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Deconstructing volunteering and overseas exchanges

Posted in development, random, musing or confusing, smart aid, travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2010| 24 Comments »

While writing my last post on amateurs, professionals, innovations and smart aid, I was also thinking about why organizations or institutions offer volunteering, voluntourism and exchange visits as an option for their donors, students, constituents, and why people (including US volunteers and overseas communities or organizations that receive volunteers/visitors) participate in them.

As another mental exercise, I came up with 4 categories that these programs fall into (feel free to differ or add others if I skipped over something, this is in no way scientific research or a desk study, just thoughts based on my experiences and observations):

Relationship building, cross-cultural learning, solidarity

  • Some initiatives are primarily aimed at learning, engaging with the world outside a person’s home country, strengthening cross-cultural relationships, and building links and global movements. These programs tend to stem from a core belief that in order to achieve a better and more peaceful world, we need to reach out and strengthen relationships across cultures and countries; enhance our understanding of one another; better comprehend our global interconnectedness; and build global movements around  particular themes to push forward change. This kind of program is sometimes also heavily funded by governments as part of foreign aid (Peace Corps, development education programs funded by USAID, ‘democracy strengthening’ exchange programs) with a goal of improving relations, transferring skills, and showing that Americans really are nice, helpful, friendly people and that democracy is the best form of government.
  • Those that sign up for these initiatives are often highly engaged with a particular cause (solidarity movement, peace, environment, religious, women, political viewpoint). They may be going overseas to show their solidarity, share knowledge and skills, or connect around issues they are passionate about.  Or they may simply want to travel abroad and have an interest in global issues and a desire to help. Volunteering, voluntourism and exchange programs offer a way travel and/or live abroad in a non-touristy way. These types of programs can be very attractive for youth and people late in their careers or retired.

Career development, field study and gaining experience

  • Some programs are offered by academic institutions, non-profits (or perhaps private companies) whose work is focused on or in the developing world, and who believe their students (or employees) need experience in the developing world in order to do quality work that is well adapted to the cultures and people that they will deal with/serve/sell to in the future.  These are programs that offer career development, internships or study opportunities via NGOs, universities, etc.; language learning; resume building and experience for future careers in a variety of fields; opportunities to live with and learn about or research a particular culture or field; a chance to better understand the poor and design products and services for/with the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP); insight to build social enterprises, etc.
  • Those looking for these types of experiences are often university students, recent graduates, missionaries, foreign language students, or adventurers looking for a way to live abroad. For many in this group, overseas experience is a key factor that will set them apart; build a skill set; allow them to progress in their chosen field of work; and help them be more effective in the types of processes, services and products that they eventually develop. There is pretty much no way to get this kind of experience outside of volunteering, overseas interning or doing an exchange trip during a semester, a vacation period or a summer.

Cultural belief in community service and charity

  • Another common reason that organizations offer these opportunities is belief that volunteering is good, charity is an important value, we should appreciate what we have and give back. In the past 10 years or so, mandatory volunteering and community service is growing in US schools as a way to build certain habits and values in young people. Many teachers and parents believe America is the best country in the world, and want their students/children to ‘experience poverty’ so that they will ‘realize how good they have it.’ This type of program sometimes comes from a charity mindset (donor/recipient, rich/poor, us/them, developed/developing) and is based in beliefs about philanthropy that are prevalent in the US (and apparently in Canada, Australia, Europe and some other places too). These kinds of programs seem to be the most common and the easiest to sign up for.  (See @TalesfromthHood’s series on American Culture 101, 102 and 103 and related discussions.)

  • Those who participate here are often students that need to fulfill community service requirements for graduation. They may also be from church groups or other organized groups that do volunteering as a part of their culture, their way of being, and their belief structure. Many people in the US feel guilty that they are spending money on a vacation and want to alleviate their guilt by doing a bit of ‘service’. Or they are at a time in their lives where they have the means to ‘give back’ and they want to do it physically and personally, in the ‘poorest’ of places, and/or where it’s most convenient for them (like while they are on vacation). There is a belief in the US that giving money is ‘not enough,’ is too easy, and that if you really care, you will go and do. People are often not satisfied with ‘just giving money’ and really have a desire to try to know and understand the people that they are ‘helping’, but they don’t have a lot of time, and don’t want to become professional aid workers.

