most chaotic and dynamic moments that energy for thinking and acting in new ways begins to emerge. Wasafiri operates at the heart of such moments, working with the people and organisations tackling poverty and related crises. From our privileged vantage point therefore, we take the plunge to consider where opportunities for change may emerge in the year ahead:

Myanmar – capitalising on recent developments to strengthen democratic reform and respect for human rights
Horn of Africa – defining a long-term approach to improving resilience and development in the aftermath of 2011’s worst humanitarian crisis
South Sudan – tackling tribal and political conflict and strengthening government reform in the world’s newest country to lay the foundation for long-term state building
Somalia – tackling the blight of piracy, fundamentalism and poor governance in the world’s most dysfunctional state
Climate change – prototyping new approaches to reducing vulnerability and mitigating the impact of climate change at a country level
African agriculture – accelerating development by growing private sector investment in support of national plans and priorities
Libya – establishing leadership and government capacity for rebuilding the nation
Rwanda – supporting Rwanda’s hunger for development and regional status by strengthening the institutions of government
Afghanistan – supporting the transition from foreign military occupation to Afghan owned social and economic development
Humanitarian leadership – tackling pervasive weaknesses in leadership and coordination, on the back of a resurgence of high-level support for improving the humanitarian system

We also think it worthwhile keeping a keen eye on;

Arab Spring in Africa? – the upheavals of the Middle East and North Africa may well spawn similar discontent further south, where dictators in countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Angola cling to power as protest movements become more determined
Yemen – a disastrous convergence of poverty, extremism, ethnicity and corrupt government is forcing a growing political will for change
Non-traditional actors – developing nations and the West will grapple with how best to work with the likes of China, India and Brazil to strengthen aid and trade while avoiding the pitfalls
Humanitarian crises – predictably, from hurricanes in the Pacific to famine in the Sahel (especially Niger), new humanitarian crises will curse the developing world, but at ever-increasing cost
Ownership of development – opportunities will lie in building the capacity of national governments to reclaim their own development agenda, shifting power away from the donors
Impact investment – the private sector will increasingly be challenged – and encouraged – to structure and catalyse investments to drive development
Youth engagement – harnessing the energy of young people will also loom larger on the agenda of poor countries plagued by unemployment and increasing numbers of dissatisfied youth

Above all, and turbulent as the world may prove to be in 2012, we predict all manner of new paths to generating concerted action to tackle poverty and related crises.

Bon courage to all fellow travellers!

South Sudan Blog 7: The Story of South Sudan

by Hamish Wilson/

I spotted David Mayom in the third row of the conference hall. Even from a distance he radiated energy. He was tall and rangy, as are so many from the Dinka tribe, and he wore a languid, easy smile. Later, he was introduced as Commissioner for Awerial County from the state’s southern reaches. The presentation he gave of the challenges facing his people was compelling; his words spoken with a rare conviction and humility.

By chance, we met over coffee, and he shared his story in a soft voice. ‘In 1987, Colonel Garang ordered our people to send their children to school in Ethiopia.’ At the time, Garang was head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, and involved in peace negotiations with the ruling coalition in Khartoum just as clashes with the north were intensifying.

‘We could not refuse, and as a Chief my father wanted to set an example by sending his eldest son. My brother refused and ran away and I haven’t seen him since. I told the army that I would go instead, so that my father would not be punished. I was fifteen years old.’

David’s homeland is nearly a thousand kilometres from Ethiopia, separated by dense bush, vast swamps, and at the time, extremely violent militia groups. I asked him how he travelled.

‘We walked.’ he said simply. ‘There were thousands of us, some as young as 8 or 9. Many got sick, some died. We slept in the bush and ate whatever the villagers would give us. Most of the time though they had nothing, so we lived on handfuls of dried sorghum.’ The hardship he and so many others had endured was difficult to comprehene.

In 1989, Colonel Omar Bashir staged a coup in Khartoum, imposing military rule over Sudan. The informal cease-fire with Garang’s army was broken soon after with brutal attacks on southern strongholds.

A year later, David was sent from Ethiopia to the front line. It was clear that he was too young at the time to fully grasp the horrors he was about to face, nor comprehend the political tumult into which he was being swept. In 1991 the southern army splintered into warring factions, with groups forming and then betraying alliances in a chaotic spiral of violence that tore the region apart.

