“When I was growing up, we had a severe drought in Togo,” Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo, Togo's former prime minister and the newly appointed sixth president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, recently recalled. To reduce the impact on his household, Houngbo would bring his parents to the city, so they had access to clean water, he told Devex.
Although grateful for the provision, Houngbo’s mother wasn’t happy with the arrangement. Her appreciation for access to potable water in the city was outweighed by how much she missed living in the village. “You have to prefer my [satisfaction], not what you think would make me healthier,” she had told him.
That experience shaped how Houngbo approaches development work today. “It is crucial to ensure that people are provided with the right tools, the analysis, the modern technology,” he said, “But it is [more] crucial to have national or community ownership.”
About the author
Jennifer Piettedisgeneration
Jennifer Ehidiamen is a Nigerian writer who is passionate about communications and journalism. She has worked as a reporter and communications consultant for different organizations in Nigeria and overseas. She has an undergraduate degree in mass communication from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos, and M.A. in business and economics from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York. In 2014, she founded Rural Reporters (www.ruralreporters.com) with the goal of amplifying underreported news and issues affecting rural communities.
