EXPERT Paul Ha Duong: Should I stay or should I go?

SUMMARY:

For many people, “saving the planet” implies helping “poor” communities. International action is necessary in cases of emergency, but it does not address the underlying causes of the vulnerability of developing countries. International solidarity should not be about “us” giving money, goods and know-how to “them”; it should mean exchange. The vast majority of international action projects actually serve the political, diplomatic and economic interests of the giving countries and of the local elites instead of the interests of the local populations. “Solidarity” is also a feeling of connection with all other beings, it is understanding that individual and global interests merge. International solidarity becomes real through education (sharing of knowledge) between cultures and through mutual support. We must reinvent the practices involved in international solidarity by thinking globally and acting locally (because local actions have global effects). It is more efficient to “save the planet” in a place where you have legitimacy and knowledge of the context (such as where you live).Greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced. You, personally, can take steps to help reduce them by, for example, lowering your consumption of goods and choosing an energy-efficient lifestyle. By joining a climate action group, you can oblige the public and private institutions to reduce emissions too.  

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, my name is Paul, I am an engineer in water management and, of course, a climate activist! I worked in Bolivia and Laos for my student internships. I am currently a volunteer for the NGO "Ingénieurs Sans Frontières” in its “Equipe Partenariats Internationaux”. In my work, I have to systematically question our understanding of “international solidarity”; I will now share with you what I have learnt about it and give you the pitfalls of wanting to get involved in “helping poor countries”!

Introduction to international solidarity

The climate crisis increases the frequency and intensity of catastrophes throughout the world such as floods and droughts, which strike impoverished countries hardest. International action usually consists in the help from wealthy countries to support poorer countries in climate-related issues.

International solidarity is generally presented as an act of mutual support amongst human beings, as we all live on the same planet.

In this talk, I will try to tackle the following questions: To what extent does humanitarian and development aid, and international solidarity, help “save the planet”? Where should you take action and what should you do?

Definitions of three types of international solidarity action:

In “International solidarity”, the term “solidarity” describes relationships of mutual dependence between people; it is also a feeling that pushes them to support each other and includes the notion of reciprocity. The term “international” describes the scale on we are talking about.

“International solidarity action” is a general term that is used to describe any action of support between people from different nations. It must not to be mistaken for “humanitarian aid” and “development aid”. I will define these two terms, and finish by presenting the “education to international solidarity”.

Humanitarian aid occurs in cases of emergency (tsunamis, earthquakes, war, and catastrophes like droughts or floods). Its aim is to solve a crisis. It implies providing funds, food and health care from helping countries to suffering countries. The aid is supposed to be withdrawn once the crisis is over. However humanitarian aid rarely deals with crises at the root, and these crisis often persist . It is a curative solution, not a preventive one.

Example of humanitarian aid: the global mobilisation to help Haïti recover from the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.

Development aid is meant to help communities improve their standards of living on the economic, social, cultural or political levels, and thus reduce global inequalities. It also provides funds, technical knowledge and sometimes material aid, given by a developed country to a receiving country or community. Development aid usually takes place over a decade at least. If humanitarian aid consists in giving a fish to a starving man, development aid consists in teaching him how to fish.

Example : In the project I worked in during my internship in Laos last year, 3 million euros were spent to help a thousand-strong farming community; it is a 5-year project. The project consists in building an irrigation system for the dry season by bringing water from the nearby river to the rice fields with concrete canals. This project aims at increasing food security, and providing income that would favour access to education and healthcare for farming families.

Humanitarian aid and development aid would appear on the face of it very altruistic. However, the true story is more complex. It is well known by those who work in those fields that humanitarian and development aid are not very effective in the long run, and can even be harmful for local communities. The main motivation for continuing and even increasing the funding of big international projects is that these projects actually serve the economic, diplomatic and political interests of the nations that are providing the money, rather than serving the well-being of the countries that are receiving it.

Example of my internship project : Well, in the project in which I did my last 6-month internship in Laos, 3 million euros had already been spent for the field studies, but nothing had been built yet in the 3 years since it had begun. The population which was supposed to benefit from the project was only one thousand strong. The cost was absolutely excessive, and it is very safe to say that the benefits will not balance the investment, even after a hundred years! Especially knowing that irrigation systems in development aid projects are often rendered dysfunctional within 5 years after their construction (Ostrom).