For the next five years, throughout the height of the war, he lived as a bush fighter in Garang’s army, fighting for, as he told me, ‘the hope of freedom from the north’. His reality however was a maelstrom of civilian massacres, cattle raiding, and village burning that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

His war, and nearly his life, was ended by a savage artillery burst that left him badly injured. ‘I was saved by an NGO from Lokichokio (a kenyan border town, serving as base for humanitarian operations at the time), then sent to Uganda.’ There he was taken in by a refugee camp run by the United Nations.

His injury was in all likelihood his salvation, for at the time the war continued to worsen as neighbouring Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda became involved, sending weapons and troops to bolster the south.

David lived in the camp for five years, and slowly his wounds healed. In the meantime, and with the North suffering increasing losses, a succession of peace deals were brokered, first in 1997 with the rebel groups and then the 2000 Libyan-Egyptian Joint Initiative paved the way for further agreements in 2003 and 2004. From these emerged the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which charted the course to independance just three months ago.

In 2002 David returned to Awerial, 15 years after he had left as a young boy. ‘It was so dangerous for us to travel at that time, but I had to go back home. My parents didn’t know if I was alive or dead’. After 8 years volunteering with an international charity, the state governor appointed him commissioner of his county. An extraordinary journey.

‘It has been a terrible struggle.’ He said, and then he looked at me. ‘But you have to understand that my story is not so unusual. So many of us lived like this, for so many years. My story is the story of South Sudan.’

South Sudan Blog 6: Disarmament, the challenge for a generation

by Hamish Wilson/

“Security and development are two sides of the same coin.” Major General Daniel Deng, the tall, distinguished head of the Bureau for Small Arms Control told the gathered audience in his slow, forceful drawl. “But we cannot talk of security without speaking about the availability of weapons in the hands of the people.”

The people crowded into the cramped, humid conference hall had come from every corner of South Sudan’s Lakes State, They represented the state’s elite, its patriarchy, its decision makers and representatives for the hundreds of thousands of people sprawled across the vast region. They were county commissioners, chiefs of police, tribal elders, leaders of youth and women. They had come to discuss security for their people, and one particular topic carried the heavy weight of history – disarmament. Just three weeks earlier, the latest campaign had been launched by government decree.

No-one knows for sure how many weapons are in Lakes State today. But if you consider that each household has at least one or two, as many locals suggest, then it is reasonable to assume that there could be as many as 50,000 small arms – most likely Chinese made copies of the AK47 assault rifle – in the hands of the people.

South Sudan is one of the most heavily armed countries in the world, where guns have been a way of life for generations. This has led to a spiral of violence, for guns in the hands of poor people from tribal warrior traditions of pride, protection and self-determination lead to increasingly deadly clashes. ‘We have always been warriors.’ Santo, the state security adviser told me, ‘But with weapons such as these, we are killing one another more than ever before.’

One of the most pressing questions for a newly independent state, seeking above all a sense of national unity, is – what to do about it?

Disarming civilian populations in the wake of war is a highly risky undertaking. Few nations have ever managed it successfully – Rwanda, Sierra Leone, a handful of others. South Sudan’s own recent efforts however, have been disastrous.

The government’s approach in recent years of instructing its army to forcefully disarm the population was met with such violent resistance that the region nearly collapsed back into civil war. More people were killed in these campaigns over that period, than any other reason. So the people of Lakes have good reason to fear another attempt, and to prepare again to repel the government’s efforts to emasculate them.

Yet despite these fears, this does not seem to be happening. Three weeks into the latest campaign, the mood is almost universally positive. ‘We are a new country and people are sick of fighting. They don’t want to be killed. Even the youth in the cattle camps are giving up their guns.’ the Lakes State Governor Chol Tong told me through a mouth of gleaming gold teeth.

And this time, it seems the state may have learned its lesson. Rather than government troops forcing people to turn their weapons over at gunpoint, it is the traditional elders who have been asking people to come forward. Despite my instinctive cynicism, hundreds of weapons have been returned so far.

The real test will come in a few weeks, when it will be the turn of the troops to follow up with forced searches of those who are suspected to have kept their arms.

