It’s easy to miss Asomba Kamanga’s small operation in the South Rukuru River Valley. Having driven by it before many times, it was only thanks to the local government extension agent I was shadowing for the day that we stopped.

Mr. Kamanga – aka Bwana Somba (the ‘Fish Boss’) – is a stunning example of ingenuity. Having learned the trade of fish farming from his father, he diverted a small stream from the nearby hills to flow through his plot of land where he developed fish ponds, irrigated maize fields, and a tangerine orchard. The maize field, in particular, is incredible. Carefully sculpted irrigation channels direct part of the stream runoff through the flourishing maize crop – verdant in the heart of the dry season. 

All of this without the help of NGOs, donations, or the like. He only receives some assistance sourcing infant fish from the government fisheries department. He truly is a self-made man.

Yet at a glance, at the roadside, Mr. Kamanga appears in tatters. His ragged attire suggests a typical image of poverty, not the expectedly grubby work attire or a successful horticulturalist and fish farmer who is putting his three children through private school. It is no small feat for a farmer in this region.

We spent an enthralled hour being guided around the operation before having to excuse ourselves and continue with our work for the day. After a long stint without posting to the Perspectives of Poverty project, ‘Bwana Somba’ reminded me of just how many inspirational surprises can be found amidst an environment commonly characterized as one of destitution and despair. Don’t let his torn shirt fool you.

As someone who works closely with Malawian government, I have asked about our team’s continuing investment in supporting institutions in districts. If a state is on the verge of fragility, what will the lasting value be of the support provided to technocrats?

Interestingly, the day-to-day workings of district government in Malawi appear largely disconnected from the high-level political workings of central government. In a recent cabinet shuffle, the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development (MoIWD) was integrated with the Minsitry of Agriculture to create MoAIWD. Practically speaking, at the district level, the effect of the integration is imperceptible. Both departments continue to exist as before, managing their own staff, stretching their own resources to deliver services.

I asked a friend who works in local government for her opinion on how high-level politics affect her work. What would the effect be if there were a regime change, or if the government falls apart? To which she replied:

“The government can fall apart, but we cannot fall apart. Whatever happens up there, we will still be here.”

She is an extraordinary woman, soon to travel abroad to begin a master’s program, and the manager of a network of extension agents for her branch of local government. We had a fascinating conversation about her challenges as a manager with limited resources, and how policy, however well intended, will always be limited by practical implementation constraints. In that sense, for her, higher level politics only matter to a certain extent. At the end of the day, she will still be trying to do the best she can with the limited resources she has, regardless of the regime, policy, or economic climate.

The water pump at Matunkha Primary School has been broken for seven years. Here, in the western part of Rumphi district, their nearest water source is a pit dug into a river bed about 3km away. For the nearly 500 students attending this school, water collection takes almost two hours. This is the product of a failing system.

Many parts of the pump are broken and the cost of repair will be high. The head teacher, Mr Sandres K. Sapwe, says that they have attempted to raise funds to repair the pump in the past, but they never successfully raised enough to restore the pump to functionality. Now, they are unsure of what to do.

The story of Matunkha begs the question: who is responsible? How could such a thing be allowed to happen, even after the school had received a protected water source?

Jacob Mkandawire, the Rumphi District Water Officer is all too familiar with the challenges faced by communities. However, with a monthly budget of ~50,000 Malawian Kwacha (USD$300), he doesn’t have much to work with. After paying water and electricity bills, plus assisting with the purchase of medication for HIV positive staff members, there isn’t much left to support schools like Matunkha and its surrounding community of Nkhonongo. Most of his repair services are limited to times when large numbers of spare parts are provided by central government – when a borehole maintenance program is authorized. The rest of the time he does the best he can with what he has.

This, of course, also assumes that Mr. Mkandawire knows about schools like Matunka. Without an updatable information management system owned by the district, information critical for decision making (i.e. the location and severity of breakdowns) is unavailable. Without good information or sufficient resources, it is no wonder that schools like Matunkha continue to lack support.

For many, the knee jerk reaction is to simply fix the water pump. For less than a couple hundred dollars, the school could have access to clean water again – the kind of tagline that sells only all too well in the Western media. Although it is true that the pump at Matunkha could be fixed by a Non-Government Organization (NGO) with a little funding, it would do nothing to address the fact that pumps elsewhere will continue to break and remain broken. NGO programmes come and go, sometimes leaving the false – and even dangerous – expectation that, if communities wait long enough, help will eventually come.

What will keeps pump functioning in the long term is a set of complimentary roles and responsibilities held by the permanent local actors: community, government, and the private sector. Determining exactly what these roles are, how they fit together, and supporting each player to be effective is not easy, but it is essential. It is about a lot more than repairing the pump at Matunkha; it is about creating a system that works.

The effect is felt throughout the country. Businesses – particularly anyone reliant on diesel – are hamstrung. Bus and taxi fares climb continuously. Getting fuel for my motorcycle becomes a game of tapping social networks – scrolling through my address book looking for anyone who can hook up 20L of petrol. Anything below $5/L on the black market is a good day.

