Here’s a great interview with Toby Lanzer, the head of the UNDP office here in CAR. He does a really good job of highlighting what the issues are in the country and how little attention they get next to other causes. One of the major issues that I’ve seen so far is that CAR needs humanitarian aid AND development aid — but all it gets is humanitarian support. That’s great for taking care of immediate needs, but if you want to work on building infrastructure, you’re out of luck as there is no money allocated to it.
This tends to create a vicious cycle where, because you can only do humanitarian work, you can’t ever really address the root causes of the poverty and disorganization. You’re perpetually addressing only the most immediate needs. What’s worse is that, should you start asking for development aid, then the humanitarian aid completely dries up (because donors say, “oh, you want to do development? Then there’s probably no longer a humanitarian crisis: great, then we’ll stop giving money to that”). It’s an oversimplification, but this is how the issue has been described to me.
Anyway, Toby’s been working here for two years, which basically makes him a lifer in the development world of CAR. People working for NGOs here rarely stay longer than a year — so the duration of his stay is certainly a testament to his commitment to getting things done.
Why has CAR been ignored for so long?
“You can’t ignore something unless you know it exists. In spite of its name, nobody knows where the Central African Republic is. Very few people know it is a county and even fewer have time to worry about it. Also, it is surrounded by bigger, more complex countries… Until we inform people of why CAR matters, it never will.”
Why does it matter?
“It’s loaded with resources; diamonds, gold, uranium, timber and almost definitely oil. It’s in the interest of the international community to keep CAR stable because it’s surrounded by unstable counties, and Darfur and Chad show no signs of improving in the near future. CAR is often used by trouble-makers as a safe-haven, a throughway, a launching pad for actions in Chad and Sudan.
“Development partners have to walk the talk when they say there should be more aid in Africa. When saying ‘we have to help the poorest of the poor’, their absence for CAR is difficult to explain.”
What’s the good news?
The best thing is that violence by state actors has decreased in the north, government troops are conducting fewer operations, and they’ve stopped burning villages. This is the fruit of advocacy, lobbying and reporting.
“There are now 75,000 children in bush schools [in locations to where entire village populations have fled. Tuition is conducted by parents after basic training]. Vaccination campaigns have prevented killer epidemics such as measles; water and sanitation programmes have prevented cholera; the number of NGOs here has increased from three to 30 since mid 2006.”
