Time-Questions

5. Starting with us

Back to the Beginning:
We are ourselves part of the problem

“We are ourselves part of the problem. With our management structures, that are so fully developed, that they rob us of the flexibility that we need when dealing with the subject of time.”, complained one those questioned, who did not want to take part in the survey – and made an important argument, shared by many others, how to deal with the factor time. The view that the greatest problems were to be found in our time management and that therefore a reflection about our handling of time should have to start with ourselves was shared by most participants. This discussion was held on three levels:

First: In society as a whole there is discrepancy between time welfare and material welfare. This was already the subject of an appeal by Misereor and BUND in 1996, which exclaimed that: “Owning much begins to conflict with living well.”

Second: within the organizations of development cooperation: the key terms here are: Time as a challenge of personnel management (Prelate Doering) on the one side, the “structures of self-exploitation” of engaged employees with an idealistic motivation, favored by a general lack of budgetary funds for personnel , on the other (Barbara Unmüßig). The Western concept of time, in its current form is not only non-exportable, but does not even function at home!

Third: at the level of instruments: The interaction of the rhythms of the instruments of development cooperation with local temporal structures must be more expressly taken into consideration.