Abstract:
Proc. Aust. Soc. Anim. Prod. (1978 12: 13 AUSTRALIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO OVERSEAS ANIMAL PRODUCTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES - INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS A.F. GURNETT-SMITH* summary An ancient Chinese proverb has been translated thus: 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, give him nets and you feed him for many days. Teach him how to make nets and he can feed himself for a lifetime.' and few ant its This proverb illustrates three main types of aid - gifts, gifts education and education. The developing world needs all three but attempts to apply them are of lasting consequence unless a significpart of the effort is directed towards institutional improvement, management and the motivation of its staff. No attempt has been made to cover the global strategy for development assistance and the part played by international institutions and organizations. The paper relates mainly to 'grass roots' activities by Australian animal husbandry officers although the lessons from these activities are pertinent to many other forms of development assistance and there is an obvious interaction between global and regional activities. , I. INTRODUCTION 'There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong' - H.L. Mencken Lack of appreciation of the complexity of aid planning leads donor countries to rush in (often for the wrong motives and based on untested evidence) and set up aid projects. Then,when they do not achieve the desired objectives, cynicism and bewilderment is expressed by the question 'What went wrong?' Rarely are attempts made to answer the question and the next project is often undertaken by another group of novices and the cycle is repeated. The time has come to face up to recognising that there are no easy solutions. Fortunately, I sense that this is beginning to be realised, and in some donor countries institutions are being charged with searching for mechanisms for planning aid in a more sophisticated way. But these attempts are only in their infancy &nd it is generally true that the evaluation of aid has been in the 'too hard' bracket for a 'long time. . Too long! Within recipient countries a similar situation applies. Other * Centre for Animal Research and Development, Bogor, Indonesia. 13. than amateurish opinions we know little about assessing whether an institution is worthy of support. We tend to find that out later, often with regret. Without doubt, aid will always'be a hazardous activity but it is too costly and the need is too urgent for it to be left as it isWe must therefore widen our thinking. In general our store of technological and scientific information is more comprehensive than our understanding of sociological and institutional considerations. As scientists and technologists we tend to relegate them to a lower order in our thinking when in reality the recipient country's acceptance of our aid and the penetration of new activities after an aid project is completed is obviously a measure of the enthusiasm that has been absorbed into the staff of relevant institutions. The true value of an aid project can best be seen two or three years after its completion. An unbending devotion to transfer of Western technology without attention to institutional and sociological considerations is wrong, no matter how neat and plausible it might be to the donor. II. WHAT IS A DEVELOPING COUNTRY? Developing countries have many differences, but they also have a great deal in common. Very few become so in a matter of a generation or two. The reasons are clearly long-term ones, such as lack of managerial integrity and a decline in the sense of national purpose: in short, sociological problems that are reflected in institutional decadence. Developing countries are not inhabited by people with institutional amenities of comparable efficiency to those in developed countries, the only difference being their poverty. Many 'experts' go to assist developing countries and expect to see'shortcomings in their own area of knowledge but also expect to find efficient telephone services, adequate roads and railways, well-motivated policemen etc. They find it difficult to appreciate that under-development pervades all? aspects of social and material welfare. Money does not seem to be the key to development, as a visit to rural villages in the Middle Fast will demonstrate. Neither are natural resources. Singapore and Japan have shown what can be done with few resources, other than manpower and sense of purpose. Wars do not seem to be important either; note the recovery of Germany and Japan. Developed countries usually become underdeveloped over a long period. Marco Polo went to Indonesia to learn of its culture and institutional development. Fortunately decline can be arrested and therein lies our hope. In some cases development can happen relatively quickly although not very often, e.g., Taiwan and Singapore. What then is development? How can it be measured? It certainly cannot be measured in quantitive terms, although some broad attempts are made. Income per capita is often used as a guide and a figure of over $1,060 per annum has been used. Indonesia had a per capita income of USS128 in 1973 whereas in Venezuela it was over US$l,OOO. Another measure is based on inequality of income. In 1973, in Indonesia, the lowest 40 per cent of the population received 15 per cent of the national income, whereas iri Venezuela it received only 8 per cent. In this sense Indonesia is more developed than Venezuela. What is needed is a measure for characteristics such as educational opportunities for the few, disinterest in narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, 14. religious, tribal, racial and political bigotry, and lack of motivation . to work for the corrunon good. The superficial symptoms of this 'disease' are wide differences/between the rich and the poor, elegant buildings overlooking urban slums, luxury cars brushing aside people pulling handcarts, corrupt public servants, the literate using their advantage to restrict the illiterate, 'nepotism in job opportunity, health services for the wealthy etc. In short, selfishness! Hunger is often quoted as it is relatively easy to describe visually and statistically but social and institutional problems are more difficult to quantify. Somewhat reluctantly, I am forced to the view that we have placed too much emphasis on technological transfer and insufficient on assisting institutes themselves to be viable and independent to the level that they can select and generate technological advances in themselves. 