On Development in Lesotho

The inherent fact that developing institutions ignore the political and social aspects of a region leads to various misunderstandings and wrong notions about a particular location like Lesotho. The World Bank reports an array of statistics in order to represent Lesotho accurately but fails to do so, as these statistics are often times irrelevant to the inner workings of the region. Development institutions are willing to offer only tangible and straight forward, on the surface, solutions. Delving in the political and cultural aspects of a society involves a much more abstract process of actions. These institutions view these abstractions as a block in their path of development. The looming issue remains that because development institutions are constantly fixated on providing superficial solutions to the problems of the developing world; their surface solutions prove to be unsuccessful and unproductive. These misunderstandings deeply seem to be rooted in the type of discourse in which development institutions participate. Development institutions engage in a particular type of discourse which carefully discusses the logistics of a region without accounting for any other factors. Discourse among these institutions involves strict rules and regulations on what can be legitimately discussed as well as the topics which are considered out of place, like politics and culture. Keeping this in mind, it becomes clear that development institutions may not necessarily be ignorant but choose not to consider certain factors in their reports which inevitably lead to their own demise.

For the people of Lesotho, cattle symbolize pride, social standing, and long holding

values in their society. Men cannot be taught to treat their cattle as an asset which can be

used for monetary benefit because they are fond of their cattle as it represents wealth and

prosperity in a much deeper sense than the actual monetary worth of the cattle. This notion

of holding cattle on a pedestal of respect and awe is known as the “bovine mystique.” The

men in the society also view the cattle as an investment whereby in an emergency, a family

can turn to their cattle for sources of food and nutrition. Their perception of cattle as an investment further strengthens their attachment to their cattle and makes it therefore impossible to condition them into selling their cattle. The women in this society are more open to using cattle as a commodity because they perceive cattle as a means to an end. Furthermore, keeping in mind the gender relations of Lesotho, the women also socially benefit from the selling of cattle. The trade of cattle would bring a larger income to the house, where this monetary sum may potentially be given to the woman in the family for household expenses. This directly leads to a slight loss of power for the men and a slight gain of power for the women in this society. In general, the Basotho men are unwilling to give up their cattle because they prefer to hold on to their traditional values which give them a great concentration of power and pride. Whereas, the Basotho women are more open to cattle trade as they do not hold the power, and are therefore less attached to the cattle.

Development institutions view “bovine mystique” as an attachment to the past and perceive it as a phenomenon which can be changed with proper guidance. These institutions are trying to implement changes based on their vague and ambiguous reports which do not take into account the cultural climate of Lesotho. Their perception of cattle is based on the fact that because these cattle are not in good health, they should be considered a liability instead of an investment. However, development institutions deeply misunderstand Lesotho and the role of cattle in this society. Another discrepancy among development institutions involve the World Bank report which simply mentions that South Africa is Lesotho’s neighboring country and the relationship between these two locations is purely geographical. This portrayal of their relationship fails to account for the deeper ties which connect Lesotho to South Africa. The reports do not account for the large Lesotho population which is employed in mines in South Africa, and also how the rights and regulations of these employees are manipulated by South African powers. By ignoring this important aspect of Lesotho’s relationship with its neighboring country, the development institutions fail to account for the considerable employment of the people of Lesotho in South Africa. This employment also suggests a deviation from the traditional society which the World Bank claims Lesotho to be. In the grander scheme, development institutions are trying to treat Lesotho as a traditional society when, in fact, it has already had some exposure to concepts of modernization. Both their long term investment planning along with the Lesotho work force in South Africa suggest that development institutions naively failed to account for these signs of progress. As a direct consequence for perhaps this intentional ignorance, development projects are implemented on a very superficial level. By using cattle as the main trade object, the development institution humiliates the people of Lesotho. This humiliation is specifically caused by the very fact that cattle, which are highly regarded and used as a form of investment, are being explicitly used for monetary benefits. These monetary benefits, no matter how large, do not justify the selling of cattle as these cattle hold the very essence of Lesotho society. The development institutions failed to recognize the major role of cattle in the lives of the people in Lesotho and misunderstood the Lesotho society as one which is traditional. Both of these factors lead to the very failure of this program.

Development project continue to be supported and funded due to the desire for some progress, even if this progress cannot be seen in a grander scale. Although the cattle business proved to be a big failure, this project allowed more roads to be formed and gave the government of Lesotho a stronger hold. Although these side effects may not be as productive as attaining successful results in the actual development goals, it does show some extent of progress. It is this progress and the sign of some change which keeps these projects going. Development institutions view failure through a perspective which allows them more avenues for new projects. Instead of looking at failure as a dead end, they view it as a stepping stone for the future. These institutions maintain a considerable amount of hope even in dire conditions. Furthermore, these projects get a great amount of money from developed countries, which may also lead a government in a developing nation to pursue these endeavors. In these cases however, the money may be going to isolated pockets of power who may potentially misuse the money and therefore the resulting projects in these countries may present themselves as futile.

Ferguson presents a compelling and enlightened argument by portraying a fundamental problem within the idea of development institutions themselves. However, his style and approach is one which is rather accusatory and slightly condescending. Before even presenting his argument, one can sense that Ferguson seems to be against the very idea of “development” itself. However, one later realizes this apprehension is rooted in his reservations about how development institutions seek their means of “development”. Ferguson’s main arguments are mostly convincing as he successfully proves that development institutions fail due to a lack of understanding of the social and political context of a region. However, some of his arguments lack depth in understanding the intricacies of the very relationships he describes. For example, he does not explicitly describe the partnership between development institutions and the government in question as he undermines the complexities of their relationship when accounting for the continuation of development projects despite their failures. The repeated redundancy in Ferguson’s work also tends to weaken some of what Ferguson is arguing as it makes a reader wonder why the author feels the need to stress a certain point so much to the extent where one begins to question the author’s beliefs in his own ideas and theories. This is not to say that Ferguson doubts himself explicitly, but the redundancy in the book takes away from the potent and compelling message of the work. Ferguson highly criticizes “development” yet does not give a clear solution to the current problem. This leads to some sense of annoyance and frustration from the reader. The book promotes the belief that intentions tend to be relative to the institutions that are running a project. From the perspective of a development institution, they may have good intentions which may attain their institutions with the greatest benefits however this may not necessarily prove to be the most productive investment in actually helping those in need. Because intentions tend to be not only relative but sometimes also ambiguous, they are irrelevant. Ferguson places importance on the actual consequences of their actions rather than intentions which is one of the strongest points of his argument.