Since I have lived in Malawi, fuel shortages have existed periodically, but the current state is a new high in my memory. I’m told that while some petrol reserves still exist in the country, diesel has been tapped out, and the country is reliant solely on new imports that are distributed in an ad hoc manner throughout filling stations across the country. Again, it becomes a game of who you know, and even then it sometimes isn’t enough. Earlier this month, the German Embassy closed for half a day due to lack of fuel. Contractors on fixed price contracts are scrambling for alternatives now that they have to source diesel on the black market at triple the regular rate.

I currently write this from Zambia, a country without fuel queues that just successfully held peaceful elections that saw a new leader ushered into power. Not so long ago, the difference that I felt between these two countries was not so stark. Here’s to hoping for a return to shorter fuel queues when I return.

A recent post by the fabulous online magazine GOOD featured an article by this title:

“The Planet Will House 10 Billion People, and We Can Feed Them All”

I clicked on the link instantly. Really? Just like that? It’s in the bag? The skeptic in me awoke; the cynic in me groaned and rolled over.

And with good reason, it turns out. It’s not that the five point plan presented for addressing global food issues is wildly misguided or unambitious. Rather, it is deceptively simple.

The author acknowledges this, but, nevertheless, makes such statements as:

“Scientists have figured out how we can feed a growing world that doesn’t come at the expense of the planet.”

I find this type of statement deeply troubling, for three reasons:

1. Reductionism. Oversimplification is a common bane of the development worker’s existence. The failure to recognize the complexity that arises through the interrelationships of a multifaceted system makes any distillation of change processes into bullet points or log frames immensely challenging – even futile at times – but something that has, nevertheless, become a status quo in the sector. Seeing anything as broad as this subject synthesized into such simplicity suggests that a simplified, reductionist mentality can be used to address some of the most complex, pressing, and immense challenges of our lifetime. It is a dangerous suggestion.
2. Believing that knowing the outcome = knowing what to do. In each of the five points presented in the article, untold layers of complexity and detail exist. For example, point three, knowing that we need to “make better use of water, fertilizers, and chemicals” is great, but that provides little guidance on how:
• Australia should adapt policies to address their rapidly declining groundwater resources
• Malawi should implement the proposed greenbelt irrigation project
• small-scale farmers could minimize fertilizer runoff and the associated potential for eutrophication that will accumulate downstream
3. Certainty of success. Whether intentional or not, my first reaction to the article was: “Great, it’s already taken care of. My participation isn’t needed.” As both a skeptic and someone deeply passionate about the state of the world and the role that my generation has to affect it, I obviously do not subscribe to such a passive – even apathetic – role. However, I wonder what the effect will be on other readers, and what risks lie in broadcasting that the ‘scientists’ have figured out what to do.

The message I leave you with on this Blog Action Day is this: nothing is that simple. We may think we know what needs to be done, think we know what we are doing, and think that our actions are achieving what we think needs to be done. We may be wrong.

Amongst the undoubted plethora of positive, optimistic, and even hilarious posts populating the blogosphere today, my point is not to incite cynicism. Rather it is a call to be vigilant in our critical objection to oversimplification and reductionism. It is a fine line to walk: balancing inspiration and hope with the gravity of the world’s circumstance, and the need for inspirational optimism will persist. We cannot, however, succumb to the temptations of simplicity and assured success when the optimism itself is rooted in reductionist hubris.

- Fatima Nkata, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation

Two weeks ago the dream came true when our budding rock group, Thatch Roof Carousel, took the stage at the internationally renowned Lake of Stars Music Festival in Mangochi, Malawi. It was some of the most fun I’ve had yet in Africa, and tremendously inspiring to see and hear other groups from Malawi and abroad bring their sounds to the stage. To pick just one of many inspirational conversations, Jack Rooster’s work with the East African music scene was very cool to learn about. Definitely check out the link for some of his mixdowns.

As we’ve been songwriting and tightening our set over the past few months, we’ve had the opportunity to get to know some of the prominent local bands such as Mafilika and Body, Mind and Soul – connections that now leave me awash with possibilities for future musical collaborations.

We also had the amazing opportunity to play a very brief set during the halftime break at a local football match, just outside the festival. It was a blast, even if the  sound system and complete lack of drum kit (overcome with a little innovation and a few empty crates of beer) left something to be desired.

With the momentum coming out of this festival, we’re looking to keep booking gigs around the country – possibly even internationally. We’re currently waiting to hear back about a gig in Lusaka, Zambia in early November.

In the meantime, we will continue to work on recording our EP, with a projected release date for either late this year or early next year. Stay tuned, and follow us on facebook and twitter (@thatchcarousel) for updates!

I recently wrote to colleagues about designing for glee and it is only now, on reflection, that this was Apple’s influence on me incarnate. I’ve had a Mac laptop for a few years now, been through several generations of the iPod, and what was the common thread between them? They were all a joy to use.

