Decolonizing Development Practice

Development is the product of a particular perspective, a vision of the world that does not necessarily coincide with others', particularly local and indigenous peoples. Though the concept of development has changed, some practices still recreate colonial oppression, including land grabbing for conservation and the exploitation of local and traditional knowledge. Some development projects fail because they uphold the power imbalance between funders and beneficiaries. Below, I describe how my team at CEDO applied four simple actions to make a development project successful. 

In January 2011, I started working at the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans, CEDO, a binational environmental non-profit organization with offices in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, and Tucson, AZ. One of my first tasks was to meet with the Ejido Campodónico fishers cooperative to evaluate the possibility of establishing a marine protected area, MPA, in the Gulf of California. Researchers from the National Commission of Aquaculture and Fisheries (CONAPESCA), the Mexican agency overseeing fisheries practices, believed that the population of some marine species, including the fishers' target species, had been declining for years. 

CONAPESCA’s researchers also presumed the decline was due to overfishing and believed an MPA could help revert it and provide opportunities to study fish species to develop repopulation policies. The MPA site proposed by CONAPESCA overlapped with the fishing site used by the members of the Ejido Campodónico fishing cooperative, located near the San Jorge island in the Gulf of California. Since establishing an MPA implied the creation of a no-take zone and a possible fisheries ban for years to come affecting fisherfolks' livelihoods, CONAPESCA’s researchers needed to initiate negotiations about the MPA with the members of the cooperative. Due to CEDO’s strategic location near Ejido Campodónico and its previous work with the cooperative, CONAPESCA reached out to us to assist them in pursuing these negotiations.  

CONAPESCA’s MPA proposal was part of a bigger effort developed in partnership with an international foundation interested in marine conservation issues. That’s how CEDO obtained a grant to assist CONAPESCA in negotiating the establishment of an MPA in the Gulf of California near Ejido Campodónico. As part of its development program, the foundation was also interested in modeling ecotourism projects in rural communities. The foundation's conceptual framework was to create an economical alternative for fishermen who were temporarily giving up their fishing rights due to the creation of a protected area.

CEDO’s work was initially framed as being a facilitator on the negotiation table due to its previous work with both CONAPESCA and the fishing cooperative. So the card on the negotiation table when we started our conversation with the members of the cooperative that year was offering ecotourism as an alternative income in compensation for their loss of revenue due to enacting the MPA, that is, their fisheries closure. 

Funded by the international foundation and applying their framework, my team offered the cooperative members all kinds of training sessions, including entrepreneurship, business administration, and dos and don'ts of ecotourism. In addition, my team identified a market niche for scuba diving and tours to the San Jorge island that the group could use as a start-up. Also, fishers would be trained, assist, and get paid for collecting data on the species of interest for the CONAPESCA’s researchers. 

My team collected data and predicted optimistic tourism arrivals and expenses for the region, guaranteeing an income for the cooperative members. We would need to work hard in marketing the product and assisting fisherfolks with this drastic livelihood change. My only concern was the precedent set by the Upper Gulf of California reserve some 124 miles north. The Mexican government enacted the reserve in 1993, restricting the access to natural resources of indigenous and local peoples, including fisheries, undermining their livelihoods. To compensate, the government introduced a wide range of programs to amend their loss of income, including ecotourism. Unfortunately, the programs were quickly evaluated -and rejected- by those impacted. Nevertheless, the Mexican government continued with the program. 

As part of the negotiations with the fisherfolks at the upper Gulf of California, the government compensated them economically for giving up -forcefully- their fishing permits. Fishers abandoned the ecotourism projects; you can still see some reminisces of the eco-cabins built and the eco-boats bought for tourists who never arrived. After several years and back-and-forth with the government, most fishers got their fishing permits back. The program failed mainly because the Mexican government could not understand that fisheries are a way of life, not just a mere economic activity for the local communities.

