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July 02, 2005

Djibo and Edinburgh

The work of the Red Cross in Djibo goes on day in, day out. In times of crisis they do emergency seed or food distributions; otherwise they concentrate on their literacy and health-teaching programmes. Boureima Petechudi attended one of their seminars on health and was very amused to be told he should exercise every day – I’ve never seen a man run, he said to me, unless he was running away from a beating or running towards a millet distribution.

The Red Cross does good work though, and one of their strengths is local knowledge. Workers here know Djibo well, they know who is most in need (see the photo-story) and they act to try and help them. Local knowledge and local action are essential for the success of aid and development.

Local knowledge and local action are important for Christian mission too, which is why missionaries spend years learning local languages and customs. Kosuke Koyama describes mission as ‘agape-nizing’ space.

But local knowledge and local action in themselves are not enough. Every single village and town in Africa is in the grip of powerful socio-economic forces which are outside of their control. Unjust trade rules keep Africa in poverty while the West gets ever richer. However many proverbs I learn in Fulfulde, I can’t get rid of those crushing agricultural subsidies. They are the domain of the G8 and the European Union and the US Senate and the WTO.

That is why I email Tony Blair from the telecentre in Djibo.

And why my colleague Keith has gone to Edinburgh today.

Posted by sahelsteve at July 2, 2005 09:14 AM