helping or hurting - the great balancing act

'Helping' in developing countries is always a balancing act. There is plenty of debate over what genuinely helps, and what, however well-intentioned it is, ultimately hurts the beneficiaries and the communities they live in. It is a controversial topic, one I've read a lot about. I won't go into all the facets of the debate here, but I can summarise a few themes. It is important to have a link into the community, to learn about the culture and the socio-economic and political environment first. What you think they need may not be what they need at all once looking at the big picture. Equally important is whether what you have to contribute matches with those needs, and how your time is structured to make sure you are building a bridge, rather than leaving a hole, when you leave.

I'm currently trying to find that balance as I decide whether to extend my time with this NGO. I am about halfway through the time I have committed to them. I have finished what the director asked me to do - review their accounting and financial management processes from front to back, and identify recommendations for how they can improve. I have produced about 10 pages of them to be honest, and many of them are very basic things.

There is a big part of me that just wants to roll my sleeves up and take charge - I am sure I could knock many of those off the list in just a few days. But I have to stop and remind myself that this would do them no good at all. The best I can do is help them develop a plan, and spend time with them every day embedding the knowledge they need to implement that plan themselves.

I had a meeting with the monk who leads the NGO on Friday. ('Meetings' take place in the courtyard, outside - still a very nice change of pace.) He got very excited about the list, saying this is what he knows they really need and that he hopes I will stay longer to help them with it. I told him it is down to them - the more time they can make available to work with me, the longer I will stay, because of course, it would not be helping if I just did it for them. So we agreed: he committed himself and his team (I use the word 'team' very loosely, as he only has one accountant) to set blocks of time each day, and I am to make a schedule for how we work through it.

So we'll see how it goes. But no matter how long it is I choose to stay here, I have to say I am satisfied that what I am doing falls on the right side of the 'helping or hurting' debate I previously described - something I continually challenge myself on. It's great to support an NGO run by locals... so many are run by Westerners, and I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. But with this one, there's not a doubt in my mind that this monk, who doesn't even take a salary, who grew up in Cambodia, speaks the language and knows its history and people inside and out... he runs this organisation from his heart and it's serving the right people in the right ways.

My role, well, I'm just here to help him tighten up his accounting and financial management system. This NGO is still in its early years, and it has been fortunate to have some very generous donors who place a lot of trust in those who run the organisation. And it is well placed, in my view - sit across the guy for half an hour and you would likely agree. He knows what he is doing and is well educated, of course, but what's more, his spirit of generosity, happiness, genuineness, compassion - it's infectious. I would trust him implicitly as well.

But as they seek to grow and improve, what I am doing will hopefully help him with one of his most important objectives: ensuring the long-term sustainability of these programs by backing up that trust with more solid transparency. Better transparency leads to better information, better decision making and better access to varied sources of donor funds if something should happen to the current funding stream. So, I may not be doing a lot here... but this guy definitely is. And supporting him in his efforts to save a lot of children from a bleak future - I've seen the beneficiaries first hand - is something that I can be satisfied is making a small difference.