I was concerned our project was destined to fail as well. After all, there are plenty of failed development projects worldwide, just like the ecotourism project in the Gulf of California reserve. In the article Stop Trying to Save the World, the author mentions PlayPump, a pumping water technology in African countries that are now abandoned and broken. The author also comments on Textbooks for Rural Villages and the Millennium Villages Project, which failed in their promised goal of lifting people from poverty utilizing bottom-up approaches. 

I felt like that was the case with the project me and my team at CEDO were leading. I was determined to provide the tools and networking to make this project a successful endeavor for everyone, including researchers, funders, and fishers. So, we started by, first, recognizing there was an issue of power imbalance in the partnership between us, the cooperative, the researchers, and the foundation. Second, we had lengthy, meaningful conversations with all stakeholders to understand their motivations and expectations of joining the project. This was the most challenging part; conversations could get out of control quickly without an independent facilitator. Third, once we gathered all that information, we adapted the project to reflect the fishers and their families' ideas and concerns and those of the researchers and funders; in sum, we all compromised. 

We did all of that no without a back and forth, especially with the funders, when they saw we had limited the project's goals to more reasonable, feasible outcomes. Funders, especially environmental organizations, tend to think in terms of ecological impact, forgetting that social impact is as critical. We persuaded them when we brought social indicators to measure their investment impact. Lastly, we ensured the project included an exit strategy for when CEDO, researchers, and funders withdraw at the end of the project. 

Indeed, we didn't do anything different from what some authors propose when working on development projects. For example, in the article Decolonizing International Development, Sagal Abas Bafo mentions that stakeholders need to engage in uncomfortable conversations about redesigning systems where local and indigenous peoples did not participate in their design. And that includes development projects. Those conversations are part of decolonizing development projects, which are meant to be disruptive and question the past to envision a new system where local and indigenous peoples lead the institutions and projects they intend to serve. 

Similarly, in Decolonizing Aid, Dylan Mathews recognizes the uneasiness of having those conversations but is aware they are already happening, mainly by creating spaces to discuss those very issues. In Time to Decolonize Aid, the authors mention that those conversation goals are to unlearn Western dominance patterns and cede the exercise of taking charge, leading, and making decisions for others; in sum, the shifting of structural power and its dynamics that have privileged international organizations. 

In Ch'ixinakax utxiwa: On Decolonising Practices and Discourses, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui goes beyond the decolonization of development projects and discusses the inherent colonialism of universities, foundations, and other international organizations. The author explores discourses and theories of colonialism and advocates for decolonizing practices. Decolonizing practices, mention the author, is not a return to the pre-colonial era; it is more about creating a new project that reflects new ways of knowing, well-being, and development. Bafo, Mathews, and Rivera Cusicanqui advocate for development practitioners to understand how colonial thinking affects public and private organizations working on development projects. The authors argue that the decolonization of development practices helps development practitioners identify the challenges of the people they intend to serve and find community-driven solutions to their needs. 

I left that organization five years ago. Yet, they are still applying the four steps: 1) Recognize there is a power imbalance issue, 2) Have conversations, no matter how complicated they could be, 3) Compromise, make it work for everyone, and 4) Always include an exit strategy in your project. So far, CEDO has successfully implemented some of the projects my team and I crafted, including the monitoring of bycatch and sea lions. 

The cooperative has agreed on a yearly temporary closure of their fisheries for researchers to study some species, what experts call a seasonal MPA. Still, fishers are not ready for a total ban, as was the intention ten years ago. Fishermen and their wives are developing their leadership, business management, and communication skills that have helped them in their fisheries business. 

The project is still going. It may take ten more years, but that's the only way to build trust with local and Indigenous communities. The project's success is due to persuading the funders that no development project can be reproduced or scaled without considering the dynamics, cultures, and politics of the people involved. Development projects thrive or tank according to this. As a development practitioner, I urge you to talk with all stakeholders and build projects that work for everyone.