Episode 9: Peaks and Valleys of Aid & Development
Gary Burniske is currently the Managing Director of the Center for Global Food Security within Discovery Park at Purdue University. He is responsible for the day to day management of the Center and networks with Purdue’s faculty and scientists to take a multi-disciplinary approach to tackling global challenges affecting food security. Before joining Purdue, Gary served as Country Director for Mercy Corps in Colombia and Tajikistan, and Country Director for the Institute for Sustainable Communities in Russia. He also worked as Regional Technical Advisor in Agriculture and Natural Resources with CARE covering 25 countries in Asia and Latin America. He joins us from Lafayette, USA.
He speaks to us about:
his transition from emergency to development work
food for work programs
politicization of funding and the role of donors
behaviour change
working as a country director
clustering of programs
planning for phasing out vs continuous problems at different time periods
the role of the military in aid
the complexities of drug policies
working in academia - and much more.
Transcript
Intro: What we often do is a redesign and a re-budget after a year or two into the program and that gives you an opportunity to actually address some of those concerns that the communities have and bring them more into a participatory approach in designing a program that is more responsive and more effective.
Safa: Welcome back to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I will be your host as we speak with and learn from practitioners of all backgrounds and affiliations around the world. Each week, we aim to rethink ethical behaviour and best practices through the lived experiences and personal reflections of different practitioners. Our guest today is Gary Burniske. Gary is a specialist in international relief and development, with a technical focus on sustainable agriculture, forestry and natural resource management. He is currently the Managing Director of the Centre for Global Food Security within Discovery Park at Purdue University. He was responsible for the day to day management of the Centre and networks within Purdue’s faculty and scientists to take a multi disciplinary approach to tackling global challenges affecting food security. Furthermore, he has held senior level technical and manager positions with humanitarian organizations and international public institutions. Prior to joining Purdue, Gary served as the Country Director for Mercy Corps in Colombia and Tajikistan, as well as the Country Director for the Institute for Sustainable Communities in Russia. He has also worked as a Regional Technical Advisor in agriculture and natural resources with Care, covering 25 countries in the Asia and Latin America regions. Gary’s notable accomplishments include the design and management of Mercy Corps regional flagship program for Latin America, utilizing alternative dispute resolution to resolve land conflicts on two million acres of afro-descendant and indigenous communal land in the Darien Gap region of Colombia. In Tajikistan, he led the transformation of a small Tajik NGO, the National Association of Business Women, into the largest microcredit provider in the country. This is just a few examples of his rich experience. Gary, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Gary: It is my pleasure.
Safa: Could you please tell us how you first began down this line of work and what interested you or what you hoped to contribute or accomplish?
Gary: Well, like many Americans, I got my start in international development through the Peace Corps. So in 1977 I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala, and I continued my work in Central America as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica, spending a total of five years with the Peace Corps in the two countries, Guatemala and Costa Rica. And so that got me very excited about working with small communities, particularly with marginal farm families, and helping them address the challenges that they face.
Safa: And at that time, how did you transition into finding other opportunities and continuing this type of work?
Gary: Well, like many volunteers, I returned to the US to do my graduate work and in my case, it was in forest economics with a focus on tropical forestry and upon completing my graduate degree, I went back overseas and got a position with Care. And so I was working as a Forrester in a refugee reforestation program in rural Sudan, helping refugees that were coming over from Eritrea and Sudan and working with them on issues regarding fuel and fuel would usage as well as environment.
Safa: Mhm. And what did that first experience there — what are some of the ethical challenges that perhaps you experienced at that time at the earlier stage in your career?