It is early days, and many questions remain; What is to be done with the returned weapons? How will the searches be conducted? Will communities bordering states who have not yet disarmed be attacked? It is also clear that no matter how many weapons are returned this time around, it will be a drop in the ocean.

But, if it is a peaceful process, and history tells us that this may be a big ask, then it will have been a positive start to what may take many years to wean people from their weapons. As the Commissioner for Rumbeck Central County, Dut Makoi Kuok put it; “The youth were born into war. We need to know how to take them from a culture of war to a culture of peace. This will take a generation.”

South Sudan Blog 5: The rock crushers of Jebel Mara

by Hamish Wilson/

I set off early, heading for the rocky summit of Jebel Mara.

The rising sun lit the vast granite outcrop overlooking South Sudan’s capital of Juba. The faint trail was engulfed in elephant grass, towering over me as I clawed and sweated my way upward.

I broke free momentarily of the jungle flanking the summit, and found myself face to face with a young South Sudanese man sitting back on his haunches, watching me silently. He was clad only in a pair of filthy shorts, and his muscled torso gleamed with sweat. About him lay a tumble of granite boulders, pitted with the fresh scars of his pickaxe.

We eyed each other for a moment, until his steady gaze broke into a wide grin. ‘I am Moses’ he announced in thick English. I sat next to him, thankful for the respite. The air rang with a rhythmic high-pitched ring of steel against rock, and I realised Moses was not alone.

‘This is how we make money.’ he told me as I peered at his crude tools. Just then the rumble of falling rocks startled me. From the bushes, two men, hard and lean like Moses, strained to roll giant boulders past us, blazing an earthen trail through the grass to the valley floor below.

‘We came to Juba to escape the war. Now we live in the caves.’ He told me simply, pointing to a distant hillside. His face was weathered, his hands gnarled and strong. As he continued I discovered that small bands of men like him lived rough, enduring rain, snakes and mosquitoes, spending their days dragging massive rocks from the face of the Jebel.

I learned that while the men scale the rocky ridges in search of boulders, their women work in the valley below. Their daylight hours are spent breaking the stone down into saleable chunks, painstakingly growing the piles that now line the tracks. It is relentless and backbreaking. Their children scamper amongst the rocks and muddy streams, quick to inspect any passing hawajas (white people) like me.

Moses told me that each pile sells for about one hundred dollars. This seemed to me a reasonable sum, until he mentioned that it takes at least two weeks to gather enough stone into a pile. And it might take up to three months to sell a single pile to any of the local businessmen – who sell the stone onto foreign construction companies at a hefty margin.

It dawned on me that this was truly a sentence of hard labour. There are no welfare programmes in South Sudan. No support for people displaced by fighting. No pension schemes, and very few jobs. If a family’s granite doesn’t sell, their only option is to head back up the hill and keep digging. Snakebite, malaria or injury would leave them with few prospects.

I realised that this is the nature of livelihoods in South Sudan. For some, this is what it now means to ‘earn a living’. Many of these same families survived years of conflict, constantly moving, living in the bush. The men no doubt carried weapons and most likely took some part in the war. And as I descended from the summit of Jebel Mara later that day, I wondered if perhaps some of them would rather still be there now.

Katie’s Journal – An exploration of the arts and HIV in Malawi and South Africa: Blog 4

by Hamish Wilson/

Katie Chalcraft has been awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship and is currently travelling in Malawi and South Africa, exploring the use of arts in programmes working with people living with HIV. This blog is the fourth in a series of journal entries from Katie as she travels.

People Like Us

In 2007 Temwa made a film about HIV in the community. Jumbo, Project Coordinator at Temwa tells me that people love to watch films here. Video shows attract large crowds and people in the community will walk over an hour to get to one of the showings. They have become an effective medium for transmitting health messages. The week before I visited Temwa they were conducting a series of shows across Usisya in partnership with Utu Africa.

The film People Like Us was developed in response to comments from the community that the people in the films saying they were HIV+ could have been actors just saying they were HIV+ for money, they were not ‘people like us’. Temwa set about finding people from within the community living with HIV who were willing to share their testimony on film. They found three people, I interviewed two of them.