'Reformers are those who educate people to appreciate what they need.' - E. Hubbard This in essence is what aid is all about, whether it be animal production or any other activity. There has to be the spark of the reformer in all development assistance workers. They are there to trigger off a reformation and not just to teach people where to go for help. III. SETTING OUR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER Let me refer to the Chinese proverb. It may seem that the main goal is to teach a fisherman to make nets.. But we have to keep him alive in the meantime, so he needs some gifts. I hear often that food aid is a waste of time. I agree with Professor Norman* in his call for a balanced approach. Those who say that food often does not reach the p ople in greatest need, and encourages them to relax their efforts to increase food production and control population, are really saying that insufficient attention has been given to assisting the institutions involved. Gifts on their own do little, but combined with 'institutional assistance much can be achieved. Not all gifts, of course, are food. Gifts by Australia of vaccine and equipment to administer it, when foot-and-mouth disease erupted in Bali recently, is an excellent example of the value of extending a gift to helping Indonesia 'make nets' by including a vaccine production facility.and assisting in the organisation of a project on a subject of which Australian veterinarians knew little, but they did know more about institutional organisation of disease eradication - a more important skill. The Indonesians have now taken full responsibility for a long-term eradication programme. It illustrates how a gift combined with institutional assistance can overcome a long-standing problem and at very little additional cost. IV. .MEETING THE NEED Our development assistance in animal husbandry, like other agricultural aid projects, is undertgken in general by: NORMAN, M.J.T., Agricultural Aid - Goods or Skills, Canberra (1976). 15. . . `. short term visits, often many visits over a period of years, consultants- short and long term postings - and long term appointments, usually by members of Government agencies. Some short-term visits have proved successful, e.g., many of the ANJCS short courses. It is relatively easy for University faculty members to spend long vacations in developing countries and I believe the effort-is well worth while. They stimulate their colleagues and influence future subject-matter teaching.. However, I sense projects are less successful because of lack of opportunity for sustained institutional interaction. AAUCS is able to meet this need in some cases, e.g., association with the Universitas Pertanian Malaysia. Consultants have undertaken a number of assignments, e.g., sheep projects in India and Korea. They are usually constrained by the nature of their contracts, but they have solved a number of practical problems very effectively. I suggest better value from,their efforts could be achieved by combining their efforts with more institutional help to ensure the 'gift of the net' spreads into a viable net-making and fishing organization. I Often, scientists and technologists visit developing countries briefly, for specific assignments. When an institution is at a stage of development where it can accept and act on the visitors' suggestions, these visits are worth while, buta brief exposure to developing countries' problems is fraught with danger. Often the visitor does not have time to adapt his knowledge to meet the needs of the developing country, and forthright but ill-informed recommendations result. 'An expert is a man who has stopped thinking he knows.' -'F. Lloyd Wright Longer term appointments are expensive, they inconvenience the person concerned, his family and his organization, but he has time to appreciate how little he knows and the complexity of the need. He 'sits where they sit'. This does not mean, of course, that his ties with his home country and its scientific institutions should be cut. In many ways they need to be strengthened. This has been proved by IRRI, CIMMYT and other international research centres sponsored by CGIAR. My experience in Indonesia confirms that, even though we are building a telatively large institute, close ties with CSIRO and other research centres are needed for advice on research techniques, assistance from visiting scientists' and suggestions on equipment to be purchased. Usually for the first year the more superficial frustrations predominate but, gradually, the expatriate looks at his home country through the recipient country's eyes and the enormous difference between what he thought he had to offer and what is needed is seen in stark reality. At home his efforts are aimed directly at reducing labour costs and producing high-quality food. His training is suited to meeting the needs of , high-income consumers. He finds himself in a situation where he is expected to increase labour usage and give priority to quantity of 16. produce and where his knowledge caters for the thin layer of the wealthy. He therefore sees himself increasing the gap between the rich and thie poor (Le., just the opposite of what he came to do). Unless he is unusually perceptive and flexible he is perplexed. The scientific 'culture' switch can be traumatic to him and his family. Many Australians are experienced in research into low-labour-clost cattle production, pasture establishment, etc. In Indonesia there a:re large areas of land with few people and suited to.extensive cattle production. There are many animals but they are in areas of dense human population. There are nearly nine million cattle and buffalo in Indonesia, over half of them on Java (with its 80 million people) and owned by people most of whom cultivate less than 1% hectares of land. There are about 3.4 million sheep (90 per cent of them on Java). In Indonesian terms, this is where the major problems lie. The technology the Australian brings is therefore inappropriate to the needs of the majority of the people and the animals. Expertise in grazing management and cattle'tick and internal parasite control is irrelevant because most animals arestall-fed. The expatriate finds himself