Donor engagement, fund raising, brand awareness

  • Organizations are aware that philanthropy is changing. Articles abound in philanthropic journals about how major donors are tired of bureaucracy; want to ‘do development’ using for-profit models; want to start their own organizations and get directly involved in managing projects they are funding. Organizations are also aware that younger adults, say 18-40, may not have a lot of money to give, but they are at a critical juncture where they are forming ideas about philanthropy, as well as bonds and alliances with the organizations that they will give to in the future.  NGOs are aware that Americans believe that it means more to do than to give, and that doing is a richer personal experience for donors.
  • Many organizations have programs to engage donors in ways other than giving money. They have volunteer programs; use social media to stimulate community and loyalty; build advocacy programs where donors can engage by clicking and sending something on-line or ‘like’ something to show their support. Voluntourism, exchanges and hands-on volunteering are another way to engage donors. The main goal here is not so much the advocacy or the ‘help’ that the volunteer gives, but rather the opportunity to gain an email address and build a relationship over time that turns into a loyal donor who gives what organizations really need in order to carry out their programs:  cash donations, major gifts and bequests. Advocacy and volunteering/voluntourism have an added benefit that they can also build brand awareness and PR for the organization.
  • Those that participate in this type of program are similar to those in point 3 above, and don’t want only a financial relationship with an organization. They want to do something direct and meaningful aside from giving money.

What do communities want?

I haven’t directly asked any communities or found any ‘poor’ communities themselves blogging about volunteers, voluntourism, exchange visits or amateurs.  From being involved in different negotiations around volunteers and exchanges and donor visits/trips over the years, however, here are some of the things I’ve seen, heard and experienced.

Communities (considered here as geographical or cause-based communities receiving volunteers, voluntours, exchange visits or hosting small new NGOs) that participate in these programs often hope to

  • receive funds locally to support their work
  • maintain a link to a broader movement or cause that benefits them
  • be invited to spend some time outside of their community/country in return
  • make social, financial and political connections through volunteers and visitors
  • get concrete support for a particular area or build knowledge and skills by learning from those who are volunteering
  • get some financial or other kind of direct benefits back through a project or program related to the expertise or study area of the volunteer or organization that sent the volunteer.

Communities may also take and house volunteers as a favor to an organization or institution that they are working with and as their contribution to a partnership relationship. They may genuinely enjoy the company of volunteer groups who bring a burst of energy and excitement into the community. Often projects that volunteers come to work on (eg, infrastructure, certain types of specialized training over the long term) would not be funded or available if it weren’t for the volunteer set-up or small non-profit, and communities are aware of this, so they gladly take an infrastructure project with some volunteers.

In a few cases, local people and organizations might be looking to take advantage of naive volunteers, inexperienced non-profit starters, and voluntourists. [Not forgetting here that volunteers, voluntourists, investors and non-profits can also do harm to a community and the people who live there, either intentionally or unintentionally, if they have bad intentions or don’t know what they are doing].

How is success defined?

You can tell a lot about the real reasons an organization or institution offers these programs if you can find out what the stated program goals are, or how they are measuring/defining program success.

Are they measuring…

  • development outcomes and sustainability at the community level? (eg., school attendance, quality of education, health indicators, etc.)
  • successful and sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives at the community level?
  • the number of schools, latrines, houses, etc., built in a community?
  • success in terms of a particular advocacy issue or broader movement around an issue?
  • changes in attitudes about something?
  • the number of students/volunteers/donors who enroll and complete the program/tour/exchange visit?
  • community satisfaction with the program?
  • profit from the actual volunteer/voluntour/exchange program? (above and beyond costs to run the program)?
  • the number of emails they get that they can add to their list for sending out appeals?
  • funds and donations raised during/after the program directly for the participating community?
  • funds and donations raised during/after the program for the organization’s work in general?

Who is volunteering/ overseas exchange mostly about?

I realize that there is no category above where the end goal is ‘providing communities with particular skills that only an overseas volunteer can offer’ or ‘providing necessary (unskilled, inexperienced) support in emergency situations.’ I suppose I don’t believe that organizations and institutions really have those goals for their volunteer programs, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m pretty sure that if you did some research, you would find that in the short term, volunteer and exchange programs are almost always mostly about the volunteer or the organization’s goals, not about the outcomes and impact at the community level. In the long term, however, they may be directly or indirectly beneficial to communities or the world at large.

