Rearranging Deck Chairs on The Mauritania

In one of the world’s poorest countries, mothers watch their children go hungry, men struggle to find work, the government robs its own people, and development workers discuss the difference between a result and an impact.

Imagine the scene: two-dozen development workers from an international NGO sit amidst empty soda cans and packages of cookies in an air-conditioned hotel. All eyes are on the facilitator up front, as flip charts are flipped, slides slide, and problems are pondered.

It’s all in French, and nothing makes sense. This is not terribly surprising, but then a slide is shown translating USAID’s latest project planning terminology into French. Inputs, outputs, results, impacts, projects, programs, objectives, strategic objectives.

What a relief! It’s not a language barrier I’m bumping into, but rather a nonsense barrier. What, after all, could possibly be the difference between a result and an impact? Or an objective and a strategic objective? And how could it possibly be worth an entire workday to talk about it?

The seemingly innocent tagging of the word ‘strategic’ onto an activity is the focus of this column. At first it looks clever, but in fact it is something that people who aren’t doing anything do to look busy.

I should know.

For awhile I worked in the field of strategic communications. Many of the most productive practitioners in this area call themselves public relations or PR professionals. I learned that the ones talking about strategic communications were the ones to be avoided at all costs.

The worst day in the history of mankind, according to Jean Jacques Rosseau, was the day the noble savage first drew a circle around a piece of land and said “that’s mine.” I’m not about to argue with a man who is far more famous and dead than I am, but I will nominate a second worst day: the first time someone put the word “strategic” in front of another word.

Strategic objectives. Strategic communications. Strategic planning. Dazzling, right? Intimidated, aren’t you? But what does it all mean? Nothing! So then, you can just take the word out, right? Not so fast. Try those words on their own. Objectives. Planning. Communications. They sound flat, like an AM radio in the 21^st century.

Let’s blow up this paradox from the inside by taking it to its logical extreme. I have an idea. In fact, it’s a strategy. No, even better. A strategic strategy. Let’s get back to basics and use words like “work” and “plan” and “task.” In fact, if your business or NGO’s plan has any words longer than five letters, take them out. Take it from me, you’ll be grntd to achev suces.*

* Nominated for “Worst Ending To A Blog Entry,” 2005 Blogger Awards

Applied Freakenomics

In Freakenomics, Stephen Levitt’s much-hyped new book explaining social science phenomena in terms of economics, the author makes a provocative statement about parenting. Imagine your child plays regularly at the houses of two friends. One house has a swimming pool. The other has a gun. Your child is safer at the house with the gun by a factor of 100.

More than 500 children under the age of 10 drown in swimming pools every year in the United States. One of them lived across the street from my aunt and uncle Agnes and Bill in Franklin Square, New York. It’s always the same tragic story, with a baby/toddler/youngster slipping into the backyard while the caretaker is distracted. Five minutes later, a family is destroyed.

Upon my return to Kiffa in July, I walked down the rocky hillside from my house to the fast food restaurant run by a hard-working man named Boubacar. His quick and cheap sandwiches have kept me going over the last year, and what’s more, he is a friend. Boubacar taught me about Mauritania, the restaurant business, and life in general. He managed the business for someone else and was dying to strike out on his own.

Boubacar rarely took a day off, so I was surprised to see the restaurant shuttered on a weeknight. I got the story from another regular the next day.

It turns out that his son Sidi drowned while I was on vacation. Mauritania has very few swimming pools, but concrete reservoirs and tanks are everywhere, storing water for drinking, irrigation, or commercial activities. The back of the restaurant opened up onto a brick making enterprise, and Sidi must have somehow drowned in the concrete reservoir. The family packed up and left Kiffa without a trace.

Sidi was six years old, and he and his five-year-old sister Aisha were an adorable pair. Sidi was the lapdog, wanting to please his father, and Aisha made enough mischief for them both. As Boubacar observed, when he disciplined Aisha, her big brother cried. When he disciplined Sidi, his little sister laughed.

I returned to Kiffa with new ideas for Boubacar – how to get a line of credit sufficient to start his own restaurant – and with photos – one of me wearing the purple wax print boubou he gave me, and another photo of his family. It’s a grainy night-time shot, with the flash lighting up the dust and sand in the air. But the scene is clear enough – a family captured in time, just before a catastrophe. Boubacar looking proud, his wife Kumba smiling bashfully, and their two children. Aisha the troublemaker. Sidi the quiet kid who one time rescued a kitten and raised it with food scraps and condensed milk.

I will try to find Boubacar in Nouakchott, but with probably 20,000 Boubacar’s and no leads, it won’t be easy. If I do find him, I have the photos, and a few phrases of condolences from my Hassaniya book, which hinge on an idea that’s also familiar in much of America: trust in God, he has the master plan for our lives.

Reading Freakenomics from Mauritania has taught me that not all statistics are the same, and that they’re useless by themselves. The Western world’s obsession with data may be neurotic but it has benefits – every death is labeled, categorized, and pushed through regression analysis. Products are made safer. People are made aware. In the developing world, people fall into wells, get thrown from cars, die of preventable diseases, and are largely forgotten. At best, the information is fed to under-funded governments or development agencies that attack problems as best they can.

