Exactly thirty years after I started my professional career in Bénin, I was invited to return, to assist in a workshop there. It was a very special opportunity to be there again, and to search for the traces left behind of a project that I had helped get off the ground...
Exactly thirty years after I started my professional career in Bénin, I was invited to return, to assist in a workshop there. It was a very special opportunity to be there again, and to search for the traces left behind of a project that I had helped get off the ground...
Both my wife Barbara and I had just graduated, and also just married, when we left for Bénin in 1981. The marriage was a must - otherwise she wouldn't get a ticket. This was the time when marriage was considered old-fashioned, and you had to apologise to your friends for doing it nonetheless.
I became the second expert in a small pilot project, set up to assess if a collaboration was feasible between Wageningen University and the Agricultural Faculty of the National University of Bénin. My job was to create a curriculum on extension education. My colleague and project leader was a rural sociologist. We were the first social scientists at the faculty in Benin. SNV, the Dutch volunteer organisation, had been active in the country for many years already, but it was in doubt if cooperation at academic level was also possible in a country under Marxist regime.
The project lasted for fifteen years, running with on average six Dutch experts at a time; specialists in extension education, human nutrition, rural sociology and economics. Since then, there is a mature relationship between the two universities, with a lot of spin-offs and exchange. I imagine that these relationships may have influenced the recent decision of the Dutch cabinet to keep Benin on the list of countries to support through foreign aid.
I cannot claim the success of this project for my own however. After two and a half years I was back in the Netherlands, having bumped my head several times rather painfully. I got great fulfilment from my students, but had a lot of difficulties with my colleagues, impatient and stubborn as I was at that time.
Happily this was all forgotten when we visited the Faculty again. We were shown around by the people now responsible for the Department of Communication and Innovation (the successor of Extension Education): Professor Danzou Kossou and Davo Vodouhé. Danzou attended his first lectures in the profession by me, and Davo by my successor, André Boon.
They were very warm hearted. They showed us the facilities (which were barely recognisable to the ones I left), and introduced us to their students and colleagues. During a courtesy visit to the Vice Dean of the faculty I commented on how very rewarding it was to see how this little seed I had helped to plant had become such a big tree.
“A tree?”, he said, “A whole forest you mean. Just look at what all these students and colleagues have done after having profited from this Dutch cooperation!”
Indeed, our two Benin counterparts have since forged impressive careers: Valentin Agbo is now Special Advisor on Economic Affairs to the President and my ‘homologue’ Maturin Nago, was just being re-elected as chairman of the National Assemblée.
If I have learned anything from my first job, it is to be more patient. Sometimes, you have to let go of a lot of things before you can acquire a position in which you can really be effective
It was also very nice to travel around with Dominique Hounkonnou. When I was giving my first lectures, I was well versed in the theory, but knew very little of the actual practice. I went to the director of the regional agricultural extension service for help. This happened to be Dominique, who was very helpful. Later on he became the director of the national service (CARDER) and he also worked for twelve years in the Netherlands, for CTA (Centre Technique Agricole, an EU funded agency). After that, he made a PhD thesis and was promoted by Professor Niels Röling, just like Danzou, Davo and myself.
Amongst other places, he took us along to his village where the church was having a fundraising festival. Just as the party was due to start, an enormous downpour broke through and lasted for hours. By the time it subsided, we were already back "home" in Cotonou.
Cotonou had changed beyond recognition. Lots of new buildings and lots more traffic, especially light motorbikes. Flocks of them, sometimes ten rows thick, made crossing the road by foot hazardous.
This mode of transport is very attractive: you can buy one for € 500 on credit, drivers licence and registration are not required, and bottles of illegal gasoline are for sale on every street corner, for just 27 cents a litre.
It was nice to be back. But when I think of the ideals with which I started out as a young development worker, I would have hoped to see more progress a generation later. Poverty in the countryside and in the suburbs of Cotonou has not decreased. In fact, the situation has worsened for many, because the market economy has ruined local communities and traditional mutual aid. Many young men have left to find work elsewhere.
Was it all for nothing? I don’t think so. But it has not been enough. What is really needed is some kind of Marshall help, instead of small tokens to temporarily ease the pain. There is one big difference though: there are much more well educated people now. There is still hope.