The "Friday Evening Problem": Reflections on Decolonising Knowledge in the African WASH sector

 

The "Friday Evening Problem": Reflections on Decolonising Knowledge in the African WASH sector

Annually, millions of dollars are splurged by organisations in the Global North on hosting large-scale conferences and events dedicated to ‘sharing knowledge’ and capacity building. But what happens after that? The barriers existing between learning a new approach and actually implementing this within a project has been coined the Monday morning problem, and the study by Results for Development (2014) highlight several avenues for what needs to be done differently. But these suggestions address only the symptoms of a much deeper problem. The reality is that the bureaucratic functioning of Global North actors contrasts the concerns and interests that require attention in Africa, and so obstacles to impactful work arise. But more importantly, Africa’s WASH sector being dominated by actors from the Global North- who often impose their Western knowledge without appreciating the highly contextual nature of water and sanitation in the region- is a more pressing concern. Although colonial powers have physically left the continent, “knowledge colonialism” (Buchan,2019) seems to remain. So before we ponder on the so-called ‘Monday morning problem’, we need to focus on what was said on ‘Friday evening’: who and what knowledge is shared in the first place?

WASH interventions in Africa are driven by the concept of “development”, which is inherently political (Escobar, 1995) and embodies a colonial mindset where power and knowledge is exclusive to an authority- in this case, actors from the Global North. Such discourses are now mainstreamed, and have led us to assume that “good” knowledge is solely produced in the North, which facilitate the unequal knowledge exchanges between the donors and recipients. A decolonial approach therefore dismantles this discourse and challenges conventional structures of knowledge dissemination. Luseka (2020) suggests that to decolonise knowledge in WASH, Africans practitioners must be given platforms to engage in knowledge-production, rather than consumption.

A great way to provide platforms and correct this imbalance, as Adali (2020) explores, is systems thinking- an approach which includes the willingness to see a situation holistically by recognising interconnectedness and acknowledging the numerous interventions points to a problem. The reason why this is a highly appropriate approach to WASH projects in Africa is that it rids interventions from the “white saviour” complex of knowing what’s best, and instead has a more humble attitude by accepting the incomprehensible dimensions to problems, such as local cultures and traditions that may dictate water practices. A systems thinking approach therefore demands empathy, patience and being able to let go of control- which is how the concentration of power from Global North actors is dispersed, and grants African voices and experts a platform instead. Accessing such platforms allow them to lead knowledge management and thereby structurally change the traditional approaches and processes to WASH in Africa.

It’s also interesting to consider what scale this decolonisation of knowledge must occur at, because at closer inspection, its more than just a simple North- South divide. Positions in Northern institutions held by people from the South are still not always representative of the communities that they are intervening in. They are often educated in the Global North, and if not, entry barriers such as language requirements and formal qualifications, result in the recruiting of urban, middle-class people. This would likely mean that the same Global North knowledge is still being circulated; highlighting the need for decolonising research and higher education, which includes reassessing the euro-centric standards of knowledge validation and distributing R&D funding.

The process of truly decolonising knowledge in WASH is indeed long and requires structural reimagining. But the first steps are actually quite simple. Encouraging local community participation by creating “support and care” networks- safe spaces for disadvantaged communities to share their experience with development organisations which are integral for systems thinking- brings forward indigenous knowledge and solutions. Overly- ambitious, large-scale projects will not address issues of water and sanitation in Africa, and it’s about time we accept that. It’s great that we acknowledge the Monday morning problem, but to stop it from happening every Monday, we should really begin to look at what's happening on Friday evening…

For more information and a detailed discussion about decolonising the WASH sector, check out this video- it's quite long but definately worth the watch!