This photo is actually taken by me.
1. Incentives matter. With so many NGOs in Tanzania (WAY more than Senegal), its clear that outside influence on the economy is significant, from a macro scale (ie aid) to a micro scale (ie entrepreneurship). For my case study, we're planning to evaluate the impact of a community health worker intervention on contraceptive use within the Meatu district. Since this is a lot more public health than I'm qualified for, we were hoping to sub-contract through a health NGO. So, we went to the district capital to speak with the Red Cross, who was apparently already doing work in family planning in the area. The folks we met with seemed to have the infrastructure ready for the intervention (already working with dispensaries in the villages and promoting different forms of contraceptives), but there was something shady about the one of them. We asked him about the strange tiny office we were meeting in and he told us that we were sitting in his traditional medicine office, which he runs on the side (when he's not working for Red Cross) and would we like to try out his witch-doctor family planning bracelet to keep away pregnancy for up to five years? Or, how about some love potion to add to our tea? The conversation literally took a direct turn from Depo-Provera to love potion. Talk about conflict of interest. Needless to stay, we're still looking for some public health folks to work with.
2. Conservation versus Development. In Tanzania, it seems like half the NGOs are doing development (including human rights work) and the other half are doing conservation. Often, they are at serious odds. Nick Salafsky wrote a concise paper about the structural failures in attempting to do both conservation and development (e.g. eco-tourism, which usually just becomes yuppy tourism). The early years of conservation attempts in the Serengeti were all relatively enforcement based (catch the poachers!), but it wasn't until recently that NGOs and the Tanzanian National Park Authority began thinking about poverty as an explanation for lack of conservation (who cares about the ecosystem when you struggle to feed your family?). One decent attempt at remedying this is to maintain conservation through development, for example with the creation of Community Conservation Banks as group loans for traditional hunters to diversify their income.
3. Recall bias or straight-up lying. As I begin the process of baseline data collection in the villages, I'm looking right at my sources of bad data. What incentive does a hunter have to report his bush meat collection to a conservation NGO? Why would a submissive Sukuma woman divulge the private details of sexual health to a complete foreigner (mzungu)?
Well, at least there is some evidence of new methods for collecting good bushmeat data. Truthful contraceptive use is TBD.
2. Conservation versus Development. In Tanzania, it seems like half the NGOs are doing development (including human rights work) and the other half are doing conservation. Often, they are at serious odds. Nick Salafsky wrote a concise paper about the structural failures in attempting to do both conservation and development (e.g. eco-tourism, which usually just becomes yuppy tourism). The early years of conservation attempts in the Serengeti were all relatively enforcement based (catch the poachers!), but it wasn't until recently that NGOs and the Tanzanian National Park Authority began thinking about poverty as an explanation for lack of conservation (who cares about the ecosystem when you struggle to feed your family?). One decent attempt at remedying this is to maintain conservation through development, for example with the creation of Community Conservation Banks as group loans for traditional hunters to diversify their income.
3. Recall bias or straight-up lying. As I begin the process of baseline data collection in the villages, I'm looking right at my sources of bad data. What incentive does a hunter have to report his bush meat collection to a conservation NGO? Why would a submissive Sukuma woman divulge the private details of sexual health to a complete foreigner (mzungu)?
Well, at least there is some evidence of new methods for collecting good bushmeat data. Truthful contraceptive use is TBD.
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