Gary: Well, definitely working with refugees on long term development issues was a challenge. As you know, many of the refugees that were both economic as well as fleeing the conflict between the two countries and when they arrived in Sudan, they were hungry, usually had contracted some diseases such as malaria and were really destitute. And so, you know, one of the ethical challenges was actually working with refugees to develop reforestation and forest management activities, which are much longer term in nature. We were an important source of employment, so refugees received salaries and wages for their labours, but they were reforesting the land of their host country. So as a community, per se, they didn’t really have a lot of interest or buy in long term initiatives in the host country when they were hoping to either be given refugee status in another country such as the US or Canada, or return to their own country. So that was one of our ethical challenges, and they also had a lot of immediate needs in terms of feeding themselves. The wages helped compensate for some of that but in the long term, they were faced with a lot of other difficult issues.
Safa: And at that time, did you feel that you were witnessing some sort of positive social impact? Or at that stage, was it easier or easy for you to kind of gauge the impact of your work? Or how did you feel about the result of the efforts and the activities that your organization was doing or was having?
Gary: Well, it was a a unique program. The things that we were doing, for example, we were establishing block plantations outside of refugee settlements on government land. And so that in itself is a not a community driven approach that a humanitarian organization usually does. And so that perspective was different. Again the main driver for the people that we worked with was actually receiving wages. They were also one of the main drivers of deforestation. So the coal or charcoal consumption from natural forest was extremely high and had been exasperated by a large number of refugees coming over, in excess of a million people on the meager forestry sources of Sudan. So on other side you could understand, you know the interest of the Sudanese government as well as US government to try and address some of these environmental issues. But, you know, we did manage to convince both the donor and the government to allow us to develop an extension program where we were actually conducting reforestation on Sudanese villager lands. We also began to develop what we call agroforestry systems. So establishing windbreaks on agricultural land as well as planting around homes and around refugee settlements and teaching them to use waste water. And many of the species that we were using grew very quickly if there was adequate water. And so the idea was to provide a more hospitable environment in the desert, right? And so that was, I think, very impactful,
Safa: Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. You mentioned that you know, theres the tension between the short term needs that have to be addressed and then the more longer term planning that also needs to be put in place for perhaps more impact to continue. Could you tell us a bit about ,you know, your personal experiences with this tension between the short term needs or the short term issues that have to be worked on and the more longer term environment that kind of has to be encouraged and also addressed. Perhaps not just in your work there, but maybe later on also, in your career at any other time as well.
Gary: Sure. Well, you know, most international development agencies work in both what we call emergency settings, which in Sudan we had an emergency setting where we have large numbers of refugees crossing the border and they were in really poor health. And we would have fresh refugee settlements spring up literally overnight in some cases, 100,000 people coming over and settling in one place in over a weeks period of time. So that’s an emergency setting. The same organizations, such as Care who I was working with at that time also do longer term development work. And so there’s a bridge between the two. In this case, it wasn’t, I would say, very well developed and so the types of activities and the sources of funding for emergency programs are quite different than those of longer term development. And so when you get this blend of the two, it’s more difficult for the organizations to cope with it, because often you have a team that is more focused on emergencies and another team of employees that are more focused on development work and so that crossover, the blend between the two is an area that isn’t really well thought through. And so, in my experiences what we call the transition from emergency to development is much trickier then either working in an emergency setting or in a development setting and so that always is an issue. We do have staff with international development agencies that do cross between them, myself, particularly later on in my career when I was Country Director, we were always on call for responding to emergencies, and we did receive a lot of training in emergency response and actually had developed, I would say, within our organizations capabilities and teams that could be responding to natural disasters such as a flood or hurricane or an earthquake or in many cases, conflict. And so we would receive training and be prepared to do an emergency response and leave our developmental programs on hold for a time being while we responded to an emergency. So those are quite common. But again, that bridge between the two is a very difficult one.
Safa: Mhm. Absolutely. Can you also tell us a bit about what happened after your time in Sudan? And, what did you feel like you wanted to continue to work on? And where did it lead you?
