Reading the news of the newest Congo tragedies a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but think of the work already done by WMI in the bordering nation of Uganda.  It was a terrible reminder that whatever big or little piece of a nation in which you work to create whatever kind of impact, any progress can be wiped away by events far beyond anyone’s control.  The two nations are not at all politically comparable, but, I still had to entertain a sad thought.  If some political or health-related catastrophe happened to occur around the women I hope I’ve helped in Uganda, despite having improved their lives for a short time, the hope of meeting any long-term goals would be instantly erased.  While some microfinance organizations, such as HOPE International, continue to operate in the Congo in spite of political instability, I wonder just how much impact they can possibly have in that environment.  As far as I know there is nothing like that to worry about with Honduras, but it should still serve as a reminder that the battle against poverty is fought on many fronts, a number of which are open to us.  Does that mean we should offer a broad range of services covering every poverty-related issue that we can?  I’m undecided.

Our goal should not be to feed someone’s children for a day only to have things return to normal, nor should it be to give anyone a fleeting increase in their standard of living.  I consider that a failure given the effort put into this program as well as the monetary and intellectual resources available to us.  Our goal, as a developmental organization, should still be to jump start a permanent positive change in a community as best we can.  I still firmly believe that open financial services are the best way to accomplish that goal, but recognize that an important auxiliary objective is the health of our clients.  It’s common sense that a market of sick producers can’t grow, so what do we need to do to address this?  Should it be simple educational pamphlets or demonstrations or a sale or donation of basic home medical supplies?  Should it even be us?

These are all questions that we absolutely don’t have time to answer before our trip, but they should be considered while we’re in Honduras.  We have limited resources, so how are those resources best spent?  If SHH or another organization is already or plans to promote any health initiatives, perhaps it’s in the interest of the community for us to focus all of our resources and research on how to best provide financial services to them.  If we decide that our clients have specific health needs that are not being addressed and won’t be in the forseeable future, then we should devote more resources to making sure that our clients are healthy enough to efficiently utilize their finances.  If they’ll be best served by a health initative and have little demand for financial services, then perhaps we’ll need to consider a complete retooling of our mission and program.

I’m not making any conclusions, just reminding that we need to allocate limited resources where they can most effectively initiate long term positive change.  During our week in Honduras, we have to carefully and honestly determine where we can do the most long-run good.  I hope that it’s with a microfinance program, but if we can clearly see that it’s not, it’s important to be willing to close our failing programs quickly and move on to what works (all while staying completely transparent to our investors).  Of course, we can’t control nature and I confess political stability is beyond my understanding and likely beyond our influence, but for the fronts on which we can

fight poverty, we have to carefully decide how we do so with the utmost honesty.