It is widely known, if not common knowledge already, that one cannot talk of empowerment without mention of the participation of the empowered.
This operational link is a fundamental aspect of sustainable development anywhere in the world today.
Empowerment involves enabling individuals or communities to contribute towards the solving of problems that directly affect them.
This means knowing their rights and responsibilities, and taking ownership of their decision-making and subsequent outcomes.
To do so they must be well-informed and aware of the choices available.
Empowerment, for me, also entails thinking “outside the box” to map a progressive path forward either as individuals or as institutions within a dynamic global context.
It is an open secret that African governments are perennially broke and that donors have developed a fatigue towards Africa.
It is not a secret that from the 1980s onwards, billions of dollars have been poured into various sectors of the economy in Zimbabwe, ostensibly for empowerment purposes, but there is currently nothing to show for it.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
All this is money that went down the drain, so to speak.
As a teacher back during the ’90s, I vividly remember some schools that just went on and on building classroom blocks that they never needed for the simple reason that money was either readily available or donated.
Even if one stated the obvious; that there was no need of having some more useless classroom blocks, they were viewed simply as being anti-development.
If the powers-that-be had thought in other terms back then, our schools would have been far developed and independent of external funding by now; yes, independent from begging for donations or government handouts!
The same goes for our colleges and universities.
The age-old African syndrome of extending the begging bowl has not escaped our schools and academic institutions.
As I write, I bet more than half of all Zimbabwe’s university lecturers and some teachers own some freebie State land confiscated from white commercial farmers.
Those who do not own any have at least tried once before to get some or just wish they could get it as well.
Amid all this, no school or college or even university has applied to the government for commercial land for their own sustenance, research, or commercial farming purposes to help boost their coffers and in the process empower themselves or the local communities I recall how burial societies had at one time thousands of dollars lying idle in their accounts simply because of members’ lack of thinking beyond burying their dead!
As fate would have it, all this money was to be completely wiped out during that painful period in the history of our country when the value of the Zimdollar was relegated to junk status .
Surprisingly, as individuals, most of us are quick to know what is best for our respective futures yet cannot reason the same way with institutions we lead.
Why have we as a people collectively failed to see the obvious?
Why do we preach empowerment when we do not practice it when it matters the most?
There is nothing unusual or demanding about empowerment.
It is all about ensuring that individuals, institutions and communities have control over their lives and surroundings.
Participants give value to their lives and their environment as active and effective community members.
Empowerment is predicated on the premise that a community or institution’s members know best about their own needs and resources, and are better placed to determine the direction of progress in their community.
Having this sense of control over their lives and needs subsequently spurs them into action and communal cohesion with minimal help from outsiders or those “above”.
Empowerment helps to achieve lifelong goals for the individual, institution or group.
Anything short of local decisions by an informed and empowered community will not help and is surely bound to fail.
This is why all the billions of dollars in donor funds have scarcely changed our begging situation for the better for the simple reason that decisions on their use are made mainly in European capitals by donor agencies or by their representatives in Zimbabwe.
But if we had been honestly empowered, would all our schools still be dependent on donors and the government? I doubt it.
Would our burial societies have lost millions of dollars before and during the “Gonomics” era? Hardly.
Could anyone justify why the MDC-T is said to be currently dead-broke in spite of all the millions of dollars poured into its coffers by various donors?
What we have as a nation failed to do is to collectively rid ourselves of the donor syndrome.
This is largely because we have become a consumer society to our own detriment.
We love spending just for the sake of it; buying even that which we have little use of solely for the reason that our neighbours and friends see that we can afford to! Does this empower anyone? Of course not.
There is no magic formula that beats being informed to be an empowered participant.
Thinking outside the box comes with being an informed participant who is aware of the various choices and alternatives available within their community, institution and surroundings.
I always have interest in all public institutions within the vicinity of my properties because they affect their value.
Run-down schools and clinics or shops devalue properties, and one needs to be well-informed to know that.
Members of the community must be empowered to know and participate in dealing with those who own or manage these institutions in order that they keep them at a reasonably acceptable standard so as not to damage local amenities.
For schools and burial societies as institutions, what does this mean financially?
Empowerment means not enjoying watching fat bank accounts that could be overnight wiped out by a single stroke of “Gonomics”.
During my teaching years and as a member of one burial society that lost close to a million dollars, I kept on asking and urging the then leaders why they did not invest in property, but all to no avail.
If they had heeded my advice and bought properties, as even most of the ruling elite were later to do, they would not have lost their money and would today be richer.
This is where empowerment comes in. School development committees (SDCs) should be about empowering schools and communities.
Why not spend their surplus money buying properties to rent out to their teachers who do not own houses? Why not purchase land for future development?
My child’s school bought surrounding land for about £850 000 a couple of years ago and have today sold the same piece of land for a cool £5 million which they are spending in completely revamping the whole school and installing a new state-of-the-art IT block.
This is one example of an informed and empowered SDC and, to boot, our properties have reacted to the news by going up in value!
I have hardly mentioned the job and wealth-creation opportunities that this will likely bring in the long run. Now that is what I call empowerment.
Why could our rich burial societies not apply for and buy land from local authorities to do the same?
Instead of keeping their money waiting only for someone to die, why not start buying cheap houses and lease them out?
This would gradually help to subsidise members’ subscriptions and save them money for other pursuits. The more properties they buy, the more value to society they contribute.
This includes all the women’s grocery clubs.
During the ’90s I would see my mother-in-law and her friends share jaw-dropping amounts of money and individually walk away with staggering amounts that then could buy five or so houses in high-density areas; but alas! All this money was usually spent on Christmas goodies and clothes, or later would “Gonomically” vanish into thin air.
How rich would these ladies be today if they had been empowered back then to think of buying properties than spending that money on Christmas goodies?
Instead of the clothes and bulk foodstuffs they ended up giving away, would they not be earning enough and meeting their daily needs in their old age today from these properties?
I recall how my cousin and his friends bought their houses while still in their early ’20s because they were privileged enough to be informed.
They formed a club to help pool their resources and after every six months or so would purchase a house for a member.
Sadly, when they all owned houses they stopped this noble venture.
If they had been empowered enough and continued buying these properties even at that tender age, they would be rich by now.
This lack of long-term focus to empower ourselves as individuals by creating wealth is to be found in our local institutions as well.
By now, most institutions should not be banking on the government, but investing in their future by knowing what their members need from today going forward.
The mind boggles as to why our academic institutions do not apply for land from the government to empower themselves.
In a previous article titled African land parcelled out to foreigners, I asked a question I repeat today: “If foreign universities are buying our land, why can’t African institutions do the same and seek investment partnerships?
Maybe I have missed this, but I have not heard of Zimbabwean universities or colleges applying for repossessed agricultural land, yet their officials have been privately grabbing this land.”
Yes, empowerment is about having a vision of what can be achieved, focusing on it so that it can be achieved and having an awareness of what one’s environment has or does not which can help to achieve one’s vision.
This is only possible if one is an informed participant, aware of the choices and alternatives available in their community, institution or surroundings.
Africans need to move away from being consumers and beggars to becoming investors.
We have resources aplenty; all we lack is organising prowess, trust and commitment to a long-term vision that empowers communities or institutions.
There is too much of the “me, myself and I” syndrome at the expense of the communal spirit.
Nothing should stop us from being empowered.
The sooner we realise that the era of waiting for government to empower us is long gone the better for us all.
