Kamal Laldas Singh
Encyclopedia
Kamal Laldas Singh is a South African development activist who has become known internationally for his work on participatory methodologies.
, South Africa
, he became a student leader and activist at age of 14. For his efforts he was expelled from his school, only for the school to invite him back as a student later. He joined the United Democratic Front
, a mass movement against apartheid, at age 17, and worked as a paid full-time activist for a decade. During this time he was constantly persecuted by the South African government, with detentions and interrogations, and had to live incognito away from home for a period of years. As an activist he was involved in the creation of institutions of resistance that needed to be resilient enough to withstand arrests and attacks on its leadership. " We searched far and wide for inspiration," he says, "including as diverse a range of sources as the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, the struggles in the Philippines
, Vietnamese military Generals (Giap and Le Duan), the Brazilian pedagogist Paulo Freire
etc. We were thirsty for knowledge and with restricted access to literature we used whatever we could find." He credits these restrictions for his lifelong passion for learning which has led him to teach himself. "We had nothing but suspicion for the educators who worked the Apartheid system. My final year economics thesis was turned down by my (supposedly liberal) university (UKZN) as it was a Marxist critique of conventional capitalist economics." The challenges of working as social activists under a repressive system, were matched by the rewards. "We once launched a campaign for state housing to be given free of charge to people. This was inspired by extensive consultations with working class people who occupied state owned houses for decades. The leadership of the political movement objected to this, as they considered it ludicrous and impossible. We persisted with the people, and through discovery of an almost unknown legal basis in English common law
we eventually triumphed over a repressive Apartheid government". These lessons in social change
, its complexity and unpredictability, its long years of toil, the contradictions and differences between people and the movements that claim them, and reliance on building and retaining the trust of people, left indelible marks on the young activist.
political movement as a primary reason for doing so. "We were not fortunate in my region with the leadership we inherited on return of political exiles etc. Harry Gwala
the regional leader of the ANC was completely unaware of the value of the social movements we had toiled to build, instead his archaic interpretations of Marxist-Leninism, led him to the belief that we were a threat to the Party, and that we had to be systematically dismantled. In this, he proved more effective than the Apartheid government." For Singh, this were the first signs of things to come and he summarily quit the political movement
to work in civil society formations. With his enduring quest for participatory and empowering ways of working with people, he began experimenting with tools and techniques in rural KwaZulu
that he later discovered belonged to an emerging international methodology known as Participatory Rural Appraisal
(PRA). His first experience of people mapping their area (using the ground, seed, sticks and garbage to represent homes, numbers of people, cattle, women headed households, disabled people etc.) moved him to commit the next period of his life to working to learn and spread these techniques, initially in South Africa
but later, internationally. "I saw what I thought was a real democratic process in motion. It struck me that this was a powerful weapon in the struggles against poverty, and for peoples' rights." He contrasted it to the new political work of building a party that his erstwhile colleagues were engaging in, and celebrated his liberation from the liberation movements.
. "For me there were never boundaries to people's struggles, their situations and the addressing of these. We made conscious efforts to educate ourselves on the world, its issues, its cultures and music." His new discoveries in participatory methodologies originated all over the world - India
, Kenya
, Brazil
, etc. In contrast to the growing nationalism
in the politics of South Africa, Singh soon found himself working at the University of Sussex
with Prof Robert Chambers, on an international networking project to bring together people using PRA/PLA techniques at national, regional and international levels. Despite the excitement of the work, his new institutional home, Institute of Development Studies
(IDS), proved a bit of a challenge. "I was not blessed," he says, "in that I had to exchange Stalinism for crusty colonialism
." Nevertheless, he worked with renewed energy on a project that he had dreamt of. "For me, it was internationalism in its most exciting form - with the potential to effect positive social change across the world."