Jumbo and I walked in the midday sun along sandy paths and up a rocky mountain path to reach Jane’s house. On her veranda she sat leaning against the wall, her daughter was absentmindedly playing with the marbles from Bau (an African game) young baby on her lap. Jumbo translated for me as I explained to Jane why we had come to talk with her. One of the main motivations behind my research was to find out more about the impact that being part of theatre and visual arts programmes has on people living with HIV. With HIV theatre projects in particular, behaviour change is often evaluated by monitoring knowledge, attitude and behaviour change among the target population. However, I am interested in the psychosocial impact that performing one’s story of living with HIV has on the performer. Whilst I had not anticipated interviewing PLHIV who had been in films, the opportunity arose and I grabbed it. How had being in People Like Us affected Jane’s life, her attitude towards living with HIV, her role in society, her relationships in the community?

Jane glowed with pride when she spoke about her involvement in the film. She explained that the film was an appeal to the general community to know their HIV status. She said that it took a lot of courage to act in the film. In the support groups for PLHIV there were many people but very few were public about their HIV status. She said it took her some time to decide. Some members asked for money to participate in the film but Jane told me she did it for free. “I wanted to show people that it can be done without money. Today people confront me, you did this for nothing, why? I tell them I wanted to give them a message.”

Jane tested +ve in Zambia in 2005 and started on antiretroviral therapy in 2006. She tells me that she had a very good counsellor and all her problems and concerns vanished right there in the testing room. She feels very proud, usually after the film is shown, people come to her home. They see her preparing nsima and digging in her garden and see that she is healthy. She is very proud when people see what she is able to do and how she is able to live, proud of what she has achieved.

I asked if people living with HIV came to her for advice, she said it is very difficult for people to do this because that is automatically disclosing their status and people fear to be laughed at, men say if I say I am HIV+ then I can’t propose love to any woman.

I ask her: what elements do you need to live a full and happy life? She responds: not feeling sick, participating in sports, good food, a leak-proof house, feeling energetic, able to do work, having capital, running a good business, and being able to support family. Jumbo used the training I had provided 2 days previously to run through the batteries methodology with Jane. He used a stick to draw the batteries in the red sand of her yard.

Normally this tool would be used in relation to a programme intervention rather than something as short-lived as involvement in a film. However, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk through how the film had impacted Jane’s quality of life if it had and also an opportunity for Jumbo to put into practice what he had learned.

Jane cited that her emotional happiness had improved due to her involvement in the film – she was happy that people were talking about her status and said that she feels proud when people watch her on the screen and when they come and talk to her about it, it makes her feel better about herself. Following the film she has been approached by a number of organisations to attend trainings – this she tells us has empowered her and also contributed to the increase in her energy levels in the fourth domain of change: Livelihood and Security. Through the trainings she has been exposed to ways to find food and money for her family.

For Anderson, talking in the film about his status was not difficult. His main motivator was his interest in educating people. He started to be open about his HIV status after joining the Zetuwekha support group set up for HIV+ people by Temwa. Following the film he also had many people approaching him, he now calls himself a public figure. He speaks at events about HIV – when people are meeting to play Bau and at funerals. He prides himself on giving correct info about HIV to the people in his community. He says he has seen an increase in the number of people going for testing as a direct result of the film.

I ask where he gets all his HIV info that he is sharing in the community – he tells me he is learning from trainings and a support group. But the support group is not meeting at the moment, they got funding from the National AIDS Commission but, he tells me that the people in the support group who were in charge of the money squandered it, a story that is not unfamiliar in Malawi. I think of the corrupt border guard I encountered who was asking for my jewellery in addition to the extra 5000 Kwacha he was charging me to enter the country. Since 2010, no one meets. He tells me he misses it so much, the group once had over 20  members whenever they met they had an experience, they would learn from each other. He said that after the group met he would always go home happy. I ask him what is the solution? He says Temwa should write letters to the group members and invite members back. For me, his words underline the importance of community in achieving emotional wellbeing.

So what does a good QoL involve for Anderson? Being HIV negative, having a happy family, good food, a happy house, access to medical services, having a fishing net, being able to catch fish, eat fish, sell fish, farm and grow his own food.