in a situation where not only his experience but the policies of the institutions he has worked in are irrelevant to the majority of the 'people and their animals. The temptation to blame the institution, ' rather than admit he has to learn a new approach to meet new needs, is very strong. There are, of course, many Australians doing excellent work in islands other than Java where large-scale 'ranches' are being developed. But they must recognise that their efforts are not of much value to the farmer wanting to plant next season's rice crop, although they may feed the wealthy or help with exports. v. . NEW APPROACHES Around the world, governments are recognising that scientific assistance needs new approaches. Different institutional approaches are being considered, the most recent being a proposal by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences*for a 20 per cent increase in the U.S. budget for agricultural research on problems of relevance to the developing world, coupled with organisational changes and a threefold increase in money to assist research institutes in developing countries, by 1980. Ruminant livestock has been suggested as one of the priority areas of research. The International Development Research Centre was created in Canada in 1970 to foster research aid. It has its own Governing Board of 21 members, of whom only eleven must be Canadian. The aim is to 'assist the developing countries to build up their research capabilities, the innovative skills and the institutions required to solve their problems'. In Australia a report sponsored by ADAA was prepared by Dr. Helen Hughes in 1975. It recommended a semi-autonomous Australian International Developmen,t Research Council and in the following year a Committee led by Sir John Crawford proposed an International Research * World Food and Nutrition Study, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D-C.. (19771.. 17. , Assistance Foundation with objectives similar to those of the Canadian IRDC. These suggestions are still being considered. Some States are setting up separate units in their Departments of Agriculture and some Universities have established study groups, e.g., the Development Studies Centre in the ANU. VI. WITHIN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Developing countries differ in their cultural heritage, social customs, and motivation to develop. But there are similarities, as * stated by Moseman :'I The lack of national structured research organisations, together with inadequate numbers of well-trained research specialists, have been the more critical limitations in generating agricultural technology in the developing countries'. Most developing countries have agricultural research and extension organisations but their sense of purpose is often lacking, partly because staff find it easier to identify with urban and expatriate conditions than with those of peasants. Many have been trained overseas (sometimes in an irrelevant speciality) and skilled in the use of sophisticated equipment but lacking in the ability to identify ' practical needs. Virtually none have come from farms. Many have little confidence in their parent institutions. Once they are married and develop family ties they often cannot afford to move to institutions in other parts of the country, so for economic reasons they are tied to the iqstitutions where they are. One of the most important tasks is to help these countries develop their research and extension institutions to a stage where they can identify for themselves the needs of their country and its farmers, and attract sufficient expertise and finance to seek out and find technical answers. Dr. Sumitro Djojohadikusumo ll , Minister of Research in Indonesia, said recently: 'The concepts of technology, whether appropriate or intermediate, and such concepts as 'transfer.of technology', do not have much operational value unless defined in the light of wellestablished criteria that define the relevance of social needs and the impact of an interaction with social and economic programmes'. VII. THE EXPERIMENT AT BOGOR At the present time Australia is undertaking an experiment in institutional development in Indonesia. I refer to the Centre for Animal Research and Development (or P4). During early enquiries leading up to the establishment of the Centre, it seemed that agricultural research and development in Indonesia was being restricted in several ways. * MOSEMAN, A., Building Agricultural Research Systems in the Developing Nations. Monograph of Agricultural Development Council. DJOJOHADIKUSUMO, S APProPr #iate Technology Third Inter Congress of the Pa.cific Scienc e Assoc., Bali 1977). l I IT 18. There was lack of awareness at top governmental level of the relevance of well-conducted research to development. High-quality research was looked upon as a luxury and not an essential ingredient of progress. Universities were set up primarily for prestige purposes and left to wither from lack of staff, equipment and operating money. Scientists with overseas postgraduate training were given little support or even encouragement to think that research would be given much recognition in national planning. Their morale was low. The more adventurous tended to escape to commercial employment in other countries. Research was not looked upon as requiring well-paid staff and adequa te equi pment Extension organisations existed, but sense of purpose and rapport with farmers and research workers was poor. For years F-A-0. and other international bodies had placed` individual 'experts' as counterparts and a number of small research projects had been assisted by overseas interests. Most of these had proved to be of little lasting value. The success of IRRI and CIMMYT suggested that it was worth embarking on an experiment in institutional aid whereby a research and development centre would be set up which could: . attract the attention of the Government and demonstrate that money spent on research was not a'hobby but an essential national investment, show that good facilities and employment conditions would attract and keep well-trained innovative scientists interested in meeting practical needs, and convince national planners that Indonesia could become capable of solving its own technological problems and that it could not rely only on expatriates deciding what technology should be transferred to it.. . . It seemed from the IRRI and CIMMYT experience