East Timorese Need Aid Not Charity
Locals Know What Works For Them So Planning Must Involve Communities
Oct 20, 2009
Speaking at the "Stand Up Against Poverty" Just One World forum in Sydney on October 14, Mr Bond shared his experiences working with international aid agencies in East Timor and how to effect lasting developmental change there.
He specialises in water, sanitation and hygiene, and rural energy, and has worked for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as World Vision, WaterAid and Plan International. From 1999-2006 he was a water and sanitation engineer in Oxfam's emergency response in East Timor.
East Timorese Face Crises Head-on
Mr Bond flew into the country in 1999 "with a small toolbox and a couple of slabs for some latrines", and found that the locals, though living through a humanitarian crisis, had already built latrines and huts, and had opened a school in the mornings.
"People don’t live where there’s no water and even in situations of emergency they don’t sit around waiting for someone to save them."
It was useful lesson for the future in how resourceful people could be.
The East Timorese were keen to rebuild their lives, but the most important step from there was for the foreign aid agencies to "identify and respect the existing strengths that communities have to offer", and give people access to the funds designated for their benefit.
Mr Bond gave an example where the leader of a village east of the capital Dili had strenuously lobbied the government for better services. In conjunction with an NGO, the government built a water supply system so every three houses had access to a tap, and the NGO provided support for each household to get a latrine.
Obstacles to Clean Water and Good Sanitation in Developing Countries
To drum into the audience just how different a developing country like East Timor is to a comfortable existence in Australia, Mr Bond asked everyone to close their eyes and imagine walking out the door into rural East Timor, instead of inner-city Sydney.
The most confronting thing would be the lack of sanitation, as about 80 per cent of rural households didn't even have a pit latrine, let alone a nice, private, flushable toilet.
All toileting required a trek into the bush; this was tricky for the elderly, sick or very young, and at night it put women at risk of sexual assault.
The next problem was how to wash your hands, as conveniently located hand basins aren't a feature of rural forests.
Mr Bond said his home city of Melbourne was pushing to lower the daily water-use limit to 150 litres per person; by contrast, an East Timorese person would use about 20-30 litres a day, all of which was carried to the house and wasn't wasted on washing clothes or bodies, which took place at the source.
He said this not only caused hygiene problems, but the time-consuming job of collecting water everyday meant the main water-carriers - women and children - couldn't participate in other activities such as school.
The last problem Mr Bond posed for the audience was the location of their water source. If they were very unlucky, they would have to make do with a river or creek.
It would likely be some kilometers away, muddy, and polluted by other people and animals using it upstream, and they would still have to collect drinking water from it.
If they were a little more fortunate they would live near a hillside spring where the water was fresh and clean, but still likely to be some distance from home.
But they should really be hoping for a home in a village with water on tap. This meant more time to do other things, better hygiene and, with running water readily available, a higher likelihood of having a latrine close by.
How Australians Can Help
Mr Bond said as much as Australians wanted to "snap our fingers" and bring developing nations up to our level of lifestyle, they needed to be patient as it had taken until the 1960s for Melbourne to get a fully reticulated sewerage system, and parts of the country didn't have it at all, such as some Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Foreign countries and agencies shouldn't over-estimate how much change they could effect from the outside.
He said Australians should write to their local MP and advocate raising the budget for the Millenium Development Goals from 0.5 per cent of GDP, and raise nation-wide awareness about the needs of developing countries.
And for the really brave, Mr Bond thought the best way to change the world was for people to align their future with that of a developing country by moving to one permanently.
