The role of photos in achieving the SDGs

I am a bit like a lizard, and so are many of you, I am sure! The lizards in Cameroon, you rarely see them until noon, when the sun decides to come out of its shyness and shine with all its strength. Then you suddenly see them emerging in large numbers from the cracks in the old walls here and there, wrecks of construction dreams, stranded due to a lack of money, to bask, occasionally shaking their heads up and down, as if to thank the sun for doing them so much good. I, too, would hardly been seen outside in the grey months, which Berlin offers in abundance; but once the first flower buds are out, I put on my short, grease my bike, fold my mat, grab my sunglasses and a book and make more than one faces drop, who wonders what the point of basking in the sun is, if I already have the darkest tan, and to whom I have to explain that it is all about stocking up on vitamin D and serotonin.

Driven by this nature, a friend and I decided to take a trip to the Grünewald lake, that idyllic and special place in the west of Berlin. The sky was clear and the temperature around 35 degrees; as you can imagine, the place was full of visitors.?My friend and I wanted to capture the moment, and asked another visitor to take a picture of us by the lake. He, visibly annoyed by our request, shouted back at us, pointing to the naked people in the lake, "na, don't you see there are other people in the lake, you can't take pictures here!"?This had never been our idea, we just thought of having our reflections with a piece of the lake in the background; although, I confess, I would have liked to see the reaction of my family and friends in Cameroon, if I showed them this scene. I could see, amused, my mother, her eyes enlarged to the maximum, her lips tightened emitting that long Tsuippppp sound, we do so well in Cameroon when we are annoyed, and then yelled, "This is the devil's house! " For her and many Cameroonians, this is out of the ordinary, one does not show oneself to the public in Adam and Eve's outfits. I believe that too, except that I know this is no devil's house. I know the context and current of thought that motivates this behaviour and understand that it is just another way of doing things. My mother and friends in Cameroon could as well; I would just have to add a description of the context to the photo.?However, not everybody using pictures does so. Not even in the struggle for a sustainable development with no one left behind; a battle, which especially in this age of instagram and other social networks, cannot be won without the use of photos.

Photos as an effective way to raise awareness on global issues and get people involved in the achievement of the SDGs

A skinny, hungry, half-naked black child throws light on the problems of food insecurity and economic poverty experienced by other citizens of the world. A photo of young people from Africa and Asia sitting on a small canoe on the beaches of Lampedusa shows us the dangers that young people brave to come to Europe. A woman draped in a red veil, huddled in a corner of the room, a menacing man's shadow over her, lets us know that the freedom we enjoy as women living in Europe is not given to all. Similarly, images of armed children and collapsed houses reveal the atrocity of war and climate change.? According to some psychologists, pictures, especially when dramatic, are a better strategy; they increase people's empathy, thus induce them to take action.?We have probably all felt the fury of seeing emaciated children on posters in the underground station, or lost the appetite for the so wanted piece of chicken, after a Save the children ad interrupted our favourite TV show, to display a whimpering, bony child. Anyway, it works, many people donate to organisations, fighting against these problems, or engage themselves directly, reducing their meat consumption, volunteering for these organisations, increasing their use of public transport etc.?The father of one of my classmates probably thought of this when he asked me to help him hold the banner of his organisation committed to fighting poverty and genital mutilation in Ethiopia, he had come to present in our university in Marburg. I was not expecting it, but he placed a protective kiss on my forehead and turned to the audience shouting, "Together we can do it!" To which, the audience responded with standing ovations, which I understood later, for having saved me.

Photos can prompt mindsets that are more of a hindrance to the realisation of the SDGs: the world in black and white

I feel a wave of indignation all the time when I see these images, but it is shared indignation. I am angry that the planet is unwell and that not everyone can enjoy their status as human beings. I am angry that I contribute to this situation in some way through certain behavioural traits as a privileged person and that my nature pushes me to reiterate this all the time. But I am also angry that these photos do not tell the whole story, but often make us think they do, leading us to construct a manichean representation of the world, with the West as good and the other regions of the world as ugly.

A half-naked child is not always a symbol of poverty; on the contrary, it can just as easily be a child who is feeling hot or a child who, like me in the past, not wishing to dirty her clothes and be reprimanded, decided to remove them. The photo of a sad woman draped in red, a threatening shadow behind her, is perhaps a snapshot of a couple's dispute (not saying though that it is ok).

I recall a colleague from France during a visit in Bangoulap, a village in western Cameroon. We walked by a woman carrying a basket on her back and followed by two children. All three were barefoot. The kids wore each a T-shirt, covering them up to the knees, apparently too big for them and which had once been white. They must have reminded her of one of those anti-hunger billboards pictures, the fact is that my colleague's face turned red and puffed up with tears. I saw her rummaging in her bag to get out some money, which she gave to the lady.

Am I saying that charity is not a good thing and the woman did not need it?

