Per diems

Per diems

If a meeting is to be held one needs to consider whether a per diem has to be paid. If people are coming from outside one will almost certainly have to budget for this not just to cover travel costs but to recompense the participants for their time.
If village leaders are summoned to announce a new initiative then the minimum expected is a Soda (Coke, Fanta etc @Tsh500, 25pence).
World Vision ran some full day seminars for people living with HIV and paid Tsh 5000. Not surprisingly some of our patients sent their treatment supporter to our clinic to get their regular monthly supply of ART rather than miss out on the seminar.
Annie is running a day for teachers about HIV and has budgeted Tsh 10,000-£5 per per person (monthly salary of a primary school teacher is 150,000 to 200,000).
The problem comes with superfunded organisations like in the AIDS Industry. Perdiems of Tsh 30,000 are not unusual. I came away with TSh 300,000 after a 6 day conference in Bukoba, equivalent to my monthly allowance. After hotel costs I can afford to plough this back to the CTC.
Recently Sr Immaculata was offered Tsh75,000 (£37) per day to attend a 5 day meeting on Chest Xrays and TB. (What can people talk about for 5 days, a day would be sufficient or at the most 2 days). Who could possible refuse this inducement?

The practice has of course come from the West, from the UN, WHO and other unrestrained corporations who pay their operatives a good salary as well as a perdiem for working in Africa or elsewhere. (Is travel overseas not in their job description?).
Why should a mzungu get a per diem and not the Tanzanians attending?
In some ways it is a way of supporting salaries for the underpaid professionals.
The downside is there is a cadre of civil servants who attend every meeting that pays a perdiem, become representatives for gender, HIV, sustainable development, ecotourism, albinos, deaf and any other group that well meaning Westerners raise money for, go home and do nothing.
More seriously it takes good professionals away from their workplace on numerous occasions and leaves the service seriously understaffed with resentment from those left behind.
It is a fact of life, it is unlikely to change much and well… what inducements do we use in the West to get people to attend meetings like dinner in expensive restaurants to promote a new drug?