I would be interested to know what, if any, is the long-term direct positive impact of volunteering/ voluntourism/ exchange visits

  • on ‘poor’ communities (do their development indicators rise?)
  • on political and voting tendencies of volunteers (do they vote for candidates who make decisions that favor the poor overseas? do they participate in direct advocacy with the US Government on issues related to their experiences?)
  • on business practices (do business owners who have volunteered implement better business practices? do they have fairer practices and policies toward developing countries?)
  • on world views (do participants see the world as more interconnected? does that impact on their personal actions and lifestyle choices?)
  • on fundraising for the organization’s general programs or for participating communities

Finally, to be honest about it, some volunteers/voluntourists/exchange visitors might not even care what the real reasons are that an organization offers these programs. They just want to travel and feel good that they are ‘helping’.

[Update: I’ve been traveling and behind on my reading – I didn’t see A View from a Cave’s entire great series on Volunteering until now. Highly recommend checking it out!]

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Amateurs, professionals, innovation and smart aid

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Amateurs, professionals, innovations and smart aid

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, random, musing or confusing, smart aid, social media, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2010| 21 Comments »

I’ve been following the debates surrounding professionalism, amateurism, innovation and good practice in aid and development work on the blogosphere and Twitter for awhile now.  In their most extreme and exaggerated form, they go something like this:

Extreme side 1: Amateurs are evil

Aid is about the poor.  Amateurs and would-be overseas volunteers should stay home, give money to experienced international organizations, volunteer locally, and stop getting in the way of professionals who are trying to get some serious work done. Aid and development are complicated and there is no silver bullet. They require experience and expertise. Amateurs, voluntourists and unskilled volunteers do more harm than good — they are clueless, showing up with no experience or concept of good aid or development processes. They bypass coordination structures, create confusion and duplication, repeat mistakes and don’t follow known best practices or proven ethical and industry guidelines. You may be a brilliant designer, marketer, manager or engineer but if you don’t have experience in aid and development, please use your skills elsewhere.

Amateurs make major mistakes and get themselves into trouble, and then professionals have to waste their time dealing with them instead of on the people in most need of help.  They parachute in ideas and technologies designed from afar that have no basis in reality because they don’t have any experience in aid, development or the developing world and they don’t listen to past experiences or lessons learned. They come up with stupid ideas, take away paid jobs from local people, create hand-out schemes and other unsustainable and inappropriate models of helping, and then leave. In no other field are amateurs allowed to go in and muck around in other people’s lives with no preparation or experience just because they have good intentions, so why are they allowed to barge into poor communities and bumble around just because they feel guilty about their own wealth and privilege or think it’s their right to help? The poor deserve better than that. Aid should be left to professionals who know what they are doing.

Extreme side 2: Aid and aid workers are evil

There’s no point in talking about professionalism because aid workers and aid and development in their totality have been an utter failure, regardless of how professional aid workers think they are.  Aid is aid, how hard can it be? We need to get things done! Everyone can and should get involved in helping, because it’s everyone’s right and responsibility to help. How will things advance if new ideas and innovations aren’t tested? And by the way, my latest product/ invention/ idea would easily solve that issue that aid workers have been struggling with for centuries…. I just need a place to test it out, got any communities? Volunteers and people with good intentions can do just as good a job as professional aid workers, who have made a total mess of everything anyway with their outdated models and bureaucratic, slow, top down procedures.

New ways of doing things and ideas brought in by youth, volunteers, design students and for-profit innovators from different sectors are beneficial to aid, which is currently stagnated and ineffective and needs an overhaul, or better yet, total annihilation. Aid workers drive around in giant SUVs and don’t have any commitment to local people because they live in fancy ex-pat houses with servants, getting rich off of the backs of the poor they profess to help. It’s just a big business that is perpetuating itself and preventing the poor from developing.  On top of that, the only way you can get into it is to start as a volunteer, but volunteering is discredited by those same aid workers. The dying field of aid and development is a closed and exclusive club. Aid should be abolished, and/or bypassed by small groups of dedicated, good-hearted, every-day individuals and/or social entrepreneurs and capitalists with good intentions who really care about people in the developing world, and can bring in new ways of working and innovations.