No, surely it is and like we say in Cameroon, "There is always something to do with money". The problem was that this family was not in distress, as my colleague had thought, but rather people returning from the fields and who, as is appropriate for this task, had left their best clothes and shoes at home. I admit, however, that I would have acted like her, if I did not know this reality. I once did it, with a foreign student from Peru, who was going through financial difficulties. Saturated with all the images of flyers and billboards I had seen as a child in Cameroon, of Peruvian peasants with sad faces, covered in heavy and multicoloured blankets, working a land that seemed hard and made sterile by the cold, elt sorry for her, projecting on her. I offered her to share all my meals, which she accepted, also feeling sorry for me, because of the images she too had seen of Africa from her home town Catacaos. She asked me one night, "How come you are so poor in Africa? How did you manage to get out of it?"?

Photos can incite mindsets that hinder the achievement of the SDGs: extremism?

Coupled with repetitive negative representations of other parts of the world, photos are often used without adequate description of the context, which can lead people to develop extremist feelings. Indeed, photos showing boats at sea crowded with young people from Africa and Asia barely tell us that many of these young people are desperate; that some are fleeing a country that has become hellish because of their national, but also the world's economic policies that keep some countries dependent on others; or because of the climatic conditions caused, well also by our actions.?What follows, as we have seen in recent events, is fear, apprehension, inability to work together, hatred, which in turn leads to more radicalism, thus more wars and instability, food and health insecurity, etc.; in short, brings us back to square one in our fight toward achieving the SDGs.

Photos can encourage mindsets that hinder the achievement of the SDGs: the heroes are the others

It is not only in the West that this negative and incomplete representation of other parts of the world affects the mentalities. Mental awakening having meanwhile completed its tour of the world, young people from these regions, aware of their representations in the west feel devaluated and tend to develop extremist behaviour, demanding a detachment from the West. As a result in a country like Cameroon, where coming from abroad makes you a VIP person, you might nit always want to show your foreign passport, especially if it is French.?

Another problem caused by these photos is what I call mental paralysis. From my observation in the African context, many people have the mantra "the heroes are the , we expect them to help us, we can not do anything". This was the case in the village of Butre where I spent a few months researching for my Master's thesis.?When I arrived, the chairman of the village showed me the only toilet in the village built by missionaries some years ago. The toilet was full and out of use and the population of the village had started going to the seaside again to relieve themselves. He wanted to know if I knew of any organisations in Germany that could help. I did not, but coming from Cameroon I knew that digging a home-made toilet did not necessarily require foreign intervention.?

Some even now see poverty as a money-making mean and try to replicate these pictures they know the West has of them to the best of their abilities.?It was not uncommon to see a queue of tourists wandering around the village, a local guide in front of them, grey and white hats on their heads, brown shorts, sunglasses on, sneakers on their feet, shouting "ooh", "aaah" here and there as they pressed on their cameras.?The target this time, not me in my clean clothes, sneakers, sheltered under a screen, a book in my hand and a pineapple juice in front of me; but rather, the inhabitants of the village who, as the urbanism of the village would have it, were living their lives on the side of the road: the woman, a baby clinging to her breast, shelling peanuts; other women taking turns pounding cassava and plantain in a mortar to make fufu for the evening meal; the fishermen in front of a kiosk, tinkering with their nets and drinking maize beer... The latter were interesting, unlike me, apparently too westernized. The guides knew it and did not fail to bring them on Tuesday and Thursday, the taboos days, when all were in the village; and by this, secure the best tips.?On the banks of the Tsiribihina River in Madagascar, it was not only the guides offering the pirogue trips who understood this strategy, but everyone: young and old.?In Tsaraotana, the inhabitants themselves offered you to take them in picture, or directed you in front of the naked or dirtiest kids in exchange for a few coins.

A paradox, isn't it? To think that we are trying to eradicate poverty, while poverty itself is a means to an end. I wonder about the feasibility of the "S" in SDG.?How can our initiatives for the development of all people be sustainable, if not everyone sees themselves as potential heroes and if poverty is too lucrative?

So should we stop using photos?

I am not suggesting that we stop taking pictures and showing the atrocities of this world.?As long as they exist, they should be shown. However, we need to improve the use of photos in our campaigns for raising awareness on global issues and mobilising people for more commitment to a sustainable development. Certainly some organisations, aware of this negative effect, or rather under pressure from critics have tried to improve their photos usage, showing less sad people, using more objects and texts. In my opinion, this cannot really change much at this point. We have been fed for decades with so many of these images that even if they were removed from the billboards, our brains would know how to reconstruct them and place them exactly where they had been.?

It would be better if these pictures were accompanied by a title and a clear description, stating that it is a specific story and context. Much more, more pictures showing the achievements of heroes from all over the world should be displayed, in order to deconstruct the myths in our heads and give our brains different colours for a more diverse representation of the world.?