Gary: Well, actually, I returned to Central America, to Guatemala after my stint in Sudan. And that was on an agroforestry program, which was then again more focused on longer term development. However, we were concerned about the nutritional status of many of the communities that we were working with. So we did have what we call a food for work programme, which is part of title two of the US government. And so we were promoting soil conservation practices in particular on very steep slopes in Guatemala and because that required an intensive amount of labor and farmers there and farm families where, I would say, facing challenges in food security. So the food for work was, on one hand a means to provide adequate nutrition to farmers and their families while addressing longer term environmental concerns. So that was an interesting program and that was countrywide. And the food came — was actually imported to Guatemala from the United States. And there’s always, you know, controversial issues surrounding, food for work or food imports. And we can get into those later on if you’re interested. Those are definitely areas that I think are not cut and dry, right. They have advantages and disadvantages. And I think the important thing is to recognize, you know, both, what those advantages are and trying to cope with some of the unintended negative consequences,
Safa: The idea of do no harm, it’s something that some of the previous guest we’ve had talked about — and the idea that there might not be any perfect solution, that there’s always some level of disadvantages or unintended impacts, as you say. But when it comes to working within communities and trying to serve the best interest of communities -but at the same time having to have partnerships with those in positions of power, whether it’s in government or in the private sector — there can be challenges when it comes to politicization of perhaps funding for programs or just policies or interventions. What have been some of your experiences with navigating the different power dynamics that exist in doing this type of?t
Gary: Well, you know, it all comes back to the sources of funding. So in our case is, you know, the United States government and the European Commission, were I would say probably two of the major donors. There’s a lot of other bilateral donors, such a DIFID and the, you know, the Swedish SIDA and DANIDA with the Danes and also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Netherlands. There’s a lot of different types of donor funding and so donors have agreements with host governments, and within that framework of those agreements, they set their long term development assistance strategies and then, you know, implementing organizations such as international NGOs work within that strategic framework between the donor and the government. We often compete for resources through a call for proposals or for a call for applications and so what happens is that the donors and the governments will broadly outline the development intervention and structure that in terms of a call for proposals and then the international development agencies have to respond to, you know, those broader development objectives. So the way those programs are designed are often through contractual organizations, you get what we call these beltway bandits or consulting firms that are in Washington, D. C, for example, and in Brussels and London and elsewhere that actually will do the design for the call for proposals and the engagement with communities is often lacking. And so it’s a dilemma in terms of international development organizations in the way that how much flexibility that they have and how they may be able to actually consult and engaged the communities in the design of the details for those programs. Be it health or agriculture or micro finance or business development. And so that is often a huge challenge and the power structures that you refer are actually handed down — that is you’re awarded a grant in response to these call for proposals based on your responsiveness to the terms within that call for proposals. So you’re often compromised and the level of participation in terms of the on the ground stakeholders, the communities is often very limited and so that’s a huge challenge. And so a lot of the development funds come with a lot of strings attached, as you might say, and those strings often tie your hands in terms of being able to respond to the real needs within those different sectors, right? So that is something that often has to be navigated. What we often do is a redesign and a re-budget after you’re a year or two into the program and that gives you an opportunity to actually address some of those concerns that the communities have and bring them more into a participatory approach in designing a program that is more responsive and more effective. And in that way, the communities have a greater voice and can provide their input into how development assistance is done at their level. So that’s kind of one of the ways to get around some of the constraints that we’re facing when we’re actually designing a program. And I must add that this has become much worse over time. You know, when I started of in the business back in 1977 right, donors were much more hands of and recognize that international development agencies that were in the fields with people that were field driven knew a lot more on how to deliver development assistance then donors themselves. But as international aid has become more politicized and over the years, that has made it much more difficult for, I think, international development programs to be more effective.