Hmmmm.

I’m finding the arguments really interesting.  A little mixed up and too generalized sometimes, but both sides resonate with me because I’ve seen concrete examples of a lot of the above.  (By the way, I hope no one takes offense at how I’ve portrayed the sides – this is just an exercise here – I love you all).  So I was trying to step back and look at the discussion.

It struck me that the arguments sound a lot like the old media – new media arguments.  New media is less professional, less rigorous, and sometimes unethical and low quality. But it often it brings innovations and truths that old media misses. It’s quick, accessible, open, less controlled and often pretty freaking amazing and right on.  Old media is solid and has a long history of quality and impact, but it’s also slow, unresponsive and conservative at times. Old media that’s not finding a way to integrate and learn from new media is dying.

So how might old aid, old development and new aid, new development work together? What can traditional non-profits learn from traditional media outlets that have embraced new media or morphed their old models into something that is still solid and proven, yet offers a space for participation and innovation by the public?

What general standards and knowledge need to be out in the public to help amateurs or people from non-aid and non-development backgrounds who want to engage avoid pitfalls and known errors, and avoid breaking laws or forging forward unethically or foolishly, and doing damage? Can old and new come to terms and work together? What examples are there of this already happening in a way that both old and new agree is working?  Or are these two sides totally incompatible and doomed to work against each other?

[Update] See Deconstructing volunteerism and overseas exchanges for a Part 2 to this post.

For more background….

Update:  Penelope has written a great post called “On Entrepreneurship and NGOs”

Saundra over at Good Intentions are not Enough does a great job of sharing standards, practices and educating on how to select good charities/organizations, and has published a “Smart Aid Wish List” you can add to.

Check out this excellent chapter (.pdf) by ALNAP on Innovations in International Humanitarian Action (thanks to @talesfromthhood for sharing).

[update] Michael Keizer at A Humorless Lot wrote a great response post here:  The professional volunteer (impossible in aid?) and how about the salaried amateur?

Check out the #smartaid and the #1millionshirts hashtags on Twitter.

Follow some of the bloggers on my blogroll — they pretty much span the different sides of the issue in less extreme and more nuanced ways than I’ve done in my exaggerations above.

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Deconstructing volunteerism and overseas exchanges

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mGeos: a mobile mapping tool

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, Kenya, m4D, mapping, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2010| 9 Comments »

Yesterday my colleague Mika Valitalo at Plan Finland sent some information about mGeos, a cool project that Pajat Management (a Finnish company), Plan Kenya, Plan Finland, Helsinki University of Technology and University of Nairobi have been collaborating on for the past year. Note: Mika and Pertti Lounamaa from Pajat gave me written permission to share this info.

The idea? To develop easy-to-use GPS-based mapping software that runs on low-cost mobile phones.

Detailed map information is missing from most of the 'developing' world

What needs is mGeos responding to? Being efficiently able to provide health, education and humanitarian aid or even most industrial services is critically dependent on knowing where to provide these services. Basic location information about points-of-interest (POIs), routes to them and areas to service are missing from the countries in most need of public service improvement. In ‘developing’ countries especially, critical map and location information is largely incomplete, outdated or missing. For example, in the image here, you can see small town map details available for Finland (left image) vs for those for Kenya (right image).

Earlier experiences in a few program countries as well as responses to a questionnaire conducted with Plan Kenya staff showed a desire and clear need to use location data more effectively. There is also a need to make it available on low-cost phones that are more accessible.

Stefanie Conrad (my awesome boss) for example, sees it like this:

“Geographic analysis of the distribution of social services such as wells, hospitals, telecommunication facilities, broadcast services, schools, etc. is essential for Plan’s program work in order to have a sound understanding of the best way to provide access to those services. In reality, most of our country offices work with non-geographical systems, for example, lists of communities. In many countries, the government itself does not have sufficient mapping of communities in place. Decisions on where to put something to guarantee access to populations often becomes a thing based on best guess.

