development

The heroic humanitarian narrative: A force for good or bad?

Flickr, Stephen Poff

The heroic narrative is almost irresistable as a storytelling strategy.

But many in the aid and development community think it frequently does more harm than good:

By implying individual, private efforts (i.e., DIY or “Do-It-Yourself” aid) are somehow superior to large-scale organizational or government-run programs when the evidence (one rebuttal to DIY aid) suggests otherwise;
By disguising a poorly functioning program (e.g., Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea scandal) or perhaps advancing a commercial interest (e.g.,TOMS shoes) through compelling personal stories that may do more for the hero than those he/she is supposed to be helping;
Or by simplistically glossing over the complex political, economic and social problems that often contribute to the problems of poverty, disease or inequities these humanitarians say they are trying to solve.

It is the dog days of August, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a fairly strong negative reaction based on these kind of concerns to a recent column by the New York Times’ David Brooks. Other such tales — though usually well-intended — tend to really irritate those working out there in poor countries for humanitarian organizations actually trying to help poor people.

NYT

David Brooks

Brooks, who is traveling in East Africa, wrote about The Rugged Altruists in which he — perhaps taking a cue from his NYT colleague Nick Kristof, champion of DIY aid — celebrates the good work of some individuals he’s encountered on his trip. Brooks opens by saying:

Many Americans go to the developing world to serve others. A smaller percentage actually end up being useful. Those that (sic) do have often climbed a moral ladder. They start out with certain virtues but then develop more tenacious ones.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, David Brooks, development, DIY aid, foreign aid, Kenya, Nick Kristof

June 16, 2011 | 11:40 AM | By Tom Paulson

Fighting over the fundamentals of philanthropy

There appears to be a deep-seated intellectual boil festering at the base of our discussions around philanthropy, foreign aid and development.

Those three words? I’m not sure anyone really knows what they mean.

Flickr, Erebos

I can’t see what you’re saying

Yes, I’m sure the experts on philanthropy, aid and development all think they know what they mean. But as a journalist assigned to cover this stuff — and asked to translate it into “normal” language — I’m increasingly running into debates about fundamentals, if not outright confusion.

To wit:

Felix Salmon, a brilliant and often hilarious economics writer for Reuters, felt compelled to point out that Philanthropy Isn’t For Profit.

Duh, you say? Salmon was responding to the notion, which seems to be gaining popularity in some circles, that making a profit is in fact the best way to achieve a social good. He writes:

You can’t just invest money in the stock market and declare it the best way to do good in the world, any more than you can start an arms or cigarette manufacturer and claim that your pursuit of profits is the best way to improve global welfare.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, development, Felix Salmon, foreign aid, GAVI, Matthew Bishop, philanthrocapitalism, philanthropy

June 6, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Development and foreign aid often fail to help the poor

Several articles came out recently that illustrate why we need to sharpen our development and foreign aid strategies. Basically, here are the two key problems:

1. Development is not automatically a good thing for the poor and disenfranchised. Often it hurts the poor.

2. Our approach to foreign aid often appears little about aiding and more about politics, foreign payback.

To the first point, Jonathan Glennie at the Guardian writes about the economic growth experienced by Colombia and how this has done little to improve the lives of most Colombians. In his article “Columbia’s Amoral Development,” Glennie writes:

Because although development can mean jobs, poverty reduction, greater respect for human rights, better access to basic services, and greater land sovereignty, it doesn’t necessarily. Believe it or not, it is possible to reduce income poverty (MDG1), and to meet a range of other MDGs regarding provision of basic health and education while simultaneously committing grave human rights abuses, disempowering the poorest, and encouraging the consolidation of power and wealth in the hands of the rich.

I also ran across this older article, also about Colombia and one of its primary economies, on the Chiquita Banana company’s “Cost of doing business” by having to pay off leftist guerrillas and rightist militias revealed by the National Security Archive in its recently published Chiquita Papers.

And here is an op-ed, entitled the “Paradox of Growth and Poverty” from the Philippines Daily Inquirer. A similar article, about Africa, is also cited in the daily links round up below.

2. On the second point, foreign aid being little about aiding the needy: Here’s a nice quick “daily outrage” from the San Francisco Examiner noting that we provide foreign aid to many countries who are wealthy enough to buy our debt — like China or Brazil.

Speaking of China, here’s an interesting article about China getting its $2 billion in assistance funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria frozen for failing to distribute the money to community organizations working against these diseases. But one may wonder why relatively wealthy China is even qualified to receive Global Fund assistance?

FILED UNDER: Basics, development, foreign aid

May 24, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Students ask: Can you save the world?

Hundreds of students at the University of Washington packed into a classroom Monday evening for a panel discussion entitled, “Can You Save the World?”

Tom Paulson

Finding a place to sit at the UW's "Can You Save the World?"

Sponsored by a new student-run organization called the Critical Development Forum, it was an acknowledged riff on an earlier event we (KPLU Humanosphere) sponsored at Seattle Town Hall called “Can Seattle Save the World?” — this time aimed specifically at the concerns and questions of young people.

