Working in development isn't easy...

Numerous conversations with relatives, friends and random people over the past years have demonstrated over and over again that indeed, most inhabitants of the northern sphere still think that development is all about living in a mud hut in a community untouched by the evil of the western world and teaching poorly dressed little children with big bellies how to read and write, preferably under a big cedar tree. One might expect that since development is all about saving the world by assisting and empowering those in need, we all pull on one string, towards a better world.
But no, twenty first century development aid is not quite as romantic as some of you might think. I sometimes tend to call it a business, with losers and winners, with high competition around scarce resources and few good ideas. It’s also a kind of trial and error – constantly, new approaches to save the world are master minded, and if they don’t work out, another approach is released into the humanitarian world. After having worked inside this huge industry called development for almost three years , I have experienced certain frustrations and backlogs that have caused me to give up some of my ideals and beliefs (obviously not all, otherwise I wouldn’t be here in Afghanistan right now). Unexpectedly, Afghanistan is also not free from the usual hassles around development; one of my biggest current hassles is the source that provides funds to my department. This particular donor is actually one of the “National Priority Programs”, special programs launched by president Karzai to bring peace and development to Afghanistan. Working for the government is certainly not easy in any country, leave alone Afghanistan: people inside it are bureaucrats that take ages to review project proposals, screw up on contracts because they don’t know legal meanings of certain terminologies, and have in addition a fable for corruption (they tend to have this "kafkaesk" touch, as we would call it in German...). Being an implementing partner to a Government authority is truly not a pleasure, but more a tragic comedy. What makes me stumble in particular about this specific government program that funds my department are their internal contradictions which they obviously don’t realize themselves: Since my arrival, I have hardly heard anything positive from my donor. Whenever they see the smallest mistake in our program implementation, they stage an official complaint; financial reports have to be re-submitted in average three times until they accept them; they take ages to review project proposals; they cut down the project duration to a minimum number of months, taking away all the fun from program coordination; and last but not least, they constantly remind us on how expensive we are. The contradiction in all this is that whenever they can, they pouch our staff members: today I was told by one member of my team that a representative from my donor not only offered him a job, but at the same time stated that the doors are wide open for staff from my department. Though I feel a bit flattered by the fact that my staff members can easily get other jobs, it bothers me to see that while we have to take in groundless accusations that we lack transparency, the same organization that does these accusations is not only pouching people from other organizations, but taking them in without any formal interview process, leave alone application process. Certainly, that's not what we understand when we talk about transparency