Vamos Bien?

Around the 75th birthday of international development cooperation, which in 1949 had started on the initiative of the United Nations, quite a few studies were published looking back and forward. What results have been achieved? What mistakes were made? Had lessons been learned? Did it make sense to continue? If so, how? On the same path, or a different one? Such questions had been asked earlier, for instance during the seventies of the last century, when developing countries demanded a fundamental restructuring of the international economic order. Shortly after the end of the Cold War these questions rose again. The world had changed.

Ten years later, at the turn of the centuries, a different path was taken. Growth had been established, but poverty prevailed. Millennium Development Goals were set, aiming to halve world poverty. Meeting the goals implied a greater effort and major reforms, not only in developing countries but also in the world system which still was dominated by the West.

Libraries are full of studies written by scientists, opinion leaders and functionaries from North and South. It is fascinating literature spreading out widely over many different disciplines: history, economics, (geo)politics, cultural anthropology, ethics, philosophy, religion studies, climate sciences, demography, international law, human rights, and others. The debate was fueled by reflection. Southern thinkers demanded a prominent position. Several times the course was changed. Now the emphasis was on ideology, then again on operational practices, based on insights resulting from practical experience.

In the same period development practitioners were active in the field: agriculturists, medical practitioners, nurses, foresters, hydrologists, teachers, planners, and others. Subjects raised in the international macro-debate on globalization, geopolitics and development were noted, but priority was given to people, villages and communities in the field. Their living conditions had to be improved. Elaborate discussions took place about the best way to do so, just as intense as those about world systems and policies. Here again from time to time the course was changed: from planning from above to action bottom up, from  western technology to indigenous knowledge, from project based development assistance to integrated programs, from uniform policy approaches to diversification and localization, from good governance to ownership, capacity building and gender, from foreign expertise to stakeholders in the countries themselves. Those were more knowledgeable about the values and customs in their own societies than westerners who always had displayed an attitude of knowing best.

I followed both debates closely. I have also been involved in it. (1) I   was fascinated and hoped to learn. Both were meaningful, but they did not influence each other. Today the debates have quieted. The world development macro-debate about the relation between countries and people in North and South, their rights, their conflicting or common interests and their perspectives made way for a battle between the big powers, aiming to protect and expand their spheres of influence. The micro-debate was fading out as well. In Western countries there is no longer any interest in the way in which people at the grassroots in other countries can pave a path to improve their living conditions. The West looks inside, considers its security threatened by door influences from outside and chooses to give priority to self defense.

The book written by Thomas Pijnenburg, Vamos Bien? fits very well in the second debate. Now that Western countries are increasingly less concerned about the wellbeing of people in the former so-called Third World, while Western policy makers again behave as know-it-alls, it is particularly important that agents, national or foreign, with experience at the grassroots of countries in the Global South, speak out. The author of this book has gained this experience for four decades, working as cultural anthropologist and development expert in various countries in South and Central America, for instance Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Guatemala. In the beginning of his career, he had been posted abroad by his university, later by the Netherlands ministry for Development Cooperation and the European Union.

In the nineties I met Thomas Pijnenburg during a visit as minister for Development Cooperation to Nicaragua. Five years earlier he had authored a brilliant dissertation about the opposite attitudes of colonist settlers and indigenous Indian people in the Colombian Amazone territories. (2) Both groups stand in their own way in relation to nature: the soil, the trees in the forest and the fauna and wildlife. Both deal with nature rationally, albeit from their own perspective. Their perspectives differ widely. Both think about the future, but the colonists want to shape the future according to their wishes by mastering nature, while the indigenous people have in mind protecting future life by restricting themselves today.

Now we have the new book Vamos Bien? Indeed, are we on the right track? It is a question, not a bragging title with an exclamation mark, chosen by someone who has already seen and experienced it all and now will tell us that everything went wrong, because bureaucrats in western headquarters were always wrong. That is of course often the case, as demonstrated in this book by Pijnenburg, with numerous illustrations. However, the author is also understanding and nuanced en not shy at pointing the finger at himself. Choices which in the beginning seemed to be self-evident had to be discarded later. Lessons were learned in the course of work. Wisdom seldom comes from abroad.

Before answering the question whether we are on the right track we should define the concept of the right track. The author presents a clear definition: “economic development for the less fortunate, opportunities for the underprivileged, transparency in the way a country is governed, participatory democracy, law and justice for everyone and not just for he rich, a free and critical press and access to unmanipulated information.” It is a down-to-earth description of development and a good yardstick. Pijnenburg does not hesitate to use it, noting wryly: “In short, pretty much everything that is lacking in Latin America.”

Whether we are on the right track also depends on our definition of sustainability. Here the analysis presented by Pijnenburg comes close to the one in his dissertation: there are different dimensions of sustainability: economic, ecological, technical, social, cultural and institutional. Farmers cannot take risks that would endanger the survival of their families. They will only incorporate sustainability-oriented innovations into their production methods if they see a benefit to them. This is not easily understood by bureaucrats in the headquarters of donor organizations.