Mobile phones with GPS could support more equitable and technically sound placement of basic services. Digital pictures and maps could be used with communities in order to facilitate discussions about where to best place a well, for example. This can often be a difficult process, as usually community leaders try to get these types of services to be conveniently placed as close as possible to their own homes….  Many of our offices also have difficulties producing the maps needed for corporate communications (area overviews, local area maps, etc) – this would become possible with GPS.”

The mGeos project aims to respond to these identified needs. A 3-month field pilot is planned to take place in Kilifi, Kenya, in July.  I’ll be in Kenya in July and if the pilot goes forward then, I am hoping to be able to see personally how mGeos works!

What are mGeos’ key features?

  • mGeos service platform

    Supports collection of structured data as numbers, text, exclusive and multiple choice and images; and also location data including points of interest, routes and areas

  • Multiple front ends:  standard internet browsing for laptops and large screen smart phones and mobile browsing (xHTML/WAP)
  • Dedicated application for GPS enabled mobile phones
  • Authoring tool for defining forms and corresponding database model for storing the collected data
  • Open API for accessing stored data
  • Based on a SaaS (software as services) model

What does the mGeos system consist of?

  • client software which runs on low-cost S40 GPS enabled mobile phones (eg. Nokia 2710)
  • server running a database where all the collected information is stored and accessed
  • portal i.e. webpages which show the collected Points of Interest (POIs) on Google maps (or other maps) and allow browsing, exporting and sorting of the collected data.

What would mGeos look like in action?

Say a field worker named Victoria arrives to the Kilifi District Program Unit in the morning. She’s planning to visit Kujemudo community. Before leaving for the day trip, she takes a GPS enabled mobile phone from the office and downloads the latest updated ‘Points of Interest’ (POI) list from the computer to her phone.  The POI list has been created by Victoria and her colleagues by gathering location data while visiting different communities during the past couple of months.  Today Victoria also wants to map important POIs in the communities, among many other tasks.

After arriving to Kujemudu and having a meeting with the local community based organization, Victoria rides her motorbike over to a school building in Ezamoyo village, takes her GPS enabled mobile phone in hand, and starts the mapping application.  The she chooses ‘add POI’ from the menu, selects the POI category of ‘school’ and adds the name of the school. After that she also types in the additional information such as the number of pupils and teachers, ownership of the school, etc.  Finally she takes a photo of the school, attaches it to this record and saves the information to the phone memory to be transferred later to the computer server.

Next Victoria visits Mkombe village where the location and information of the school has already been entered into the database by her colleague Peter a few weeks earlier.  Victoria uses the POI browsing feature to find the right school (browse by POI category).  When she finds the existing data record, she chooses ‘edit’ in order to update the information. Because part of the school has been reconstructed, she takes a new photo of the school and replaces the outdated one. Also, since the number of students has increased, she edits the ‘school population’ field to match the current number. Finally she saves the record.

While visiting Mabirikani village the next day, Victoria checks one of the wells, because she has heard that it has collapsed due to recent floods.  Since this is clearly the case, Victoria takes the mobile, searches the well from the data base and marks the record as deleted.

mGeos web screen shot

The next day, Victoria arrives to the Kilifi District Program Unit, connects the phone to her computer, and uploads all the new records and changes. Then she sends them to the mGeos webpage, which gets updated (i.e., now all the users can see the Ezamoyo school building, the updated information from Mkombe, and will notice that the well in Mabrikani is no longer in use).

When Victoria sees the new information in the system, she notices that she has mistyped the number of pupils in Mkombe school.  Since she is the author of the information, she can also edit the record in the mGeos webpage to correct the information. After checking that all the other information is OK, she leaves the phone in the office and continues with other work tasks.

When will it be tested? We plan to fully test the application in Kenya in July. Plan Kenya/Kilifi District Program Unit has identified a number of  POIs ( schools, health facilities, water points, trading centers etc.) they would like to map. They have also listed additional information each POI should have. For example, for schools they would collect information on: name, type (special, integrated, non-integrated), level (primary, secondary…), numbers of pupils, availability of water and sanitation services, etc. etc.  This information would be entered into mobile phones running mGeos software and later transferred to the server for sharing, analysis, editing, reporting and exporting.

Once the pilot has run, and user input is collected, the system will be adjusted and improved so that it can be fully launched.  I’ll keep following the mGeos story and post more as it’s tested and rolled out!

