Africa Revisioning report details strengths, weaknesses

Mennonite Central Committee
Friday, 4 May 2001

AKRON, Pa. -- Listening to nearly 700 voices was the first step in Mennonite Central Committee's (MCC) review of its work in Africa. From the bustle of cosmopolitan Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to an isolated nature reserve in the Serengeti, a six-member Listening Team for Africa Revisioning traveled in autumn 2000 to 10 African countries, plus the United States and Canada.

The team's findings, recently released in a 115-page report, highlight MCC's strengths as well as places for improvement. Many of the report's 28 recommendations call for MCC to emphasize "capacity building," an approach that builds on communities' own strengths, resources and skills rather than imposing an outside model of development.

The report also calls MCC to strengthen relationships and accountability between African MCC workers and African churches.

Among MCC's strengths noted in the report were volunteers' willingness to live simply and build relationships, as well as the agency's long history of peace work. One recommendation was that MCC document lessons learned in Africa, including contributions by Africans to the MCC experience.

MCC has reviewed its Africa program in the past, but never on such a large scale. The current process stems from a request from MCC personnel in Africa for greater clarity of vision, concerns expressed by both North American and African workers about unequal treatment and several documents examining MCC's history in Africa.

"The study didn't reveal a lot of new directions," said Tesfa Dalellew, co-director of the MCC Africa department. "It emphasized and strengthened the need to do more in areas we're already involved in, such as capacity building and advocacy."

Dalellew said the next step in the Revisioning process is to present the Listening Team's findings to MCC country representatives. In consultation with local partners, they will be asked to develop a plan for implementing the recommendations in the context of their specific situations.

Pauline Riak, Listening Team leader, discussed the team's findings at the April 20 meeting of the MCC executive committee meeting in Akron, Pa.

A resident of Nairobi, Kenya, with extensive experience in development sociology and research, Riak said the most rewarding part of the experience was seeing participants who initially felt anxious about the listening process begin to relax and express their feelings.

"They were able to feel free to contribute constructively, without inhibitions … And then they could decide, 'I can hear what others are saying even if I disagree,'" Riak said.

She described a meeting in Addis Ababa that brought together MCC personnel from all over the continent.

"For many of those present, it was their first opportunity to meet each other. I heard many say it was a very fruitful meeting, an opportunity to share and network," Riak said.

Based on interviews with African MCC workers, community members and churches leaders; members of MCC's North American constituency; and North American MCC personnel, the report also examines:

- differences (in hiring standards, salary, benefits, treatment) between MCC workers from North America and locally-hired African workers;

- the problem of "brain drain" when African young people go to North America through exchange programs and don't return home;

- HIV/AIDS' impact on Africa and MCC's plans to address this issue, which many participants agreed should be through African Mennonite and Brethren in Christ congregations;

- MCC's apparent separation of missions and service, a split inconsistent with holistic African spirituality;

- tensions between various North American missions/service agencies working in Africa and these tensions' negative impact on local communities; and

- the lack of North American people of color working with MCC in Africa.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org