In his book Pijnenburg describes different views held by bureaucrats behind their laptops and workers with boots on the ground. Should projects always be cut into distinct phases: evaluation, identification, formulation, tendering, implementation, impact assessment, followed by a new cycle? Pijnenburg cautions against this practice, meant to guarantee that a project remains on a good track. “The results of a previous phase, if they exist at all, risk to be completely lost before the new phase starts due to the slowness of the procedures and the change of the guard.”

Of course, managers of donor organizations are aware of those risks. To avoid them, different methods can be chosen: programs instead of projects, sector approaches, budget support, capacity building, delegation of responsibility. The author lets them pass in review. None of those are ideal. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. It depends on the specific characteristics of the country concerned and of the actual situation within which they are applied. It also depends on politics. So, for instance, Pijnenburg argues that efforts to strengthen the institutional capacity of recipient countries at the project level are bound to fail. Political leaders at the national level are out to consolidate their position and will be reluctant to accept foreign advice to apply innovative policies.

The illustrations presented by the author are enlightening. However, at the end of his book Pijnenburg concludes that often political constraints are overwhelming. His experience in Latin American countries taught him that “structural change can only come from the people, and the elite will prevent this at all costs because they do not benefit from change. Change, development and democracy will be challenged on all fronts by elites which are in danger of losing their status and privileges.”

Can international development cooperation help to break down these political barriers? Pijnenburg is pessimistic: “It can do little or nothing against an all determining political culture in these countries. (…) The culture of the Caudillo (…) in which poverty, corruption, threats of violence and abuse of power are normal, is more persistent than I had thought.”

He even goes one step further: “International development cooperation is the cause of much of the misery that people experience on a daily basis.” For this over-generalization, the author presents less evidence, though he is right arguing that international cooperation cannot by itself generate structural progress. If local leaders do not want structural change international cooperation only functions as “a band aid; an aspirin for a seriously ill patient.”

Development must be brought about by local forces. Development assistance and cooperation cannot take over. We should not even try. Forces from outside can only function as a catalyst, assisting local forces, making them stronger and faster and directing them towards the right track. That international development assistance can only function as a catalyst has become common knowledge. (3) However, political power inequalities cannot easily be catalyzed down.

Pijnenburg agrees: “Development is largely an autonomous process that can only be influenced very little by the outside world. Suffocating bureaucracy, excessive centralism, and short-term vision limit the impact of this cooperation in a worrying way.” These obstacles are caused by donor institutions. They can be addressed. However, even if they are overcome, the effect of international assistance remains almost negligible, because domestic elitist resistance cannot be crushed from outside.

Vamos bien? At the end of his book Pijnenburg makes a confession: “I am saying goodbye to development cooperation. It no longer makes me happy. Bitter? Disappointed? Or just more realistic? The illusion to contribute to a better world is increasingly hard to find.”

Thomas Pijnenburg is not the only one. Many development experts have become frustrated. Nowadays international development aid and cooperation are taboos. Successes are belittled, failures blown up. However, those arguments can be addressed with the help of honest analyses as given in this book. Lessons can still be learned and applied.

But at present more is at stake. Applying lessons from the micro-debate is not enough. It should go hand in hand with changing course at the macro-level. From its very start international development cooperation was an essential element of the new international political, legal, and economic order which was established after World War 2 and at the beginning of decolonization. Peace had to be rendered sustainable, national sovereignty had to respected, new nations had to be assisted to become more self-reliant, power was to be shared with others, inequalities to be reduced, human rights to be protected, international law to be kept. Eighty years later all of this is no longer the case. International development assistance and cooperation is going down together with the demise of the international order.

Now that the macro-debate about globalization, geopolitics and hegemonic power has taken a course in which people in developing countries are being marginalized, the question of how to serve the interests of people at the grassroots in Southern countries has become even more important. The lessons learned in the micro debate, instigated by Thomas Pijenburg and fellow workers in the field, about how to sustain welfare of people in their local communities may offer a new perspective.

Under the present circumstances the question, which path should we take to sustain people’s development? is less urgent than the question: which path would guarantee people’s protection at the margins of the playgrounds of political powers?’

Let us hope that once there is a time that we can say: Vamos bien? Si!

 

Jan Pronk

Foreword in: Thomas Pijnenburg, Vamos Bien?, Alicante (2026)

1.  See for instance: ‘75 Jaar ontwikkelingssamenwerking. Hoe nu verder?’, in: Vice Versa, Jaargang 58, nr. 2 (zomer 2024), blz. 62-69.
2.  Ton Pijnenburg, Indianen en kolonisten, Utrecht: Universiteit van Utrecht, ISOR Instituut (1990).
3.   Jan Pronk a.o., Catalysing Development. A Debate on Aid, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing (2004).