Update:  For more information see these later posts:

mGESA: Mobile GEographical Services for Africa

Mobile Date Collection through Points of Interest in Kenya (on Mobile Active)

The final application is called PoiMapper (see www.pajatman.com). Give it a try by downloading it and installing it on your mobile!

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The road to Wa is paved

Posted in development, Ghana, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, random, musing or confusing, travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

the road to Wa

I’m in Ghana this week for a workshop in Wa, the district capital of the Upper West Region.  I wasn’t too excited about the trip from Accra (the capital of Ghana) to Wa when I heard it was a 10-12 hour drive. I figured it took so long because the road was in bad condition, but I was wrong, it’s just a long trip and there is a lot of traffic. The road to Wa is paved.  Not with gold. Not with good intentions, just paved.  And what a difference that makes.

All kinds of vehicles and travelers use the road. Motorcycles, cars, taxis, 4x4s, Land Cruisers, big trucks, small trucks, semi trucks with trailers.  People walk and bike alongside the road.  I even saw an adolescent boy trying to rollerblade – he wasn’t getting too far in the gravel but was pretty determined regardless.

All kinds of people move in and about and around all the shops and businesses along the road… people making purchases, moving supplies, carrying firewood and water, socializing, flirting, arguing.  Vendors sell fruits, clothing, electronics, car parts, prepared food, plastics, new clothing, used t-shirts.  There are tons of stalls selling airtime  for mobile phones and entire buildings painted bright red with the white Vodafone logo on the side, not to mention doorways, sides and fronts of buildings, market stalls and taxis similarly painted.  Tigo, Glo and MTN also have their noses in the business with signs, billboards, stalls, buildings and such – obviously a lot of competition for mobile phone customers.

collision

The road holds both opportunities and dangers. Some people go very fast and others crawl along, creating accident potential as drivers try to pass them on curves and hills.  As in many countries, a good number of crashed vehicles dot the roadside; though unlike past road trips, this time I didn’t see anyone get hit or observe any bodies lying on the road after being hit, a small crowd around them, fresh blood pooling around their head and twisted frame.   Every so often on this road to Wa, there are toll booths and customs check points.  Speed bumps slow you down as you enter towns.  Police officers stop you for no reason wanting bribes. The road is really happening.

Aside from the rich and fertile rolling hills in between the towns as we got further north, the most striking thing to me was the image of the funeral crowds. You see large groups of people on both sides of the road dressed in very fine black West African clothing with accents of red: black for mourning and red if the person who passed away was strong and in their prime; sometimes white if the person was very old.  Stunning. My colleague Stephen said that funerals happen on Saturdays and that is partly why the road is so busy on weekends.  He also said that politics paved the road, because the current vice president lives in the north and made this road a priority, helping him win the elections.

While driving, we listened to a lot of political talk radio.  Obama’s honeymoon is definitely over if those who were talking are any indication. “We thought there would be a change with Obama, but his foreign policy continues along the lines of Bush.” The commentators argued for nationalization and control of Ghana and Ghana’s resources without foreign intervention and without selling off resources to foreigners, a shaking off of old colonialism.  They heavily criticized the US’s current strategy of opening military bases in West Africa and the US’s failed and reckless policies in the Middle East. References to Chile, Castro and the CIA reminded me of the kinds of conversations you hear in Latin America.  I need to read up more on this, and find out who Kosmos (Cosmos?) is, and what their relationship is with Bush, Exxon Mobile and Ghana’s oil.  [Update: here’s some background on that: Ghana blocks Exxon Oil-Field Deal.] I miss being in Central America where I knew the history of all the politicians and movements, and could read beyond fiery words to interpret motives; where I could read my own truth into things.

As we drove along I thought about the road, and all the activity that it enables. Before my flight to Accra, I visited the  Museum of Modern Art in New York with my brother who studies biology, and we saw an exhibit about Design through the Ages.  Some of the modern pieces showed graphics or moving visualizations of communication networks and systems.  One piece tracked and visualized the movement of taxis in New York City.  Another showed internet connections across the world.  My brother and I talked about our fascination with micro and macro networks and systems… synapses in the human brain, the flow of blood in the body, the New York subways, sewers.

dusk settles on the long drive north

Looking out the window of the car on our seemingly endless drive north, I thought about the similarities between this highway and the internet — road networks and communication networks.  All the people traveling down and alongside the road to Wa. The communication among and between them.  The small and large businesses that have sprung up and are prospering because the road is there allowing access.  The opportunities and dangers, the police and the periodic barriers to speed.

