“Leprosy does not affect the central nervous system. However, it can affect the peripheral nervous system (sensory, motor and autonomic nerves) by: sensory nerve damage – when the sensory nerves are damaged, they cannot register pain.” (Source: Better Health Channel)

What does Leprosy have to do with financing economic development at individual and household level at the grassroots?

There is no ‘free money’. As in, for example, if a grant is given or a donation is given, that money given does not come free. There are those who worked hard for it.

When grants or donations are misused, it is they who worked for it that feel the pain the most; and in some cases, the recipients or beneficiaries do not feel the pain.

In many cases, moreover, recipients and beneficiaries, have a tendency to perceive grants or donations as ‘free money’.

That is why, when it comes to interventions intended to stimulate economic development at individual and household levels, there should be no room for beneficiaries to perceive assistance as ‘free money’.

Grants and donations tend to have the opposite effect in the context of the intention to use them to ignite economic development at individual and household levels. Like Leprosy, such grants, dull the pain, slow down the urgency and drive, and thus kill the recipient’s acumen.

You see, the conclusive symptoms that one is afflicted with Leprosy take over three years to manifest. By the time they do, when, for example, there are sores on the foot of the afflicted that do not heal, it means there is irreversible nerve damage.

Similarly, grants and or donations, he further explained, can deceive the recipient into complacency and cause them to contract irreversible aid induced dependency thinking, where they lose confidence in their own abilities and self-reliance.

In their mind, without external ‘free money’ they are resigned and doomed; and the vicious cycle continues.

This post is inspired by words of wisdom and advice given by Mr. Alex Bwangamoi Okello, CPAR Uganda Finance Committee Chair.