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In addition to the findings I was able to gather on my trip to Mozambique in August that I talked about before, I made some experiences that set me back to rethink some presumptions I might have made too quickly: I honestly underestimated the elementary role of personal relations, connections and social mutuality. Mozambique, like many others, is struggling with corruption. However, corruption does not come (only) as obvious as one might expect. It’s rather a deeply rooted mind-set of informal relations, deals and reciprocity, that that exists besides (or rather: above) functional roles and positions. The tricky thing is: it is hard to tell, when corruption starts and personal reciprocity ends. It is however this thin line, that makes it very hard for small businesses as well as for highly educated professionals to set foot in these areas and get a business growing.
First, I once again was reassured, that tackling basic challenges is definitely the right way to go for us. I had the chance to talk to several local people, “classic” rural population, “businessmen” in the capital (mostly in the agrar and mining sector) as well as professionals in the dev sector, working with most of the big guys. What I took away from that is:
a: structural, highly complex problems (such as infrastructural building, city and population development planning, taxes, etc.) can (and should) not be solved by loosely, constantly changing and foremost virtual networks. They are to be addressed by experts with access to specific knowledge, sufficient (financial!) ressources and - most importantly - long term accountability in close co-operation with a strong local civil society and reliable political institutions. An online-based Start-Up like ours, operating from Berlin and focusing on easily applicable knowledge to address grassroots action is in fact rather unlikely to succeed in this metier. And by the way, there already are heaps of organizations, NGOs, experts and clever businessmen tumbling around this pot. So, we don’t need to go there - and we don’t want to.
Inspiring. That sums it up pretty well. Last week I returned from my two weeks trip to Mozambique. Besides enjoying this beautiful country and attending some family ceremonies, I of course was keen to finally talk about knowable, our ideas and thoughts with at least some of the people we are actually building this for. And once again, I learned that being on the spot, talking to people personally and first of all listening is invaluable and very healthy - especially when you’re trying to build up something as big as knowable.org On my trip to MZ I had the chance to get in touch with former colleagues and old friends, who provided me with worthwhile feedback and support to our efforts. I spent most of the time in the Zavala district, a rural and remote area in the Inhambane province. Although I have been to this beautifully place several times before, it is always a refreshing and healthy reminder to not just write about practical day-by-day problems, but to actually deal with them yourself. Challenges like water (eventhough it is winter now, it did not rain for three weeks straight, leaving most of the rain pools rather dry), electricity, waste management or food containment (I won’t even start about online access and stuff like that) are as a matter of fact “every day” problems, and I got a glimpse on what great potential a ressource to access clever solutions to the could have here. Out of the many impressions, personal insights and hints, that I took from this journey, I would like to share some with you on this blog in the coming days. So stay tuned and check back for more soon!
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