Similarly to Jane the reasons for improvement in health were not attributed to the film. However, in relation to emotional happiness he says that now his energy level is at 10 – he has no concerns, no worries and is very proud of what people see in the film People Like Us. As a result of his involvement in the film he took part in positive living training (another Temwa programme) which he tells us taught him a lot, especially about diet and safe sex. Whilst his livelihood was not directly influenced by his involvement in the film he did say that some people do approach him and give him small amounts of money to congratulate him for taking part in the film, which helps.

As mentioned, this was a slightly unorthodox way to test the Batteries Methodology, nevertheless it does seem to demonstrate some genuine positive changes experienced by the two participants interviewed and provided a good talking tool to unpack the reasons behind changes in their energy levels. Consequently I am reviewing the possibilities that this methodology offers, whilst keeping a critical eye on the situation on the ground. So far Malawi, Temwa’s work, their inspirational staff, school children and project beneficiaries  have made me realise the value of community here and the determination of people to fight for a better future for themselves.

*FYI – for more info on the Batteries Methodology please contact Harriet Jones at [email protected]

NB –full quantitative data regarding the research gathered using the Batteries Methodology will be available in my full research report

Katie’s Journal – An exploration of the arts and HIV in Malawi and South Africa: Blog 3

by Hamish Wilson/

Katie Chalcraft has been awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship and is currently travelling in Malawi and South Africa, exploring the use of arts in programmes working with people living with HIV. This blog is the third in a series of journal entries from Katie as she travels.

DAY 2: Temwa

 Forum Theatre

On my second day in Usisya, Kams and I left her home at 5.30am and met Hillary on the path for our 2 ½ hour walk to Chiwisi Primary School. Determined not to be deterred by the lack of fuel and transport Hilary and Kams have spent the last few months walking up and down mountains for up to 6 hours in a day to deliver training to the AIDS Action Clubs. AIDS Action clubs were a government initiative for young people in schools to receive education on HIV, to protect themselves from the virus and to fight the stigma and discrimination so commonly associated with HIV.

In June, Hilary and Kams ran training with Chiwisi’s AIDS Action Club in communication, leadership and introduction to drama skills. Following this, four star pupils were selected along with four from each of the other 29 AIDS Action clubs from schools in Temwa’s catchment area to be trained in forum theatre. Today’s visit to Chiwisi was to monitor what the club members had retained from the trainings and to prepare them for an open day planned next month. The open day would provide the opportunity for the AIDS Action clubs from a number of schools to introduce the community to forum theatre and to show how they can use forum theatre as a way of ‘rehearsing life’ and practicing behaviour change.

Forum theatre was developed by Augusto Boal and is highly participatory. It involves directly inviting audience members to the stage to try to find practical strategies for changing the behaviour of the characters in the play. This kind of theatre has proved to be a powerful method for developing dialogue around HIV and sex education as it favours critical thinking and draws attention to social and psychological aspects of the pandemic.

In the dark and dusty classroom, AIDS Action Club members (aged between 13 and 17) ran games to warm up the audience. Following this they forumed a real life situation: a schoolgirl was telling her parents that she was going to school when really she was going to meet her boyfriend. The facilitator, a skinny young boy (no more than 13 years of age), pauses the scene and asked the audience – so what is the problem here? He gathered the answers: the main concern of these school children was that the girl is at risk of contracting HIV.

The facilitator then asked the audience to get into groups for 5 minutes and to brainstorm what the girl can do to change her situation. The following solutions were suggested: the schoolgirl should be advised to use a condom, be counselled to abstain from sex, go for an HIV test. The facilitator explained that anyone in the audience can step into the scene and try out their solution. A slender young girl with high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes raises her hand – she wants to participate. The facilitator clarified who she was in relation to the protagonist, which point she wishes to step into the play and where she is coming from when she enters the scene.

So she steps out from the audience and onto the stage as the friend of the schoolgirl. She begins her intervention by chastising the boyfriend before turning her attention to her friend warning her that she should not be having sex with him because of the risks of contracting HIV. She spoke of the importance of going to school and getting an education. Her friend is resistant, arguing “who does not want a man? He gives me money, he gives me love – who would not want that? What’s the point in me going to school when I can be supported by this man?” It appears that her boyfriend is older than her and is working, the school children tell me that this is a common scenario. After some time and a heated discussion, finally the friend convinces her to focus on her education and to leave her boyfriend.