system, particularly the civil society
aspects raised many issues for Singh. "Fundamental contradictions abound," he says. The colonial
nature of international aid relations (including those of INGOs), with the North enjoying almost unbridled control over the South cloaked by "efficiency
" factors, remains a blind spot, Singh argues. "Like the colonialists who could never trust the locals, the aid agencies trust their development investment to their own kind. Large INGOs like OXFAM
persist today with a senior management teams and a Board that would make the Dutch East India Company
proud. I was the first Southern-based recruit of the IDS, after decades of its existence." Further, he argues, these recurring patterns of power imbalances replicate themselves at each level, "Staff who had no power or say in INGOs, cannot possibly enable empowerment
for powerless villagers." He is also of the belief that deep-seated racism and sexism permeate aid structures, to the extent that development has been held back by this: "Where there has been good leadership at global levels by people from the South - eg. Ramesh Singh at ActionAid, or by woman like Mary Robinson
at the UN, the effects have been very striking." For Singh, Participatory methodologies are saddled with a serious contradiction: Despite their value and benefit, the vehicles used to deliver them, the institutions, are containers of power imbalances and dominance
of the powerful. Singh believes that new models
of institutional configurations are needed to fully reflect the values, behaviours and new models
of leadership
that truly participatory ways of working need. "My colleague Prof Robert Chambers is a great advocate for personal change, which I support completely. I do feel that in addition, we should be placing more emphasis on institutions themselves. In as much as individuals shape institutions, the inverse is also very true," says Singh. He is also concerned with the mediation of the direct voices of people through secondary research
and interpretation. "While technology had already advanced to the point where peoples' voices could be heard directly, where the people could speak for themselves, in their own idiom
and language, the institutions who could foster and advance this, did not. The power over the people that powerful outsiders enjoy, includes the power to interpret and mediate
, collect, repackage and present the perspectives
of the people. Its the raison d'être for many. I have myself witnessed brazen dishonesty where people's perspectives were contorted and twisted to suit the purposes of agencies working with them. The same agencies talk of good governance." Singh became very active in the promotion of participatory video
(where people themselves control the narratives) and new forms of institutions. "To be a political activist unafraid to name gnarly issues, and to remain committed to one's own beliefs, is difficult in the development industry which is largely founded on conformity, syrupy corporate branding, polite blind-spots, and glossing over of tensions and contradictions. It seeks and rewards apolitical careerists more," says Singh.
in Dakar
. He worked on projects with the Government of Jamaica, ActionAid
, CARE and others.Through these projects, he explored more the possibilities for video and Internet-based technologies to increase the ownership of people over processes that affected their lives. He writes: "The Jamaican government went further than most INGOs I had seen, in opening itself (through a shared planning knowledge base) to its communities. Similarly, ActionAid had very noble intentions in addressing participation in its governance and accountability systems. I had the privilege of working on these in parallel and learned a lot about the difference in treating people as citizens as opposed to beneficiaries." After 3 years he applied for and was successful in becoming the Executive Director of the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD), a pan-African INGO working in 22 countries, based in London, but relocating to Nairobi. Singh saw this as an opportunity to experiment with his ideas on institutional changes needed for participatory ways of working. ACORD was also committed to an overtly activist agenda for development which resonated well with Singh's need to be involved with a more "politicised" development process. He moved to Kenya to help the organisation remake itself, as "an Africa-led" agency working for social justice mainly in the area of social exclusion and power. Initially, ACORD presented Singh with many opportunities to challenge conventional ways of managing and leading. However, the organisational culture of the organisation was extremely conservative - e.g. he was summoned to staff meetings to discuss the effect on the organisation's image of his riding a motorcycle to work - and the governance
structures (particularly the Board) poorly prepared for the changes envisaged. After a successful relocation to Africa, and the complete replacement of a UK-based and constituted senior management team with an African equivalent, Singh resigned from ACORD and moved to South Africa. He wrote: "Despite the excellent work done by ACORD, I found the contradiction of claims to higher activist moral ground, by colleagues earning more money than UN staff, a bit difficult to manage."