I’ve noted before that there’s something special going on with the Millennials and this event only confirmed my suspicion: They actually do want to save the world.

And they know it won’t be easy or simply based on good intention. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Critical Development Forum, development, foreign aid, Millennials, UW

May 11, 2011 | 8:15 AM | By Tom Paulson

Guardian: Job creation more important than fighting maternal mortality or malaria

The Guardian’s Claire Melamed says new research on development in Sub-Saharan Africa indicates that “providing jobs for young people was considered more important than reducing maternal mortality, providing universal primary education, or reducing the spread of malaria.”

Job creation and retention is a central political strategy for most rich countries, but employment has been surprisingly absent from development thinking. Until now.

Melamed cites the Overseas Development Institute as distilling the research down to five warnings:

1. Don’t assume that growth will automatically create jobs.

2. Don’t assume that jobs will automatically reduce poverty.

3. Don’t fixate on manufacturers.

4. Don’t assume that movement out of agriculture is all one way.

5. Worry about young people.

Says Melamed:

Jobs – and the urgent need to provide them – are rapidly moving up the development agenda. But policymakers must discard some of their cherished assumptions about how to create jobs. Better answers are needed, and fast, if the global employment crisis is to be fixed.

FILED UNDER: development, employment

April 21, 2011 | 9:00 AM | By Tom Paulson

Stupid contest identifies confusion: World’s top 40 development innovators

Which 40 organizations are most innovative when it comes international development?

An organization called Devex (which appears to be a jobs network for aid and development workers) said it polled thousands of people working in foreign aid and development to answer that incredibly vague question.

It’s incredibly vague because the words “innovation” and “development” can be taken to mean almost anything.

But lack of clarity didn’t stop them from declaring the Devex Top 40 innovators in development.

Among the winners: Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Deloitte Consulting (the tax and financial advisers), an international construction consulting firm called AECOM (which recently took on Col. Gaddafi’s son as an intern), Booz Allen Hamilton (which mostly works on defense and homeland security stuff)…. What the hell?

Notably absent from this list is, uh, our nation’s (and, arguably, the world’s) foremost aid and development organization, USAID. Off the top of my head, I’d also say Seattle-based PATH is perhaps more innovative when it comes to fighting global poverty and disease than the tax advisers at Deloitte.

You can probably think of other notables missing from this list.

So, yeah, it’s a stupid and meaningless contest and list. So what?

I mention it only because I like words to mean something.

Innovation is a term used a lot these days and yet nobody seems to know what it means.

More importantly, if accountants and advisers to defense contractors can win a contest aimed it identifying innovative leaders in international development, the field of development needs better definition as well.

FILED UNDER: development, innovation

February 24, 2011 | 9:16 AM | By Tom Paulson

Third World America

AidWatch’s Bill Easterly today pointed out some interesting interactive maps that he says show pockets of the “Third World” in America. Here’s a screen grab of one map showing varying health indicators across the U.S. (darker is better on this map)

American Human Development Index

Health index

The actual interactive maps can be found, and explored, at the American Human Development Index site.

Easterly’s characterization of the data (not to mention using the somewhat dated and arguably imprecise phrase “Third World”) has, as usual, provoked some angry denunciations. You can read them on his comments page, which is always entertaining and often enlightening.

For those interested in visual data and the overall indicators of our health/well-being, take a closer look at the rest of the interactive maps provided by the American Human Development Project. They also map out data regarding political participation, environmental impact and other demographics.

FILED UNDER: Basics, development, United-States

February 17, 2011 | 8:30 AM | By Tom Paulson

No last mile: Changing the architecture of development

You may not think of architects as playing much of a role in global health, development or foreign aid. But design, in the broadest sense, matters in almost every endeavor.

Here’s an interesting article at Architecture for Development about remodeling the way we think, and talk, about foreign aid. It was recommended to me by a friend at Seattle-based PATH, where years ago I met two architects — James Cheyne and John Lloyd — who used their design skills to improve the vaccination cold chain. But that’s another story …

The gist of this article, by David Week, is that we tend to think and speak of development projects as a donor delivering a benefit to a recipient, or a product to a consumer. Says Week:

The problem with language (as feminists and racial minorities well know) is that it perpetuates a mindset. In development, the classical mindset is the “delivery” paradigm. Diagrammatically, it looks like this:

This has led, he writes, many of those working in development to speak of reaching the “last mile” as representing the ultimate goal of a project — of development as a process of delivery. The approach, he says, was adopted from the telecoms industry (though some also credit Coca-Cola).

This is a debilitating mindset, Week says, because it establishes a fundamentally passive and submissive role on the part of the beneficiary. A better mindset, which he says is taking hold in the development community, is what he calls the “development partnership” which looks like this:

Week says that the more successful development and foreign aid projects out there today are increasingly being described as partnerships, collaborations. He goes on to examine case studies in Laos, East Timor and Papua New Guinea. It’s a longish article but thought-provoking.

The take-away message is that we need to stop thinking in terms of the “last mile” and shift from a delivery mindset to one of partnership.

development

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