I’m sitting here, 12 hours north of the capital city, uploading this post, with photos even, using 3G wireless internet. Not long ago that wouldn’t have been within my capacity to imagine.

I know there is nothing new in comparing communications infrastructure and networks to a road system. But I am struck today, after the drive to Wa, with the similarities — and the vital need for both. I’m convinced that, just like the roads that provide a basis for connection, communication and commerce; Internet, via undersea cable or mobile or whatever, is essential infrastructure for development.

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The elephant in the room

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, random, musing or confusing, smart aid, social media, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2010| 24 Comments »

courtesy of bioweb.uwlax.edu

One of the best things about the Great Tshirt Debate has been the variety of voices and perspectives that are weighing in.  This one potentially misguided project was able to catalyze a huge discussion on the nature of ‘aid’.  Once again the power of social media to engage people in debate and dialogue was demonstrated.

There are a lot of angles to follow up on from last week’s blow up. There’s a lot to unpack and it goes much deeper than a conversation about t-shirts.  One thread I find particularly interesting is the use of social media and ICTs (information and communication technologies) for bringing greater accountability and generating input and dialogue around ideas for aid and development.

Christopher Fabian, Owen Barder and @Morealtitude wrote about this specifically in relation to the Tshirt Debate; and Duncan Greene, Owen Barder, Aidwatch,  Tim Ogden, and others in a broader debate about accountability, aid and development. Certainly there are many posts and discussions out there on this topic.

Some things that stand out for me in the aftermath of the tshirt discussion:

Broadening perspectives.

It’s easy to forget that we all mean something different when we use the terms ‘aid’ and ‘development.’ There is a big difference between emergency aid and longer-term development.  And there are countless theories and approaches and understandings of both of those terms  (Alanna Shaikh and Talesfromthehood have both written on that).  This was really apparent throughout the discussion last week and in the on-going commentary.

I’m still trying to sort out in my own mind the difference between the various aid and development theories, the perspectives of the ‘aid bloggers’ that I follow, and the frameworks of other people who were involved in the Tshirt Debate. People’s views are intimately linked with cultural, political, economic and religious worldviews, and varying levels of snark (which I have to say can be very intimidating) making it even more interesting.  Before Twitter and the blogosphere, I certainly didn’t have daily exposure and access to such an array of thoughts.  Score one for social media.

The elephant in the room.

All this access to all these perspectives and on-line debate and open participation is great for me. And for you. Because we read English and have access to the internet.

But there is a really big elephant in the room.  One that was lurking on the global conference call hosted by Mobile Active on April 30 and that is still standing around quietly as the discussions continue.  I’m talking about the voices and perspectives of the people that the 1millionshirts project was aimed at helping.

I would bet money that some of those voices would have said “I want a tshirt.”

There are a lot of possible outcomes when ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘donors’ actually talk to each other.  Like donors wanting to give t-shirts and people wanting to receive them.  Then what?  Most of those involved in aid and development and work with local economies can and have listed a myriad of reasons why handouts are not a good idea, but most also believe in listening to voices of ‘beneficiaries.’   It seems paternalistic to say that NGOs or businesspeople know best what people need.  What will happen when more donors and beneficiaries are using social media to talk to one another?  And what if NGOs or governments or business people trying to improve ‘developing country’ economies don’t agree?  Then what?  That’s going to be pretty interesting. For a taste of this can of worms, read this post and related comments.

Development education.

This brings me to thinking about the educational processes that contribute to good development results.  Around the world, people have been presented with hand-out and silver bullet ideas around development and aid for a long time. Donors need to be educated about effective aid and development, but communities do also.  People have been trained to gravitate towards one-off donations and charity mentalities, and need to learn why that isn’t actually very helpful in the long term. They’ve been taught that there is a silver bullet we just need to find. People have also been trained to take hand outs and see themselves as victims and need to re-learn how to take the reins and do for themselves.  This is true everywhere – people look for the easy way out. Consider how many people in the US for example prefer to get plastic surgery or take miracle diet pills and medications over adopting healthier lifestyles involving a good diet and exercise.  Complicated situations require integrated approaches and often need cultural shifts and behavior changes.  Those take time and effort and are hard to explain.  How does social media impact on or shift this in terms of aid and development, and in which direction is it shifting?

