Ubuntu in Context
We just concluded our first week in the village and Bangalore. What a week it was, but I know that’s covered in more detail and skill by other interns (I would recommend Neelofer Shaikh’s blog, especially). For this post, I would focus on a conversation we had last night with Ubuntu at Work’s founder, Vibha Pingle (a sociologist), and her husband Ashutosh Varshney (a professor of political science at Brown). Our conversation drew on political-economy, development theory and anthropology/sociology arguments and was a stimulating exchange.
As they explained, right now most aid programs for areas like our villages fall into one of two camps, either government investment or increased access to markets. Both have their share of “cons.” Government investment, whether direct or via administering of outside aid, is inefficient. It is estimated that for each dollar in a government anti-poverty program, only somewhere between 15-30 cents makes it to the poor. The other 70-85 gets tangled in an unwieldy bureaucracy with a blurred line between twin obstructions of high overhead and corruption. Both are sizable. Access to markets assumes that with a wider market to sell their goods, the poor can find a niche in a national or global economy that they would not be able to find alone in their village, with higher demand and income. It trusts that market growth will reach each village, a la Bobby Kennedy’s rising tide lifting all ships. The problem is that tide would have to be awfully high, annual growth of 11-12% a year in order to meaningfully reach the rural area. India is hitting 7-8% growth—admirable, in a shaky global economy—but not over 10%, and not 11-12. There are also issues of infrastructure: is there consistent physical access to markets over poor roads?
Enter Ubuntu, with a model akin to “Market Plus.” It builds on theory by James Scott in his 1977 book, “The Moral Economy of the Peasant.” Consider a graph with time on the X axis and output or income (assumed to be directly correlated) on the Y axis. Sustenance level is as a constant horizontal line over any point in time. To this graph, let’s add two other curves: T and N. The first T reflects output generated using traditional technology. With traditional technology, output and income may remain above subsistence level, but not by much and the peasants remain trapped in poverty. The second curve, N, reflects output when new technology is adopted. The adoption of new technology tends to lead to a steep rise in production, output, and income in the short term. However, the adoption of new technology also brings increased uncertainties (market fluctuations) that can cause output to plunge below subsistence levels. These uncertainties loom large in the minds of risk-averse peasants. As a result, new technology or patterns of production are not easily adopted in the long haul. In the face of this, development intervention addresses these challenges by minimizing the plunges in production, thus ensuring a consistently upward production and income trajectory.
Ubuntu does this with four goals: 1) Enhance capabilities. If poverty is the deprivation of capabilities, teaching new skills leads the way to better production and more income. 2) Increase confidence. Vibha mentioned meeting a woman in a rural village who sewed beautiful clothes for others in the village. When she asked the woman if she could sew simple shopping bags (comparably far easier) for the global market, the woman became anxious and scared and said no. 3) Broaden horizons. Hand in hand with increasing confidence, showing the women their place in the global economy beyond the village so they can expand their aspirations. 4) Access to markets. One way of reducing the possibility of plunges in output and income is to produce for various markets (local, national markets and global) and are able to hedge against market fluctuations.
The women earn according to a piece rate, so as their market expands they produce more and earn more. To me, increasing confidence and broadening horizons are the most important in terms of avoiding production plunges. If the women believe they can continue to produce more and more bags and take pride in that ambition, the sky’s the limit. Waste is also potentially limited by paying the women directly; Ubuntu has set up bank accounts for its women members, where they are the only ones who can access their money (as opposed to commandeering by their husbands). Alcoholism and abuse can be major scourges in the village, and studies have shown women are much likely to use surplus money on the family and education (investment, as opposed to waste), rather than alcohol or other vice. Risk-averse tendencies can also be mitigated, I would guess, by tying the income made to investment on the family. In other words, women would be less likely to settle for less when the link is made with more production and more opportunities for their kids, who would in turn continue the ripple effect throughout the community. As Ubuntu continues to raise funds and increases production through more bag contracts, increasing numbers of women can get involved and each woman benefits to a greater extent. Scott’s, Vibha’s and her Ashu’s arguments were new to me, and my apologies to all of them if the above was a poor summary. But to a foreign policy major who studied political theory and IR much more than development, it was fascinating to place Ubuntu in an academic context and to understand why our time with the women in the villages was so important. Being asked to just talk to the women of the village and their kids in addition to helping out around the workstation or building new ones now makes far more sense; it’s increasing confidence and broadening horizons, key goals to expanding production and changing mindsets. And it makes my work here feel even more important.
