Profile, Background
The background for understanding Supras’ approach to development cooperation is broad and varied. To say that development cooperation is complex and complicated is a truism. Since the mid 1970s Lars T. Soeftestad, Supras’ Founder and President, has been involved in this work in various capacities, including as NGO activist in Norway, as grassroots level project manager in Bangladesh, as Professor teaching applied anthropology and development cooperation at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, as Anthropologist at the World Bank working on project management and policy level work in South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa and West Africa, and as President of a consultancy company in Norway (section Library lists the output of this ongoing engagement). Throughout there has been a concern with trying to understand and learn, that is, research, writing and publishing has been important, and a dialectic between practical work and research runs through the approach to the work undertaken (again, section Library lists the details and output of this research). Recently, the circle has been completed, so to speak, in a geographic sense, but with an accumulated wealth of experience and knowledge – from projects that failed miserably, via things and approaches that worked partly, and to projects and approaches that has worked well. It is these experiences and lessons that have led to Supras’ Vision, Strategy and Profile, and, subsequently, to its Service areas and Portfolio of work.
The fundamental lesson learned through these more than 25 years of involvement is that development work always has been more complex than we thought. In a sense, our insights and tools, the means at our disposal and the goals we have identified, have always lagged behind the reality that we have tried to grasp, understand, impact, affect, change, and/or trickle down to. To complicate things further, this reality is itself changing fast. This dramatic change involves at least three key aspects: (1) what it is that we are trying to understand and embrace, (2) the scale of this largely / more or less unknown entity, and (3) the issues that are considered (potentially) relevant:
- In the beginning, what was at the other end can, in hindsight, be seen more as a black box than anything else. Various stages have certainly brought us closer to understanding the content of this black box, from seeing the counterpart as being a government until today we are increasingly understanding that local people are the real counterpart. At the same time, our understanding have moved from seeing the recipient in terms of a political organism to understanding that it consists of people – often a great many persons – that have languages, cultures and religions, have social organization and values, are organized according to races and ethnic groups, and, finally, that the inferences and juxtapositions of these variables create a reality that is immensely complex. Concomitantly with this realization, we have time and again seen how the tools and approaches at our disposal have been sadly and frustratingly lagging in modeling this reality in necessary detail, as well as delivering the goals we have set.
- Scale is an important aspect to be considered. Increasingly we realize that in order to address one issue, and address perceived problems in any geographic locality, we have to involve and address increasing numbers of other people and groups, and solve other issues, serially or in parallel. That is, the issue of stakeholders have entered the scene in full force. It has become necessary to involve all relevant stakeholders, and for a variety of reasons, including stakeholders that themselves decide they want to be involved. In a growing appreciation of the complex landscape of stakeholders and the often shifting relationships between them and the alliances they enter into, we have become accustomed to differentiate between public sector, civil society and private sector, and to the stakeholders located in these societal sub-sectors. Relevant stakeholders are available in these sub-sectors in so-called donor countries, as well as, increasingly, in the so-called recipient countries themselves. An important realization has been that stakeholders, having often radically different points of departure, also have radically different goals, and so we more and more find that stakeholders oppose proposed development interventions.
- Finally, there are the issues involved in development cooperation. It used to be that we were concerned with relatively straightforward tasks and goals as, say, building a road or increasing agricultural output. No more so. Today, a host of issues are potentially relevant in connection with a development intervention, often articulated by as many stakeholders. For project implementing agencies and their staff, as well as for the counterpart agencies in recipient countries, to negotiate the often conflicting expectations and demands stemming from the various issues that are deemed relevant, is becoming an increasingly complicated, difficult and long-drawn process. As the efforts to address problematic issues and find solutions increasingly call for projects that are international, for example, river basin management and biodiversity protection, the difficulties would seem to multiply.