Safa: Yes, this is something that I was also just reading an article about earlier today in terms of how how highly politicized everything has increasingly become not just in terms of where aid funding goes but also in terms of governments general idea that eight funding can be an avenue for their own economies to become strengthened or for their own national interest, of course, to be served in a way that has troubling, troubling effects. But when you think of, you know, achieving social impact or social change, and the different methods and tools and approaches that a variety of different organizations take or have taken over time. For example, behaviour change programs, behaviour change modification approaches — or one of those approaches. What have been your experiences when it comes to using behaviour change approaches and how have you experienced either their efficacy or their challenges? It’s something that continues to be a very prominent method. So what are your personal reflections or your thoughts based on your own experiences?
Gary: Well, behaviour change is extremely difficult, and I think a lot of people in the development community don’t recognize the challenges for behaviour change right? It’s for my perspective, its often intergenerational. And behaviours are framed as you grow up, right, and it’s ingrained in culture, and so changing behaviour is very difficult and requires long term commitment. You know, most donors and governments are very short sighted, right.They’re looking, you know, from election to election and often development programs are framed — they could be one, two, three years, longer term ones will be five years. Sometimes you can get a follow on program, but you know, changing behaviour takes many, many, many years. And as I say it’s often intergenerational. And so the best way to change behaviour, of course, is working with a women and children and youth. Your values, your habits are formed when you’re very young and those are influenced by your parents. And so if you’re looking at something such as gender based violence, which is a behaviour change that we’re all striving to reduce gender based violence and the perpetrators are often men. And so a lot of that’s cultural. And, you know, where men are seen as the bread winners, they’re expected to be the family leaders, they’re machos and so to change that type of behaviour takes a long time. And so you know, we found, for example, working with schoolchildren with youth in starting to instil values on the differences between gender roles and understanding those differences and respecting, you know, gender rights is a long term issue and working with children over a number of years in different areas such as, you know, joint sport activities and then in working with them in the classroom and the communities on and engaging youth in areas that are interesting, of interest to them and putting that gender spin on it is a way to approach behaviour change in this case for gender based violence. You know, and the same may apply to other sectors such as health. You know, water and sanitation are huge issues and getting people to build and use latrines for example. You can build a beautiful latrine, but you can’t get people to use them if they’re accustomed to defecation in open fields. And to think that the only thing that they’re lacking are the sanitation facilities in getting them to change their behaviour is you know, it takes a long time. They need to understand why, why sanitation is so important, how diseases are transmitted and then that understanding then has to reflect in a change in behaviour and and have them have the resources to do that. So yes, engaging communities, understanding the reasons why they behave the way they do in the first place and, you know, what needs to be done to improve their behaviour so that you’re achieving your health goals or reducing gender based violence, that takes a lot of time. And donors just don’t provide long term funding for addressing those issues and giving them an opportunity to work in communities for an extended period in order to see that behaviour change through.
Safa: Right, as you say, it requires time and often time is something that organizations might not have in terms of funding and resources. When you began to take on positions of leadership like, for example, when you became Country Director for Mercy Corps in Colombia or Tajikistan, were there some lessons you learned or some realities about the system, the development system, that you you realized or that perhaps you hadn’t faced before when you were perhaps just a officer or practitioner? Could you tell us about that transition and perhaps some of the things you noticed?
Gary: Well, it’s quite a transition. So as Country Director, there’s a lot of issues that you’re faced with, right. And on the programming side it’s an understanding that communities face many problems. And so a long term, multi sectoral approach to addressing multiple problems in the community is best. You know, just going in with an agriculture project or a health project or water and san(itation) project or micro finance project only just resolves one issue. But I mean the inter relatedness between the challenges communities face and all those different sectors is very complex. And so a Country Director, you know, understanding that the clustering of programs in the same geographic areas and with the same communities to address the multiple needs is often a good approach, and that allows you to really have an impact on, you know, many those challenges and make a real difference in people’s lives. So I think that’s been, you know, from my perspective, a very important aspect. And so that’s a balancing act. And because donors are really sectoral focused, right, they want to do an ag(ricultural) project here, they want to do a maternal child health care project over there, you know, and in getting the donors to agree for you to work with a geographic approach so that you can have that impact that you’re looking for is often quite tricky because donors often want, you know, an impact here and, you know, a recognition for their donations, their work. And they’re not often, you know, really interested having your programs over layered with other donors because that kind of diffuses some of the successes that they hope to attain.