Now Kiffa is short one clean restaurant, one dedicated entrepreneur, one honest family, and, worst of all, one good little boy. A good little boy who liked to save kittens. Could you invent a sadder story than that?

The Peace Corps Reserves Problem

In early August, the media unearthed a seemingly dull detail in the US military's recruitment policies. A newly enlisted soldier can now serve two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in lieu of the eight year on-call period following active and reserve duty.
Here's a dramatic re-enactment of a recruiter's pitch after Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz) and Even Bayh (D-Ind) slipped a few lines of text into the 2002 defense budget:

"All right, one more time. You got your 15 months of active, two years Reserve or Guard, then you're on speed dial for eight years in case things get ugly. Hey why the sour face? Ok, you're right. Eight years is a long time, the world is an unstable place. You're an intellectual. I like that. What if I told you that instead, you could teach English in Nighmaristan for 27 months?"

"Where do I sign?" the imaginary recruit asks, the recruiter smiles, and next thing the poor kid knows he's being screamed at face down in a mud puddle somewhere in Mississippi.

Three years ago when this legislation was being drafted, Peace Corps' congressional affairs staffers were apparently busy playing minesweeper at their desks on 20th and L Streets.

Peace Corps has since admitted it DIDN'T KNOW about the legislation until after it passed. Granted, it was buried in a 306-page bill, but isn't that why you hire legislative affairs staff?

Let me belabor the enormity of this ineptitude even further. Legislation is being drafted formalizing a linkage between Peace Corps and the U.S. armed forces. It's the very type of linkage that Peace Corps has fought FIERCELY since it was founded 40 years ago as an independent agency...AND THEY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT!

Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez, who signs my $150/month paycheck but receives precious little praise in this newsletter (resume summary: former cop, oversaw Orange County municipal debt default, Bush supporter), was put in a comically awkward spot when asked by the Washington Post's Alan Cooperman to describe Peace Corps' role in shaping the legislation in question:

"There might have been a discussion, there could have been some dialogue on this, but obviously that didn't happen."

To carry the minesweeper analogy further, I think that qualifies as clicking on a mine. Next game try the 9x9 grid, guys.

Let's try both sides of this issue. If you look at this new military recruiting policy as just that, a military policy, it technically has nothing to do with Peace Corps. Members of the armed forces will apply to Peace Corps like everyone else, with no preferential treatment, says a PC spokesperson.

So veterans will face the same system -- the same nice but short on details recruiters, the same condescending and self-serving placement officers who seem to relish putting people light-years away from their skills and experience -- as the rest of us. Why all the fuss?

What's the difference between this and any employer that uses fixed term contracts telling its employees under what conditions they can leave? (Lawyers, I'm getting out of my league here I realize...)

Well, for starters, the U.S. military is not just any employer. It happens to be an employer that is rather disliked (or misunderstood, at least) in many of the countries where Peace Corps operates.

Let's take Luke in Mauritania as an example. Occasionally people ask about my connection to the U.S. Government. I state that Peace Corps is an independent agency, with no connections to the CIA, the military, or the State Department. People nod politely, but often they don't believe you. Why should they? The legislation in question creates an admittedly tiny connection, but still, there it is. On paper. A soldier or sailor can fulfill part of their military service obligation by serving in the Peace Corps.

And it's worse than it sounds. That's because what sounds reasonable to anyone who can read and understand this article might not play in much of the developing world. In my experience, poor and uneducated people have a bigger appetite for conspiracy theories than people with money and diplomas. Reputation management is delicate in any context; in a country full of conspiracy nuts, it's impossible. Even the weakest link, real or imagined, between Peace Corps volunteers and other arms of the U.S. government could put volunteers at risk.

A recent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews (Matthews was a PCV in Swaziland from '68-70) imagined a chilling scenario: a terrorist group learns that a veteran who served in Iraq is now living in a remote village in Uganda, or Morocco, or why not, Mauritania. And he's armed with a shovel and a watering can. It's not unreasonable to think that this volunteer could be targeted.

This is what political scientists call unintended consequences with big smiles on their faces. You want to help two honorable organizations, and instead they gain little and put people at risk.

I say they gain little, because the tactic does nothing to deal with the actual problem at hand -- the military not hitting its recruitment figures. (Note: This is not about Peace Corps recruiting. They get 12,000 applicants for 4,000 PCVs and are ready to expand if given the cash the President always promises) Think about the average recruit. Can you make a compelling argument that this person is interested in being a Peace Corps volunteer? Admittedly, veterans make excellent PCVs. After all, they have technical skills, a work ethic, and toughness. Contrast that with your average 23-year-old English Lit graduate... But how many of these folks thought about Peace Corps before they enlisted? Probably very few.

I have the utmost respect for Sen. McCain, for both his own service to the United States and his promotion of national service. But I think he made the wrong call on this bill, and while the authors were able to get what they wanted quietly, we were bound to find out eventually.

At the end of the day, I am not worried, though. The issue is too far in the weeds to ever be noticed by 99.9% of the people I encounter. And that 0.1%? I'll think about that later and keep my shovel by the bed.

What interests me more is another recruitment opportunity: Peace Corps legislative affairs staff. How do you enlist for that gig? Decent pay, great location, plenty of time for minesweeper, and you don't even need to track what's happening on the hill. In Peace Corps parlance we call that The Easiest Job You'll Ever Love.