Early life
Born to working class parents in PietermaritzburgPietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg is the capital and second largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838, and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its "purist" Zulu name is umGungundlovu, and this is the name used for the district municipality...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, he became a student leader and activist at age of 14. For his efforts he was expelled from his school, only for the school to invite him back as a student later. He joined the United Democratic Front
United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front was one of the most important anti-apartheid organisations of the 1980s. The non-racial coalition of about 400 civic, church, students', workers' and other organisations was formed in 1983, initially to fight the just-introduced idea of the Tricameral Parliament The...
, a mass movement against apartheid, at age 17, and worked as a paid full-time activist for a decade. During this time he was constantly persecuted by the South African government, with detentions and interrogations, and had to live incognito away from home for a period of years. As an activist he was involved in the creation of institutions of resistance that needed to be resilient enough to withstand arrests and attacks on its leadership. " We searched far and wide for inspiration," he says, "including as diverse a range of sources as the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, the struggles in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Vietnamese military Generals (Giap and Le Duan), the Brazilian pedagogist Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...
etc. We were thirsty for knowledge and with restricted access to literature we used whatever we could find." He credits these restrictions for his lifelong passion for learning which has led him to teach himself. "We had nothing but suspicion for the educators who worked the Apartheid system. My final year economics thesis was turned down by my (supposedly liberal) university (UKZN) as it was a Marxist critique of conventional capitalist economics." The challenges of working as social activists under a repressive system, were matched by the rewards. "We once launched a campaign for state housing to be given free of charge to people. This was inspired by extensive consultations with working class people who occupied state owned houses for decades. The leadership of the political movement objected to this, as they considered it ludicrous and impossible. We persisted with the people, and through discovery of an almost unknown legal basis in English common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
we eventually triumphed over a repressive Apartheid government". These lessons in social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
, its complexity and unpredictability, its long years of toil, the contradictions and differences between people and the movements that claim them, and reliance on building and retaining the trust of people, left indelible marks on the young activist.
Rebel with a new cause
In 1992 Singh quit the political movement. He cites the Stalinist nature of the returned ANCAfrican National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
political movement as a primary reason for doing so. "We were not fortunate in my region with the leadership we inherited on return of political exiles etc. Harry Gwala
Harry Gwala
Themba Harry Gwala was a firebrand leader in the African National Congress and South African Communist Party in South Africa...
the regional leader of the ANC was completely unaware of the value of the social movements we had toiled to build, instead his archaic interpretations of Marxist-Leninism, led him to the belief that we were a threat to the Party, and that we had to be systematically dismantled. In this, he proved more effective than the Apartheid government." For Singh, this were the first signs of things to come and he summarily quit the political movement
Political movement
A political movement is a social movement in the area of politics. A political movement may be organized around a single issue or set of issues, or around a set of shared concerns of a social group...
to work in civil society formations. With his enduring quest for participatory and empowering ways of working with people, he began experimenting with tools and techniques in rural KwaZulu
KwaZulu
KwaZulu was a bantustan in South Africa, intended by the apartheid government as a semi-independent homeland for the Zulu people. The capital, formerly at Nongoma, was moved in 1980 to Ulundi....
that he later discovered belonged to an emerging international methodology known as Participatory Rural Appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal
Participatory rural appraisal is an approach used by non-governmental organizations and other agencies involved in international development...
(PRA). His first experience of people mapping their area (using the ground, seed, sticks and garbage to represent homes, numbers of people, cattle, women headed households, disabled people etc.) moved him to commit the next period of his life to working to learn and spread these techniques, initially in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
but later, internationally. "I saw what I thought was a real democratic process in motion. It struck me that this was a powerful weapon in the struggles against poverty, and for peoples' rights." He contrasted it to the new political work of building a party that his erstwhile colleagues were engaging in, and celebrated his liberation from the liberation movements.
The Internationalist
While a young political activist, he became an avowed internationalistInternationalist
Internationalist may refer to:* Internationalism , a movement to increase cooperation across national borders* Internationalist, socialists opposed to World War I* The Internationalist Review, an e-journal founded in Maastricht...
