This is the ninth in a series of posts discussing themes raised in Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert’s book When Helping Hurts. In Chapter 6 the authors discuss reasons why many attempts at development are unsuccessful. They refer by way of example to a village in Columbia which was the beneficiary of a range of agricultural machinery donated by a non-profit organisation. After some years, the equipment had stopped working and was now rusting in a field.
In order to maximise the likelihood of success, it is necessary for the aid recipients to be meaningfully included in the selection, design, implementation and evaluation of a project. Most attempts at development use a “blueprint approach”, in which donors attempt to create a blueprint for a successful aid intervention, and then repeat the same intervention many times in different locations. Unfortunately, the aid recipients are necessarily excluded from participation in the blueprint approach.
An alternative to the blueprint approach is a “learning process” approach to development, which uses an action-reflection cycle, with the aid recipients participating in all aspects of the project. This gives the people receiving the aid a sense of control and ownership over the project, and it also ensures that their own particular insights for contributing to successful outcomes are taken into account.