To summarize: humanitarian and development aid are short-term actions in developing countries. Education for development and international solidarity (in French : EADSI, Education au Développement et à la Solidarité internationale) is another form of international action all together: its aim is to make the stakeholders (that means the people from both the “rich countries” as well as people from the “poor countries”) better understand the complexity of the relationships of interdependence and of exclusion in the world. Its objective is to change people's mentalities and behaviour in order for them to be able to contribute individually and collectively to the construction of a fair, united and sustainable world. Action comes last, only after the process of understanding. I believe that it is only through this type of solidarity that we can hope to build a better world.

Transition

Let’s look on the bright side. It is true that some international solidarity projects have succeeded in helping local populations. You really want to act abroad? Go ahead, but be sure you think it through first! I'll now give you some advice.

Primum non nocere (First, do not harm)

Firstly, it will be a “once in a lifetime” experience that will encourage you to go further in your actions to save our planet on you return. You will probably fulfil your dream: see wonderful exotic landscapes, meet amazing people, and experience another way of life, but, as regards “changing the world”, it may not be so straightforward...

Secondly, before going away to “save the poor”, you should know that “developing countries” are not always as poor and powerless as we are told on TV, in the media, and in NGO fund-raising campaigns. They do have their own resources and ways to tackle their problems and crises.

Example: In Nepal, whenever a wooden irrigation dam is broken by a flood, local people used to join forces and pool their resources to rebuild it. However, if it is a concrete one, built by an NGO, they just can’t repair it by themselves any more because they lack the materials and the money. Instead of making the local people's lives easier, the NGO's concrete dam disrupted the local economic autonomy; this is an example of development aid that is more harmful than helpful.

These people do not lack technical knowledge! Many may not have access to a decent education system, but they are not without knowledge. The ancient techniques of building dams with wood and rocks are depreciated because they are not “modern”, but they require real expertise! Sustainability should not be lost for the sake of modernity. Acknowledging that we are equals with people, however “advanced” our own country, decreases the perceived inequality of social status between modern and more traditional communities.

Thirdly, if you really want to make a profound change abroad, and actually improve people’s lives, please understand that you must invest a lot of time and effort: rather than one month of your summer break, you will need to dedicate a substantial part of your life to it. Here is a list of some of the common features of successful international projects.

Advice: They usually involve active participation of the beneficiaries at each step of the project (field study, technical conception, consultation, funding, governance, manual labour, rule-setting, etc.); the project is elaborated in relation to a demand formulated by the beneficiaries; and there is cooperation rather than conflicts of interest with powerful local authorities such as industrialists and political elites. (For more, read the Nobel-awarded paper Governing the Commons, written by Ostrom, published 1990).

Transition

Answering question one : To what extent does humanitarian and development aid, and international solidarity, help “save the planet”?

Well, from the perspective of an international solidarity project worker like myself, humanitarian and development aid are not really helping the planet. This is why I have chosen another way to practice international solidarity, in other words, another way to support other people and living beings on this planet. In explaining to you how, I will be answering my second question :

Where should you take action and what should you do ?

I should stay

Wherever you want to make a change, go there and stay there. As I said, one month during a summer break is not enough. My internship supervisor Nicolas Faysse (Cirad research worker) once told me that you only begin to understand the local context and become efficient after 5 years of work living in a country. This is what I mean when I say that if you want to make a change somewhere, you must dedicate an entire part of your life to your project. In my opinion, the best place to be is in France.

After having travelled across the world, to Bolivia, to Laos, my conclusion is that the place I belong, is home, in France, or at least in Europe. It might not be the case for you; why don’t you go travel the world and see for yourself? I’ll give you the reasons why I think I belong here, in France, and I hope it will help you make your own opinion.

In France, you have more legitimacy, and more efficiency. In Laos, in Bolivia, in Togo, I may involuntarily adopt a neo-colonialist posture (very commonly, by thinking and behaving as if I was somewhat superior), and of course, locals will not want to cooperate. Further, development aid workers are usually confronted with language and cultural barriers; and are often unable to dedicate the necessary amount of time to their work, because of the short deadlines and unrealistic objectives set by the fund-giving agencies. These obstacles also exist in France, but they can be more easily understood and overcome.

I’ll give you example of language problems I met, although I had an interpreter!

I had a very hard time asking Laotian people how they optimize water sharing, because the concept of “optimization” does not actually exist in the Lao language. It is not translatable.