. "For me there were never boundaries to people's struggles, their situations and the addressing of these. We made conscious efforts to educate ourselves on the world, its issues, its cultures and music." His new discoveries in participatory methodologies originated all over the world - India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, etc. In contrast to the growing nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
in the politics of South Africa, Singh soon found himself working at the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
with Prof Robert Chambers, on an international networking project to bring together people using PRA/PLA techniques at national, regional and international levels. Despite the excitement of the work, his new institutional home, Institute of Development Studies
Institute of Development Studies
The Institute of Development Studies based at the University of Sussex is a global organisation for research, teaching and communications on international development....
(IDS), proved a bit of a challenge. "I was not blessed," he says, "in that I had to exchange Stalinism for crusty colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
." Nevertheless, he worked with renewed energy on a project that he had dreamt of. "For me, it was internationalism in its most exciting form - with the potential to effect positive social change across the world."
Contradictions
Exposure to the international developmentInternational development
International development or global development is a concept that lacks a universally accepted definition, but it is most used in a holistic and multi-disciplinary context of human development — the development of greater quality of life for humans...
system, particularly the civil society
Civil society
Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...
aspects raised many issues for Singh. "Fundamental contradictions abound," he says. The colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
nature of international aid relations (including those of INGOs), with the North enjoying almost unbridled control over the South cloaked by "efficiency
Efficiency
Efficiency in general describes the extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose. It is often used with the specific purpose of relaying the capability of a specific application of effort to produce a specific outcome effectively with a minimum amount or quantity of...
" factors, remains a blind spot, Singh argues. "Like the colonialists who could never trust the locals, the aid agencies trust their development investment to their own kind. Large INGOs like OXFAM
Oxfam
Oxfam is an international confederation of 15 organizations working in 98 countries worldwide to find lasting solutions to poverty and related injustice around the world. In all Oxfam’s actions, the ultimate goal is to enable people to exercise their rights and manage their own lives...
persist today with a senior management teams and a Board that would make the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
proud. I was the first Southern-based recruit of the IDS, after decades of its existence." Further, he argues, these recurring patterns of power imbalances replicate themselves at each level, "Staff who had no power or say in INGOs, cannot possibly enable empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
for powerless villagers." He is also of the belief that deep-seated racism and sexism permeate aid structures, to the extent that development has been held back by this: "Where there has been good leadership at global levels by people from the South - eg. Ramesh Singh at ActionAid, or by woman like Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
at the UN, the effects have been very striking." For Singh, Participatory methodologies are saddled with a serious contradiction: Despite their value and benefit, the vehicles used to deliver them, the institutions, are containers of power imbalances and dominance
Dominance
Dominance may refer to:* Dominance , an aspect of virtual inheritance in the C++ programming language* Dominance , in economics, the degree of inequality in market share distribution...
of the powerful. Singh believes that new models
Conceptual model
In the most general sense, a model is anything used in any way to represent anything else. Some models are physical objects, for instance, a toy model which may be assembled, and may even be made to work like the object it represents. They are used to help us know and understand the subject matter...
of institutional configurations are needed to fully reflect the values, behaviours and new models
Conceptual model
In the most general sense, a model is anything used in any way to represent anything else. Some models are physical objects, for instance, a toy model which may be assembled, and may even be made to work like the object it represents. They are used to help us know and understand the subject matter...
of leadership
Leadership
Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...
that truly participatory ways of working need. "My colleague Prof Robert Chambers is a great advocate for personal change, which I support completely. I do feel that in addition, we should be placing more emphasis on institutions themselves. In as much as individuals shape institutions, the inverse is also very true," says Singh. He is also concerned with the mediation of the direct voices of people through secondary research
Secondary research
Secondary research involves the summary, collation and/or synthesis of existing research rather than primary research, where data is collected from, for example, research subjects or experiments....
and interpretation. "While technology had already advanced to the point where peoples' voices could be heard directly, where the people could speak for themselves, in their own idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
and language, the institutions who could foster and advance this, did not. The power over the people that powerful outsiders enjoy, includes the power to interpret and mediate
Mediate
"Mediate" is a song by INXS from their 1987 album, Kick. The song is a segue from their big hit single, "Need You Tonight." The song has the distinction of having almost every line rhyme with the word "ate" .-Lyrical content:...
