botswana and the philippines
In Botswana, and in almost every country, development programs were formulated in a way rural dwellers, who are the ones usually affected by these programs in a negative way, find them positive and consequently, they cooperate with the government. Like in 1970, when the country's earnings from the sale of livestock and livestock products constituted 75 percent of Botswana's foreign exchange earnings , the popular version of the government's five year plan for the country's economic growth was for the people to use their cattle as a means of livelihood. They said that the cattle the people own could add to their regular income, thus improving their way of life. But there's more to the plan than helping rural dwellers or tribal members better their life. The government never expressed that they would be using tracts of tribal lands to sell to private cattle owners, and that these lands, where the tribes have been residing for a very long time, would be distributed for grazing cattle.
I find this situation reminiscent of the Philippines. In our country, land conversion programs have been constantly developed and these lands are usually the home of hundreds of indigenous people. In some parts of the country, dams, mostly funded by foreign corporations, were built in the past decade with the promise of a more developed life for the nearby towns and also for the whole country. This more developed life' includes better irrigation system and accessible electric supply for the adjacent villages and additional revenue to the government fund. But in reality, the construction of these dams causes more harm than benefits. The families living in the project site have to be displaced which in turn causes injurious social and cultural implications. And though provisions which protect the rights of these people (such as RA No. 8371 or Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997) exist, they were almost never respected. Michael Bengwayan entitled his article about San Roque...
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