Gone to SEED??

The World Bank SEED programme (SUPPORT TO ECONOMIC EXPANSION AND DIVERSIFICATION) in 2001, reported:
"The Government is committed to the growth of tourism and is now ready to make the resources necessary for that to happen - funding to underpin a strong approach to tourism would confirm the Government's credibility and the private sector appears ready to do its part. The Government has identified Livingstone and the Victoria Falls
(the Mosi-O-Tunya or "the Smoke that Thunders") as a priority for economic expansion and diversification, based on tourism. The Victoria Falls is a World Heritage Site. It is a strong magnet that has long attracted tourists to the falls themselves as well as to its surrounding wildlife and extraordinary cultural heritage..."

In November 2005, with SEED about to collapse and no visible sign of anything having been accomplished, the steering committee of the Natural Resources Consultative Forum of Zambia (NRCF), anxious to see that this did not happen, approached the World Bank official responsible for SEED, Marie Sheppard, of the Africa Private Sector Group, suggesting that the NRCF was the forum through which the rescue plan could be brokered. Marie replied,
" I agree that the only way to make SEED work is to have the stakeholders actively involved in the design, and I'd like to explore some ideas with you and your colleagues on how that might work. We're at the preliminary and what I consider the most important stage of restructuring: deciding on the process. How will we move forward, who will be involved and what do we do? This is a decision that we reach with Government, and we will discuss this with them towards the end of the SEED mission (early Dec). My preference would be to have a small team, comprised of a few representatives from the private and public sector, who does the work in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders. The Bank's role, as I see it, is to facilitate the process and, as needed, bring in experiences from other countries that might be helpful (ideally by parachuting in those who have actually done the work).

In terms of next steps, I would like to gather input from yourselves and other stakeholders on the process so that it is one that we all can commit to. I am new to Zambia and not yet familiar with all the players. What is a bit puzzling is the number of players and different associations - it's not clear to me how they differ (e.g. ZNTB, TCZ, NRCF - in terms of goals, strategy and impact) and who to work with. My preference would be to have a discussion on the process and how to organize the team and consultation process. It might be that this
work could fit in with the assessment of the NDP chapter on tourism, so as to build from the ground up. If the latter would be helpful, there could be a (dare I say it?) workshop where we bring together the public and private sectors here as well as a few representatives from countries that have managed this successfully (Botswana perhaps? Kenya? You would know better than I). Such a workshop might help you to refine the goals and strategy (as inputs for revising the NDP), the needs going forward (as inputs for SEED and possibly other donor's
work), and define how to move these forward. This might be a way to short cut more studies (which would seem a waste of time, given that all the key players know the situation) and inject some "just in time" focus to the tourism chapter. Based on what I've seen, it seems that what is needed it to distill the existing knowledge, clarify the goals and make decisions on a strategy). I don't know if this is right, but there seems to be a need to bring focus and cohesion. If we can help with this, I'm eager to do so".

And that is the last that anyone from NRCF has heard from the World Bank, until last week that is, when a rather jazzy report on tourism in Livingstone pitched up on e-mail: no consultations, no stakeholder meetings, no NRCF hosted cross-sectoral workshops, no strategic environmental assessments or project documents giving some idea of what the Bank envisaged doing in Mosi-oa-Tunya, no "...the key players know the situation". But something had kick-started ZAWA in 2006, the agency responsible for carrying out the SEED work in Livingstone and Kafue National Park, for suddenly the newspapers carried adverts calling for consultants to train ZAWA teams to look after the Mosi-oa-Tunya white rhino (2), to sort out the mangled, in-bred wildlife aberration within the Park, the communities outside... although all three expatriate wardens employed on the SEED programe in Mosi and Kafue had packed their katundu after being without transport for a year - though rumour has it that one still survives, cycling earnestly around on his njinga.

So, how much responsibility must the World Bank bear for the SEED mess, for allowing a tourism lease for such a proposed massive perturbation of part of the Victoria Falls Transboundary World Heritage Site to be issued, for funding consultancies that do not involve civil society, the National Heritage Commission, the Livingstone Town Council, the NRCF, the indigenous and indigent communities, that all of this endeavour is supposed to benefit. And what of the strategic review of ZAWA which they and NORAD are funding, a four-month consultancy given to a local company, supposed to be in touch with the NRCF and other stakeholders. Not a word from them either. And does Chief Mikuni of Livingstone know - he so very keen to see Legacy install a bit of Florida on his chiefly midriff, that the World Bank funded consultancy for the Ministry of Lands has recommended that all customary land should in future fall under the said Ministry, with chiefs relegated to the role of land administrators?

And so, is it the intention of the World Bank to ensure that the people of Livingstone gather daily at the electrified curtain cutting off their town from the Zambezi to watch the Hawaian-shirted, cigar-chompin' denizens of Legacy swing at little white mabolo upon their now treeless, jumboless ancestral turf; the chiefly custodian of the smoke that pisses, resting nearby under his talkin' tree, sans kapaso, and with no land to administer?
Ian Manning