, collect, repackage and present the perspectives
Perspective (cognitive)
Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another...
of the people. Its the raison d'être for many. I have myself witnessed brazen dishonesty where people's perspectives were contorted and twisted to suit the purposes of agencies working with them. The same agencies talk of good governance." Singh became very active in the promotion of participatory video
Participatory video
Participatory video is a form of participatory media in which a group or community creates their own film. The idea behind this is that making a video is easy and accessible, and is a great way of bringing people together to explore issues, voice concerns or simply to be creative and tell stories...
(where people themselves control the narratives) and new forms of institutions. "To be a political activist unafraid to name gnarly issues, and to remain committed to one's own beliefs, is difficult in the development industry which is largely founded on conformity, syrupy corporate branding, polite blind-spots, and glossing over of tensions and contradictions. It seeks and rewards apolitical careerists more," says Singh.
Experiments
After leaving the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Singh lived and worked in Senegal, where he also became a student of French at the Cheikh Anta Diop UniversityCheikh Anta Diop University
Cheikh Anta Diop University , also known as the University of Dakar, is a university in Dakar, Senegal. It is named after the Senegalese historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop and has an enrollment of over 60,000.-History:...
in Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
. He worked on projects with the Government of Jamaica, ActionAid
ActionAid
ActionAid was founded in 1972 as a child sponsorship charity when 88 UK supporters sponsored 88 children in India and Kenya, the focus primarily being to provide children with an education. Global accounts are now reported in Euros and in 2007 and 2008 turnover was close to 180m Euros...
, CARE and others.Through these projects, he explored more the possibilities for video and Internet-based technologies to increase the ownership of people over processes that affected their lives. He writes: "The Jamaican government went further than most INGOs I had seen, in opening itself (through a shared planning knowledge base) to its communities. Similarly, ActionAid had very noble intentions in addressing participation in its governance and accountability systems. I had the privilege of working on these in parallel and learned a lot about the difference in treating people as citizens as opposed to beneficiaries." After 3 years he applied for and was successful in becoming the Executive Director of the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD), a pan-African INGO working in 22 countries, based in London, but relocating to Nairobi. Singh saw this as an opportunity to experiment with his ideas on institutional changes needed for participatory ways of working. ACORD was also committed to an overtly activist agenda for development which resonated well with Singh's need to be involved with a more "politicised" development process. He moved to Kenya to help the organisation remake itself, as "an Africa-led" agency working for social justice mainly in the area of social exclusion and power. Initially, ACORD presented Singh with many opportunities to challenge conventional ways of managing and leading. However, the organisational culture of the organisation was extremely conservative - e.g. he was summoned to staff meetings to discuss the effect on the organisation's image of his riding a motorcycle to work - and the governance
Governance
Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
structures (particularly the Board) poorly prepared for the changes envisaged. After a successful relocation to Africa, and the complete replacement of a UK-based and constituted senior management team with an African equivalent, Singh resigned from ACORD and moved to South Africa. He wrote: "Despite the excellent work done by ACORD, I found the contradiction of claims to higher activist moral ground, by colleagues earning more money than UN staff, a bit difficult to manage."
Currently
Singh is now CEO of Khanya-African Institute for Community-Driven Development, an organisation committed to participatory ways of working in Africa to transform the development system to improve the livelihoods of poor people. He is continuing his experiments and learning in participatory ways of working.External links
- Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA): Analysis of Experience, an article by Robert Chambers, 1994
- Participatory Rural Appraisal, from the World Bank Sourcebook on Participation
- Rapid Rural Appraisal, from the FAO manual on Market Research and Information Systems
- Participatory Learning and Action, journal with many articles available for downloading, maintained by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
- Participation Manuals and Toolkits, an online collection, part of the ELDIS Gateway to Development Information
- African Institute for Community Driven Development