For my work, I wanted to schedule an interview on a Wednesday. The interpreter, translated it as “the middle of the week”. But the Lao language is particular... So, in order to say “middle”, he wrote “belly” on the invitation. And this is how I ended up giving a very formal printed paper to a local government worker, inviting him to meet me “in the belly of the week”.

The Lao people are extremely polite, especially towards development aid workers, so they will not tell you when you make a mistake. And when you make a fool of yourself, they think it is both polite and funny not to tell you. The problem is, the Lao language is very difficult to speak for Europeans, and so it took two weeks for me to learn how to properly ask for “ice cubes” instead of “breast milk”.

Finally, be sure that local action has global consequences.

Examples: Consumer behaviour has global consequences. Buying local food avoids transport emissions. Boycotting ultra-transformed foods has consequences on the agro-industry! In a 2019 speech, Danone’s CEO said: “Consumers don’t want our products any more, we must change”. But it is in the next part of my speech that I will focus on what you can do, to save the world.

Conclusion-Transition

Think Globally, Act Locally!

What can I do?

Learn by reading, listening, watching, and talking with others!

Once we begin to understand the global situation, we may feel overwhelmed by the task, we may feel it’s too difficult... In that case, your actions to save the planet must be step by step. Mark my words: step by step! That’s how I began, by talking with friends at lunchtime and by watching ARTE documentaries. Knowledge is the fundamental fuel for action. The media I listen to are the following: The Guardian, Le Monde diplomatique, Radio France Internationale, Ritimo. There are many others, but those are good to start with.

Act: it all starts with “you”!

First, you should change the way you eat, and the way you buy... More organic food, more local and seasonal, less transformed food, less meat. Repair things more often, instead of buying new things. But doing this, you are still acting as a “consumer”, at an individual level, but more as a consumer-actor (i.e. consuming ethically). Learn from the studies carried out by the French Carbone 4 think-tank which show that if every French person stuck to their list of 10 individual actions (which Carbone 4 describes as “heroic-level” commitment), our carbon footprint in France would decrease by 25%. The COP 21 Paris agreement states that the decrease in the French carbon footprint by 2050 will have to be 80%. So you can see that individual action is essential if we are to have a significant impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions!

Here is the list of the 10 individual actions considered in the study:

- Become vegetarian

- Ride a bike for all short trips

- Buy three times less new clothes

- Eat local food

- Avoid packaged goods

- Use DEL lighting

- Stop travelling by plane

- Decrease your home’s temperature

- Carpooling on all routes (2,2 people per car)

- Only buy second-hand household appliances and hi-tech equipment

Adopt these good resolutions gradually!

The next step: join an action group!

Become an active member of an association that does something you believe in: helping climate refugees, urban gardening, picking up litter, raising awareness of climate change, whatever. You may even set up your own association, or just organize a project with a couple of friends without even having the status of an association. What matters is that you get involved in acts of solidarity that you enjoy doing, with people you appreciate. You will gain confidence from belonging to a group, from the support of friends and family. Check out the website www.transiscope.org, it is a map of the many initiatives that you may join all around the country! I particularly recommend Les amis de la Terre, ANV-COP21, Alternatiba, and Extinction Rebellion.

Unite! In the end, it's all about “us”...

Now that you feel strong and empowered, it is time to act on a broader scale, to join the international solidarity networks, and take part in federative actions perhaps as a volunteer in the organisation and logistics team. This includes going on demonstrations, blockades, but there are many peaceful and joyful federative events as well: climate camps, solidarity festivals in summer, the Alternatiba tour of France.

Conclusion

The aim of this talk was to give you advice on how to save the planet, from the perspective of someone with experience in the field of international solidarity. Now you know that humanitarian and development aid are not often very efficient. But if you really wish to see for yourself, I encourage you to go abroad! As I am certain it will be a memorable experience that will encourage you to go further in your actions to save our planet.

It is not easy to have a positive impact. So I would suggest taking action where it is easiest: in France rather than abroad, as you have more legitimacy, there is no cultural barrier, and local actions have global repercussions. Furthermore: individual actions are just as necessary as group initiatives.

Individual actions do make a difference: they are the first step on the ladder that will bring us to a fairer and better world, respectful of humans and Nature. Absolute solidarity is the feeling of connection with every other human being; it is knowing that individual and global interests do merge.

Thank you very much for listening to this talk! Stay safe!

I will gladly receive any questions or feedback on my mailbox: phaduon@engees.eu