I was recently asked by a District Government Officer to help him design a database that could track information that was arriving in his office on sanitation indicators across different health centers. It was a simple excel spreadsheet, but design principle was still there: it had to be a pleasure to use. In particular, Mr. Mbowe wanted to calculate the percentage of villages that were “Open Defecation Free”, a status conferred upon a village when each household has a latrine, handwashing facility, and a cover for the latrine hole. If all three conditions are met, the village is considered ODF.

In excel, this is a simple thing to automate. If columns 4, 5, and 6 all equal 100%, make column 7 say “ODF”. In fact, I set it up like this initially, but it didn’t seem quite right. ODF status is a big achievement for a village, and no less of an achievement for Mr. Mbowe, who oversees the implementation of the program. So I asked him about it: would he prefer if it was automated, or would he like to punch “ODF” into the database himself?

A smile crept across his face. “I want to write it in,” he replied.

And that was it: the glee factor. It wasn’t just about having the database. It was also about him reveling in a moment of success as he watched the stats come in – a quiet fist pump that he could enjoy in his office. Automation would have diminished that for him. He wanted to punch it in himself, savoring every letter of O-D-F as he did it.

A couple of weeks later, I got a call from Mr. Mbowe. At 7 PM. On a Friday. Even I had checked out for the weekend. He called to tell me about how well things were going with the database, and how much he was enjoying using it. It was the kind of call I never expected to get at that time of day from a local government employee, let alone one with enthusiasm about an excel spreadsheet. But he was thrilled.

Whether it be graphic designers in Chicago, hipsters on iPhones in London, or District Officers in a remote district in Malawi, we all have the desire for the technology we use to contain fun, glee, sexiness – you name it. The point is that it goes beyond a pure utilitarian function. Steve Jobs and Apple taught us that, and the legacy of design that they began is sure to continue, to the benefit of us all.

Tragedy has befallen my beloved Nikon SLR and, sadly, photographic content on this blog will dry up for a while.  Through the grieving process, I’m planning to work on something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time – put together my portfolio and pursue sponsorship.

Part of this will be developing a website; part of it will be figuring out how the world of semi-professional photography works.

And so we arrive at the request in this post.

I’m looking for feedback on my photography and, if you enjoy it, any comments that may help endorse my bid for sponsorship. I really can’t afford to buy a new SLR camera at this point, so I’m really hoping for the sponsorship route to pan out.

In the meantime, here is one of the last photos that I took with that camera – one that I’m really fond of. Enjoy, and please comment on this post if you feel inclined.

A young woman with a little girl no more than three years old stops to greet us, encouraging her daughter to greet us too. The little girl, adorable, shy and obviously terrified of the tall white stranger, tentatively extends a hand and a mumbled “Muli Uli?” with much encouragement from her mother. I love kids, and I squat to gently shake her hand and return the greeting. Eventually, a smile emerges.

After a few more pleasantries we part ways and head off to breakfast. The little girl has put a smile on my face, but Jadel frowns.

“What is it, Jadel?”

“Man, that kid was born positive.”

And it stops me. That adorable little girl, through no fault of her own, has HIV. Publicly, the virus is largely invisible, the exception being the prevalence of awareness campaigns and local testing clinics. At a casual glance in the market, or in meeting a young mother and daughter on the street, one might never know that Malawi has amongst the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world.

That is, until I’m introduced to an innocent little girl who is affected by it even though she doesn’t deserve it. Then I remember.

In July I had the privilege to attend the 35^th WEDC conference in Loughborough, England, a forum for practitioners covering the breadth of the water, sanitation and hygiene sector worldwide. Presentations on topics as far ranging as policy influence in  Afghanistan to menstrual hygiene to disaster relief to sector monitoring systems were present, along with experts representing many of the prominent organizations involved in the sector. And of course, the technology.

The techie-engineer-nerd in me still really digs a good design. Yes, I would really like to know, in detail, how the foot valve on this particular pump works. The skeptic in me asks tougher, more pragmatic questions. In particular, there seemed to be an abundance of water quality testing kits. In my experience, local government in Malawi has little to no ability to sustain or act upon information from a rural water quality monitoring program. The capacity simply isn’t there at present.

However, with all of the different innovations present at the conference, one might wonder, from a technological perspective, what is still yet to be tried? I asked the Director of WEDC, Andrew Cotton, for his views on what the current role of innovation is, with so many different things being experimented with in the sector.

“I think we need innovations that can work at scale, not just things that can be scaled,” he replied. We discussed how new ideas need to be developed, from the outset, with a view for how they will work within a larger system, rather than developing an idea with the hopes of it finding success and multiplying. The difference is subtle, but important.

Innovative approaches or technologies will always exist within a larger ecosystem, a socio-political environment permeated by fashionable sector trends, practical and economic constraints and changing needs. Successful ideas will become so by taking all of this into account from the outset.