Following this conclusion, the facilitator asked the audience: “having watched the drama has the problem been solved? Are you happy with that solution? Are there any other solutions?”. Some other bold young women say that the girl must learn how to use condoms, another one says the girl in the play must go for Voluntary Counselling and Testing. The facilitator probes further – if you were in this situation what would you do? Would this solution work for you? Would you use this solution for your friends here in school? Why? Why would this work? What have we learned from this? Where do we take this information now? The facilitator summarised the drama and the key lessons learned before closing with a game.

I was particularly impressed with how the girls spoke out, their knowledge about condoms and the importance of testing. Contrary to my expectations, it was the girls who spoke out in this scenario more than the boys. Forum theatre is providing these young people not only with an opportunity to practice dealing with real life situations they face but it also provides a forum to explore the variety of options available to them in reaching solutions. I wish I had time to attend one of the open days it would have been interesting to observe the response of the audience in the community.

Arriving home exhausted, having scrambled over rocks, through the lake, trees and bushes (Hilary took us on a short cut!), I was struck by the sheer dogged determination of Temwa staff to continue to run their programmes despite the many obstacles they may face in their work. I was informed that the route I walked was one of the easier ones and Kams and Hilary joked that this time we were lucky because at least we had food and water with us.

Katie’s Journal – An exploration of the arts and HIV in Malawi and South Africa: Blog 2

by Hamish Wilson/

Katie Chalcraft has been awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship and is currently travelling in Malawi and South Africa, exploring the use of arts in programmes working with people living with HIV. This blog is the second in a series of journal entries from Katie as she travels.

Batteries Methodology Training at Temwa

Upon waking up in Kams’ house in Usisya we walked to the Temwa offices. Temwa in Usisya consists of two buildings – a community library with the programme manager’s office attached, and a community hall with an office for the rest of the staff. I am shown around the community garden where food is grown for PLHIV, widows and orphans. The produce is sold to the rest of the community. I am told that the people of Usisya at first only believed that cassava grew there, the demonstration garden was set up to prove otherwise. Seeing is believing. The villagers became despondent at first when they did not see quick results, to them reiterating that the lake soil was only good for cassava; however, there is now a wide range of vegetables available to them.

In the afternoon I ran the training with the Temwa staff in the Batteries Methodology. This approach was developed by CAFOD to support partners in assessing changes in the quality of life of programme clients, and to increase participation of clients in programme monitoring and design. It was developed in consultation with CAFOD community-based programme partners in Nigeria, Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The methodology provides a way of assessing the impact that programmes are having on the quality of life of people living with or otherwise affected by HIV. This information then supports organisations in providing a holistic programmatic response. The Temwa staff had an interesting brainstorm on quality of life. In response to the question “what does it mean to lead a happy and fulfilled life?”, answers ranged from: freedom and rights, sex, beer, access to good health services, peace, land, education, a sofa set, a good cell phone, fuel, a fat salary, etc. The answers were divided into 4 domains of change: Health, Emotional Happiness, Knowledge and Empowerment and Livelihood Security*.

Participants rated their energy level from 1 to 10 on pictures of batteries in the four domains of change mentioned above. This method can be used as a baseline before a programme intervention, or can be done retrospectively – how would you rate your QoL now in the domains of change mentioned above? Thinking back to before you were involved in the programme – how would you rate your QoL then, using the same domains of change. With Temwa the staff would potentially either be conducting research using the methodology themselves or training others in using it, so to enable them to practice this methodology we used the example of assessing their quality of life retrospectively since joining the organisation.

I used this merely as an example to demonstrate how to use the batteries tool and was not prepared for the heartfelt challenges that were aired in the group. The challenges of living in Usisya were exposed. A number of frustrations were raised about working in such a remote area however, it seemed that the desire of the staff to serve the community overcame the desire for a ‘fat salary’ and the ‘sofa set’.

The next step following the indication of energy levels ‘now’ and ‘before joining the organisation’ was to unpack the reasons behind the shift. Fuel and transport featured highly as well as the need for rural allowances. It seems the voices of those on the ground need to be heard by those in the Mzuzu office generally creating a better line of communication between the offices and ensuring that Temwa’s excellent standards of work are maintained.