Baringo: What does it mean to be developed?

The classic definition of development or ‘maendeleo’ in local parlance is infrastructure – roads, water, schools, hospitals and electricity. Of course, we need all these and more. We have to broaden our definition of development to encompass other matters – such as:

1. Social issues: security, employment, better standards of life, freedom, gender and participation in governance

2. Economic development: equitable distribution of wealth, equal access to business opportunity and finance as well as efficiency in markets and value chains.

In a sense, development should result in a happy, just, productive and prosperous society – let us call it an ‘hakuna matata’ society. But please, let this not be in addition, a lazy society. We need not replicate the infrastructure in ‘developed’ countries for us to be considered developed.

Development can also be viewed in terms of where we put our greatest efforts. Do we spend most of the day fetching firewood or water from the river? Do we spend most of our life working to raise the rent? It is a good sign of development when we can spend our time on what we choose to do rather than fighting and responding to circumstances. We should aspire to shift our effort from working for the money to spending time with family, interacting and interrogating our heritage, pursuing our dreams and making the contribution that we want to make – not doing whatever it takes to raise school fees.

The good book says that a wise man leaves an inheritance for his children and his children’s children. We have not inherited much; development is when the bulk of our effort goes towards creating this inheritance for our children because our lot is secure.

Over the next one week, we will consider some of the paradigms that can govern our development:

1. Auto pilot development

2. Development by getting “One of our people” in the right place

3. Development by exploiting our comparative advantages

4. Development by targeting the low hanging fruit

5. Development through competitive advantage

Tomorrow we will be looking at auto pilot development.