Safa: So the sectoral approach can cause challenges and it’s much better to think across different sectors and kind of see what kind of impact can be made when you’re not just focused on one initiative here, one initiative there, but the way that everyone’s lives has multiple issues, and in a way they all have to be addressed simultaneously.
Gary: Yes, I mean, that’s the best thing to do. But you don’t want to overload the communities either. I mean, you usually want a sequence in your programs and have those programs that start up first to be the ones that are, you know, the most urgent to address. And often those are either health or agriculture or they could be water as well. I mean, and then you build up a rapport with local leaders. You know, the local government , with community leaders, community organizations, you get to know one another. You know, one of the approaches that I really like to use before we make any long term commitments and we’re going into new communities is actually to start up with social programs. So going in with a very small amount of money, let’s say you know, $500 to $1,000 and then, you know, fund a social event like a wedding or sporting event or religious festivity or something like that. An event that brings the community together with a little bit of extra resources the organizers can actually, you know, draw in people that they would not normally invite if they have a limited amount of resources, right? So in Tajikistan, for example, we would have, Tajiks would have a wedding and, you know, their communities were multi-ethnic with Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, sometimes Amiris. And so we ‘d say, Hey, you know, if you had a bit more money for your wedding, would you invite the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in and they would say yes, yes. And so we would provide those resources and we would watch the event, right, and if we saw a good participation, we’d say, wow you know, this community has potential for working across you know these ethnic lines, engaging women, engaging those ethnic groups that are minorities. And this would be a good community for us to start a long term commitment with larger programs that require an investment in infrastructure such as a water system or a bridge or rehabilitating a school so I find those types of approaches really good. And then you establish a rapport with the communities and leaders, you know what they can deliver on, and that makes subsequent programmes that you bring in flow a lot easier because you are — you and the communities know one another, and you know what their capabilities and limitations are and they know you and they can trust you. So that’s, I think, a good developmental approach.
Safa: So it builds trust.
Gary: Trust is absolutely essential in order, you know, as you said, we want behaviour change. You want, you know, these long term initiatives to be sustained. You know, you build a water system. I mean, you’ve got to maintain it. You’ve gotta manage it. You’ve got to get water out to people. And so, you know, that trust is critical in order for the system not only to be installed but properly managed and sustained, right.
Safa: With the passage of time and, you know, the rotation of staff around different duty stations something that often happens or comes up is the loss of institutional memory. Right. So perhaps maybe there was a project, it was effective, but maybe the funding ran out and it ended. And then a few years later, there’s a new group of staff, and maybe they don’t realize that this happened a few years ago, and then they do it again. Or maybe it wasn’t successful and then a few years later, that institutional knowledge of oh, we tried this and it didn’t work is not there anymore so once again a different group of staff members tried to recreate that project. Have you experienced this type of, you know, loss of institutional memory and could you tell us about your personal experiences with that kind of challenge?
