Human Capability: A Key To Sustainable Development

 By Suale Yakubu

What ensures that development is sustainable? Is it providing people with the right tools or information to enable change in their life? Or is it helping a person to identify and make conscious decisions on how to make the most out of their own potential? The concept of human capabilities and sustainable development troubled me until I joined the ICS / International Service programme.

The International Service programme has taught me that you shouldn't go into a community and assume to know what they need, rather you should identify a community’s needs before going in to assist them to find lasting solutions. For example, we may think that a lack of water is a severe problem for some communities; however, that community may actually find that what is most challenging is they do not have a place to collectively produce or process their product. This has taught me the importance of going into projects with an open mind, completing a full needs assessment before beginning any work and to be willing to listen to the community rather than pressing my own opinions or preconceptions.

I have also realised from the programme that every person has their own unique characteristics and capabilities within his or her self and what one may find difficult is the easiest thing to someone else. By providing the resources and training to individuals in the communities, they can utilise their own skills and capabilities to see a way for themselves to enable change. In this way, enabling local people to lead their own development is the best option in ensuring sustainable development.

I have been placed to work with an income generating group (BEHIGU TAGYA) in Dimab Yepala, a village in the Tolon District of Northern Ghana, to train them on how to form a cooperative. The women I work with face many problems such as financial management, record keeping and water shortage. I begun wondering about these issues and pondered over the identified development issues and how to find solutions to their needs. It would be simple for me to go to the IGG and tell them that I can correct their records and finances but when I leave, how would they learn to do these things themselves? And even if I taught them how to manage their finances and keep records, how can I ensure that they retain this knowledge when most of the women are illiterate?

Working with my community to capture data on their most pressing problems

When we were discussing these issues with the IGG, I asked myself: what could these women do about their problems without International Service’s assistance? Or, if International Service was able to help, would development continue to exist in these communities after International Service left? There is the wise saying: “we teach the child on how to fish but not only providing the child with fish". Spoon feeding is synonymous to pampering a child and does not prepare the child to assume responsibility in the future. It is against this background that International Service Ghana in partnership with NFED Tolon have started to train facilitators for each of the seven IGGs we work with to provide essential training on how to form a cooperative. I believe that by training the facilitators they can then hopefully continue to assist and train their IGGs and other communities on how to form a cooperative when we are not there, which should ensure a sustainable development.

Facilitator in Dundo community leading a training session with assistance from ICS volunteers

Before this programme, I was unsure about what sustainable development was. However, it is through this programme that I have learnt that using local resources for local development is what sustainable development entails in the rural areas.

Here I am introducing International Service and their work in Tolon at an awareness raising event we held at Katinga Market.

Whenever we complete any resource, hold any training or conduct any research, our cohort always considers the sustainability of the work. For example, our training resources are in both English and Dagbani and during each training session we try and involve the IGG facilitators as much as possible so that when we leave they can continue our training sessions without us. Cohort 1 conducted research on each of our IGG communities and we have based our own work on their findings. This way, the project continues to be sustainable. We hope too that we are laying down the groundwork for Cohort 3 to come in and continue our work and training with the IGGs and so ensure that the project continues in a sustainable way. Our ultimate aim is that NFED will be able to take full control over our project so that when ICS leave Tolon, our work will not be forgotten. That is the key to sustainable development.