1 - 1998

Two Dealers, Two Junkies

For relationship marked by respect and equality

by Christoph Dehn

Are the European churches, missions and aid agencies responsible for their partners in the south? If yes, how far should their responsibility go? Does it imply support for partners in any measures they plan, implement and have to answer for themselves? Or should they see to administration and implementation, as well, if the partners are obviously unable to do so? - Christoph Dehn is the Deputy Director General of Dienste in Übersee (Service Overseas), a Protestant agency which recruits professionals for overseas services.

Recently, I read in a development policy journal, "If serious problems arise and mismanagement, whitewashing and corruption are rampant, a more direct involvement of the European partners will be necessary to safeguard the projects."

A glance at African churches in particular shows that this involvement is already taking place. European and North American staff keep church hospitals up and running, ensure the smooth functioning of many a diocesan administration, play a major role in theological education and in various church schools and operate development projects.

European money goes to finance the service vehicles of bishops, refurnish church buildings, and pay the salaries of church administration staff on all levels. Thirty African churches have to rely on outside financing for an average 65 per cent of their current supra-parish budgets.

What kind of Partnership?

So, what does this imply for the decisions of African churches? Won't the European paymasters demand influence and a say in decisions? Don't they have the right, after putting so much hard work, commitment and personal dedication to the African churches, to help shape the future of their partners? Hasn't experience taught them time and again that, without their influence, sustainable decisions would not materialise, that entire hospitals, schools and dioceses would collapse, if they weren't there to catch their fall? So doesn't this give European missions, aid agencies and their staff certain ownership rights in their partner churches?

On the face of it, this type of relationship is hardly a partnership but rather a dependence. If the structure, the functioning, even the existence of one of the partners in a relationship depends completely on the other, the relationship is seriously out of kilter. Well, European partners often argue that, as financial backers, they have a lot to gain from the vitality of church life and the deep spirituality of their African partners. This may be the case, but Tanzanian choirs will always be exotic in Hamburg. Vitality and spirituality cannot be transferred. They provide the European traveller in Africa with wonderful memories, but they are not really returns for the transfer of financial resources.

Donors and recipients

Still their partners in the south give European missions and aid agencies something that is of real value to them: justification. Indeed, missions and aid agencies are only donors in a certain sense.

At home, they are also recipients of donations and church benefits, for which they have to fight more bitterly every year. Relations with Africa are the raison d'être and justification of these organisations in the eyes of local donors and benefit payers. The question is whether a stable relationship can exist between two equal partners, who each dispose over a substance that is vital to the other partner: money on the one hand, justification on the other. Experience shows that this is not the case. Rarely do such partnerships break up, if the recipients embezzle or misappropriate money on a grand scale.

This would harm the donor, who would have to admit to his own sponsors that the donations haven't produced the desired effect. The European partners often take a different approach. They place professionals of their own in the dioceses and synods of the partner churches to ensure the legitimate allocation of their money - or at least reliable accounts. Their overseas partners often demand such drastic intrusions on their independence themselves, because they guarantee the influx of money. However, the European partner becomes ever more closely involved in managing its southern partner's affairs.

The boundaries start to blur, responsibilities intermingle, ownership rights become vague. We no longer have two independent, equal partners, but rather two "junkies", who are both addicted to a substance they can only get from the other partner; thus both "junkies" are also "dealers" in the substance the other partner needs.

Some agencies integrate representatives of partner churches in their own structures. This blurs responsibilities even more, since this is no longer a relationship between independent actors. Accountability becomes a difficult issue, because from a structural angle, each partner is always responsible for the other partner, as well.

Some people find it difficult to break out of the system for personal reasons. One major aid agency kept a sketch in its poison cabinet, which probably owed more to the imagination than to an actual occurrence and showed an employee being carried through a packed sports stadium by topless African women, while the crowd greets him with tumultuous applause and ovations. Indeed, church employees, who are only a small cog in a big machinery at home, experience a tremendous rise in status when they go to visit their partners. Being applauded by 2,000 people at a special service is truly an unforgettable experience. Forcing a bishop down on his knees to confess his guilt, is an experience of direct power.

Respect and equality

How can we evade these out-of-kilter relationships? Is there an approach that allows both sides to respect each other as equal partners?

A first step would be to start rethinking these relationships. Sometimes people do think about the financial dependence of the partners, but hardly ever about the other side of the coin: the dependence of missions and aid agencies on their overseas partners. Only when they realise how entangled they have become, will they be able to change the system.

Perhaps a real partnership marked by equality and respect cannot be had without cutting the present financial transfers drastically, despite what this means for the justification of local aid agencies. Even a "junkie" needs a withdrawal before he can start a new, fulfilled life.

Reprint from »der überblick«, no. 1, March 1998, slightly abridged and translated for publication in this magazine.