Gary: Well, you know, that does occur. But more often than not, the organizations I’ve worked with have had a long term commitment to the countries. And I think a lot of people don’t realize that, you know, 90% of my staff, 95% sometimes, 99% sometimes, you know, they’re local staff. The number of expatriates that we have in development programs is, you know, today is very small, and most of the staff is national staff. And so the trick is to actually develop a pipeline of programs so that you keep your national staff employed and have them go from one program to another. Because they’re all you know, funded on short term programs but if you could do that, then you’ve got that institutional memory because the expatriates may come and go and myself included. You know, the average length of a post was around three years. Some cases, like Columbia, I worked in for six, but there’s been places where I’ve worked for two, and so you know, as an expatriate, you rely upon your national staff as that institutional memory on what’s been done, where we’ve worked. So that’s I think really critical. As I said, if you can have a geographic focus and long term programs there, and so you’re going in with, you know, your health project, your water and san, your ag, your business development and micro finances. Over a long period of time then you’ve got an institutional memory. So I think that’s the way most of the organizations are able to tackle that. You know, the short term, one off projects where you come in, open up a country office, do one big project then leave and then come back, you know, five or ten years later, that occurs all the time. But in most cases international development agencies try and make a commitment and you know, we develop strategic plans for the countries we work in, you know what our role is in the agency, what our relationships with other institutions, with donors with the government are, and so that there’s usually a strategic plan working over a long period of time. And then you try incorporate what we call an exit plan so that you know, what are the indicators to know when your organization has done its job in the country and, you know, capabilities have been increased and, you know, it’s time to pack up the bags and leave right? And so we try and develop those types of plans where there’s, you know, you come in, you’re working in the country, you’ve got a strategic plan over a number of years and then you have a plan for phasing out. So that’s what organizations try and do. Whether that can be accomplished, you know, depends upon the donor community in the end, because, you know, if fundings available, you can do that. But if you know, a lot of organizations pack up their bags when the funding sources dry up, you know, the donors no longer see the country as priority. And so this whole thing about coming in and going out, you know, some countries maybe stable for a moment, and then they go into conflict, and then you know everything that you’ve tried to accomplish in terms of development, you know, in countries such as in the Middle East, and you know, at this point in North Africa, you know, it’s a yo-yo for them, you go through peaks and valleys and you rebuild, and then everything is destroyed by conflict. You come in in emergency, you transition to develop and you make progress. Conflict occurs again. And, you know, so that’s that’s a huge issue. But you know, that’s probably a topic for another conversation , some other time (laughs).
Safa: Yes. I mean, it’s very relevant though. Absolutely. There’s so many situations and countries over the last 20,30,40 years where there have been, as you say, peaks and valleys, continuous problems at different time periods. One issue that, you know, conflict brings up is the interface of the military with, you know, aid agencies, development agencies. Have you in your work ever had to deal with that or have you ever experienced that in terms of the times or places where the military also kind of plays a role in environment that you’re working in?
Gary: Oh, yes, that’s occurred quite a bit. You know, the military, despite, you know, their sometimes good intentions — military is organized and designed for fighting and for killing and maiming people, right? I mean, that’s what a military does, you know, quote un quote in the name of defence, which is, you know, from my perspective, a farce. And so the military do aid really badly and they make poor partners in terms of longer term development in particular. You know, in emergency settings the advantage the military has is that, you know, they’re well organized and they have good logistic systems that can deliver. You know, if you’re delivering food assistance or you’re delivering materials for building a bridge or things like that, I mean, the military can be very effective in terms of getting those those logistical things worked out and which you might be a part of. But in general, the military are suspicious of people at the village level, and especially if you’re coming into a conflict or a post conflict environment, you know, often conflicts, you know — and I’ll give an example, you know, in Colombia — I was working on this program that we had to provide assistance to landmine victims. And, you know, we had to work with the military, right. And theres landmine education and then there are the victims. The emergency response for a victim that has, you know, come in contact with a land mine. And is suffering in getting first aid and then getting that person to a hospital and then going through