that a certain 'critical mass' was necessary to meet these objectives. An important, but hopefully less important, result of the Centre's work will be the information it generates on animal production. However, i&s an essential goal that it keep its feet on the ground and operate hopefully at a level where it develops an international reputation. The Centre will open in 1978. It already has a staff of 250, of . whom only 20 are expatriate, and some relatively simple but practically important research has started. The Indonesian Government has increased its contribution by 50 per cent this financial year to approximately A$12 million and, excluding a building construction 19. programme costing over $10 million, the Australian Government is contributing $2.5 million. Moves are being made by the Indonesians to improve the salaries and conditions of employment of research scientists based on promotion according to research ability. Counterpart staff are not employed at the Centre. Indonesian scientists have as much . chance as Australians to develop their careers. Some Indonesians work under Australians while others lead programmes with Australians in them. The Research Leader is an Australian and the Development Leader is Indonesian. Every effort has been made to develop Indonesian leadership wherever-possible. For example, the research programmes were proposed by a Committee chaired by a nationally recognised extension and development leader and with a majority of Indonesians in its membership. This Committee prepared a list of research programmes that the Centre might undertake, based on its assessment of the practical needs of Indonesian farmers. The list was presented to a larger group drawn from governmental, university and commercial organisations. As a result the Centre is working on: low capital approaches to increasing village chicken production, development of locally-produced feed mixtures for intensive chickenmeat and egg production, genetic and nutritional methods for increasing duck egg production, a search for ruminants with better feed conversion ratios, higher meat-producing sheep and goats, and improving the fertility and growth rates of Bali cattle. In addition there is a development programme, led by a former University Dean of Animal Husbandry, which engages in a variety of liaison activities with extension workers, economic assessments and sociological studies. This progrartune also includes an information service, conducts seminars, issues publications and alerts research staff to practical problems. Institutional resistance to change, especially where administrators perceive change as a threat or where there is no direct personal reward from the change, is a feature of all societies, particularly public institutions. In a developing country where financial resources have to be spread thinly it is only natural that jealousy towards those given favoured treatment can impair collaboration. It is therefore necessary for special attention to be given to this - hence the priority given to outside contacts. 20. , The Centre is part of the Department of Agriculture under the overall direction of the Director-General of Animal Husbandry who also co-ordinates regional research and extension activities in collaboration with provincial governments. The selection of a site near Bogor, one of the most densely populated areas of the most densely populated island of Indonesia may be surprising. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly the advice from IRRI was strongly in favour of it being near an international airport. The second reason was an institutional one. Reference has already been made to institutional ties with Australia. Close association with scientific institutes in Indonesia is of equal importance and Bogor is the main centre for agricultural research and education in Indonesia. Some 45 buildings are nearing completion. They consist of: . a poultry complex with its own experimental feed mill, pathology laboratory, brooder and incubator houses in addition to animal houses, a duck complex with ten experimental duck houses, feed'store etc., a ruminant complex with facilities for penned small and large ruminants, also a slaughter house, cold and freezer rooms, metabolism facilities, operating theatre, fodder dryer and animal incinerator, library, conference centre and canteen, . . . . . 'chemistry laboratories with facilities similar to those in CSIRO laboratories in Australia, electronic, carpentry, sheet metal and mechanical workshops and stores, and administrative offices. It is anticipated that the Centre will have a total staff of about 300, including about 50 scientists. To meet the need for wellqualified staff, training programmes in equipment maintenance, effluentdisposal-system operation, fire control and electricity generation are held at the Centre. In addition some 15 fellowships are offered under the Colombo Plan for university graduates to undertake postgraduate training in Australia. It is anticipated that most will join the staff of the Centre on their return. An Advisory Board, chaired by the Minister of Agriculture and including members from research, educational and commercial organisations, meets twice a year. Often this meeting follows a seminar on a topic of relevance to the Centre's work. Members of the Centre attend seminars and conferences arran,ged by the Department of Agriculture and, where appropriate, present papers. Some joint work has begun with Universities and regional inspectors of animal husbandry. 21. The period of the Australian involvement with the Centre can be divided into three stages. The first covers the early negotiations, planning, construction, equipping, staffing and setting the broad directions of the research. This is nearing completion. The second stage will develop the research further, make further contacts with allied groups in Indonesia, and develop Indonesian leadership. The third stage will be a transition phase when responsibility for the Centre will transfer to Indonesians. These three stages are planned to span a ten-year period. Only time will tell whether it can reach its institutional objectives as well as solving some animal production problems. Like all experiments the results are analysed after the data have been collected. I would not wish to predict the restilt of this experiment but so far the preschedule has not needed to be modified significantly. 22.