the whole process of rehabilitation, right. So, you know, they often loose a limb or an eye but the military, in this case, you know, would look at landmine victims with suspicion. You know, they would think that they’re part of the the FARC or you know, one of the guerrilla groups in Colombia and would start coming in hassling and interrogating our, you know, our poor victims that have been traumatized. And often, you know, these are farmers and they’re working with a machete and the machete hits a land mine, right, that blows up in their face. And so the army thinks well, actually, this was a guerrilla who was down there planting land mines and it accidentally exploded in their face, you know, and so you get into these different types of conflicts. I was also managing the alternative development program in Peru, which works with coca growers in a crop substitution program. And, you know, so we get the farmers to voluntarily give up coca, planting coca, and provide them with assistance to for example for growing coffee or cocoa. And they come to an agreement with them so that they would face out there coca over, you know, a period of three or four years and then, you know, you get the military coming in and uprooting, eradicating, forcibly eradicating the coca when they’re engaged in a program to voluntarily give up planting it. But you know, when they do that — you need to wait for the coffee or the cocoa to come into production and meanwhile they still need to have some income from their coca, right? You realize that’s the way life is. Farmers need to have income and to have the military, you know, totally not understand or cooperate and go and do that forced eradication didn’t win very many friends. And so, you know, that was a complicated program. But it just shows that the military — they should not be doing development and as I said, the military’s created for killing. And when you’re trying to save lives, you know, there’s you know, a huge difference in attitudes and mindsets and the perceptions and values between the military and a humanitarian or development organization. They’re at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Safa: Absolutely, absolutely. Have you had, you know, any days in your career where you felt particularly demoralized or challenged? Or maybe you thought. you question the work or their approach? Have there been these type of moments as well in your career?
Gary: Well, yes, I mean, with some programs. And I just talked about the alternative development, you know, which was the crop substitution program in Peru. I mean, in the end the farmers, when coca prices went up, would start to abandon their, you know, the legitimate crops, coffee and a cocoa and other crops that they were planting and plant coca. And then when coca prices went down, it was easier for them to give up their coca and go into these other crops. And so, you know, at the end of the day, you say, well, the real issue here is the way we approach drugs and drug use. And in the end, you know, it’s the demand that’s the driver, right? And we’re not tackling the demand. And in my opinion, you know, the drugs are extremely complex, and drug policies are extremely complex. The approaches that we have in terms of tackling that demand is not right. I mean, you know my opinion, you know, the best thing to do would be the probably legalize a lot of the illicit drugs, tax them and control them like we do with alcohol. You know, alcohols a drug, and so, that would probably squash the demand. And as we are seeing now, with the legalization of marijuana in many of the states here in this country, you see that the demand for the drugs air going down, you know, and youth now is not so interested, you know, and so our approach on things such as drugs, the demand for drugs have that direct impact on a development program right, which is crop substitution and getting farmers engaged in, you know, productive, you know, money earning crops that are legitimate. And, you know, there’s times that I felt like, you know, this program- alternative development is a no win situation. There’s no way you can win it. And, you know, it makes me wanna know, say, well, you know, this program isn’t worth it. So you know that’s an example of a time where I’ve been pretty down in terms development work.
Safa: Yeah. Eventually, you start to transition to the world of academia. Could you tell us a bit about that motivation or your interest there?
Gary: Well, I did want to come back to academia so I could share my experiences. I worked outside the US for 35 years and so there’s a lot of interest in international development, particularly with students, with faculty. And so I was motivated on using my experience and skills and my networks and languages that I speak to actually get the students in the academic community more engaged in international development so that on one hand students would be better prepared but on the other hand, the research that we conduct with our faculty is, you know, more suited to addressing research needs of countries in development and so that’s what got me interested in coming back to academia.
Safa: Do you find that, you know, the world of academia and the development sector- there’s enough interface or partnerships? Do you think that has to be increased — or what have been your experiences in terms of using research and applying it in the field and the two working together?
Gary: Well, that’s a good question that you can ask Andrea, because that’s exactly what she is doing. (Laughs)
Safa: (Laughs) Ok great.
Gary: From my perspective, you know, there’s definitely a role. You know, I’m dealing with food security so on the research side there’s a great need for research, particularly when you look at things such as understanding nutritious local crops, right. Let’s take quinoa for example, in Peru, we don’t really know a lot about quinoa and how it could be grown and utilized in the global market. And, you know, the nutrition it provides is tremendous in terms of addressing nutritional needs of food insecure populations. So there’s a great need for, you know, conducting research in everything from, you know, adapting quinoa to different types of environment, in producing, you know, improve seed, better cultivation practices, you know, understanding where it can be grown in other countries. So, you know, that’s one of the native crops that we should be, you know, a crop that’s very indigenous to the Andes region that can be expanded. And, you know, our food systems are based on a handful of crops, you know, 90% of our nutrition comes from rice, wheat, maize, and we’re at jeopardy because so many of the calories in our food systems come from just that small basket of crops, and those crops themselves have a lot of limitations, right? So you know the potential on understanding a wide range of indigenous crops in, you know, Africa, Latin America and Asia, you know, provide humanity with options, particularly as we go through this climate change and the challenges with climate change and the rich genetic resources that we have with these other crops in terms of adaptability for different environments and providing nutrition to humankind under stressed environmental systems is tremendous. And so that research, I think , is really- has an important role. You know, in addition to that capacity building of course of our partner universities in lower and middle income countries I think is is huge in establishing partnerships for a global research network so that, you know, we can address some of these food insecurity challenges that we are faced with and will be faced with over the upcoming years.
Safa: So there are some new approaches or projects or research that you’re involved with, that excite you or give you hope for future approaches or technologies that can be used, right?
Gary: Yes, for sure. I mean, you know, in the end, we are going to be depending upon technology to help us become more adapted to a different environment, right? So global warming is a reality. We are experiencing today, you know, with the hot temperatures out here and it’s gonna get worse. And so the stress that that places on crops is tremendous. So yeah, I’m optimistic that we’re gonna be able to use technology to address, you know, growing food in a much hotter environment with these extreme events occurring, you know, heavy rain like we had in the spring. And now we’re going through a drought. You know, it’s going to be — our crops are going to have to adapt to these different types of environments. So I have a lot of faith in technology in helping us address these issues and, you know, research on what we need to do to try to start mitigating some of the climate change issues is gonna be an area that we need to address. We’ve already pumped so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that, you know, the forces are already there and so it’s just to recognize them, what we can do over the long term that mitigate them and use technology to help us do that. Otherwise, you know, you throw your arms up in despair and say, well, the technology we should invest in is space exploration, because this planet is doomed. (Laughs)
Safa: Yeah.
Gary: So that’s being really cynical, right? But, you know, it’s not far from the reality. We are altering our environment and our, you know, political leaders need to understand, and our global community needs to work together to face the challenges in the upcoming years. And it’s only, you know, through a united global community are we going to be able to do that. The way that we’re going now with nationalism and, you know, isolationism and each for his own, is not the way to go.
Safa: Absolutely. It’s a very trying time, and there’s a lot of work to be done. But as you say, working together in global networks and investing in research and technology, hopefully we can achieve some good results with time.
Gary: Yes, yes, and that’s what we need to do. So that’s where I’m putting my investment on, in students, the up and coming scientists and new generation because they’re the ones that are gonna have to deal with the problems that you know, my generation’s leaving behind.
Safa: Absolutely. Thank you, Gary so much for speaking with us.
Gary: Well, it’s been a pleasure, and thank you very much for this opportunity to share some of my experiences and thoughts.
Safa: You’ve raised so many important points and thought provoking points. I have to definitely go back and listen to it again and take it all in. Thank you so much again. And all the best with the work that you’re doing at Purdue and with all your students.
Gary: Okay. Well, thank you. And best of luck with your endeavours.
Safa: Thank you so much. Thank you also to our listeners. To keep up with our weekly podcast, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and Google podcast platforms where you can also rate and review the episodes and share with your friends. You can also follow us on instagram where are handle is @rethinkingdevelopment. If you have any listener questions that you would like me to ask our future guests, please feel free to email them to us. I look forward to continuing similar conversations with you all in the weeks to come. Until then, take care.