Barriers to social media participation.

Both #1millionshirts and Kiva were held up to a huge amount of scrutiny online via social media.  But again, who was scrutinizing, and who had access to the tools and means to participate in these widespread discussions?  It was not the people getting loans from Kiva or the eventual t-shirt wearers.  It was donors and ‘experts’.  I would hope that there are plenty of discussions happening about Kiva programs at local levels, in person, in meetings and in local media or newspapers. But these don’t normally make their way to the internet.

I don’t know Kiva’s programs well, but I would also hope that Kiva staff and/or partners, for example, are listening to that local input and using it to improve their programs on the ground to make them more useful to participants.  And I would hope that those discussions take place within a longer term education, training and relationship building process as with many NGOs.  This kind of input from and dialogue with program participants is every bit as important for adapting and improving programs and initiatives, and maybe more important, than all the public discussions on the internet…. as long as it’s being listened to and responded to, and as long as local offices are taking these messages up the chain within the organization, and as long as local offices also are being listened to and carry weight within the organization. What might be the role of social media there to move those offline discussions further within organizations and to educate, inform and engage the broader public and ensure that responses and changes are forthcoming and everyone learns from it?

There are still huge barriers to social media participation for many people in communities all over the world… not having electricity, computers, smart phones and internet, to start with. There are also barriers like language, literacy, age and gender based discrimination, hierarchies and cultural norms that limit participation in general by particular groups in discussions and decision making.  When working face-to-face, good organizations are in tune with the barriers and find ways to gather input from those typically left out of the discussion.  How can organizations use what they know about engaging more marginalized populations and apply it to a more creative use of social media to ensure that all voices are heard?  What resources and ICT tools would be needed to do that effectively?

Offline to Online to Offline

And how could more of the discussions that happen on the ground with communities, when programs are being designed, implemented, evaluated and re-designed; be shared in the open by those who are involved – whether participants, local bloggers, citizen journalists, NGO workers or others?  And how can the debates happening online make their way back to communities that are not connected? It would be amazing if more program staff and community workers were blogging and sharing their work and their challenges and accomplishments.  And if more organizational decision makers were listening to what their community workers or other staff who are blogging and tweeting are saying. And if more people participating in programs could share their viewpoints via the internet.  This would be useful to the global commons and would also help the fields of aid and development to improve.

How can we support more communities to have access to social media and ICTs as tools to participate more broadly? And how can community members be the owners and drivers of this discussion and input. How can we help bring voices from the grassroots to a broader public and also bring these broader public debates back to communities.  How can the access, language, literacy and cultural barriers be addressed?  There are some programs out there doing this, for example Global Voices Rising, MIT’s Department of Play at the Center for Future Civic Media, and the Maneno platform, but we really need more of it.

Youth.

I think as connectivity becomes less of a challenge, we will see the younger generation claiming spaces in this way. More organizations should be working to engage more young people in the development process and supporting them to access ICTs and social media.  When a consultation with children and youth was done after the Haiti earthquakes, for example, young people did not say that they wanted hand outs.  They said that they wanted to participate. They wanted to play a stronger role in the recovery and the reconstruction.  They said they wanted education, a voice in how things were to be done, decentralization.

Staff that I’ve worked with on youth and ICT programs in several countries have said that ICTs and community media are excellent tools for engaging youth in the development process and maintaining their interest, for supporting youth-led research and collecting opinions about community processes.  With advances in technology, these voices can reach a much broader and public audience and can be pulled into donor communications as well as used as input in the resource and problem analysis, program design,  program monitoring and evaluation processes.  Youth can access information previously unavailable to them which broadens their own views and helps in their education processes. They can also contribute information and images of themselves and their communities to the online pool of resources so that they are portraying themselves to the world in their own image as opposed to being shown by and through the eyes of outsiders.

In addition to the Tshirt Debate stirring up questions about good donorship, I really hope it stirs up the debate about the value of more local ‘beneficiary’ voices in aid and development discussions, and that it fuels more efforts to use, adapt, and develop social media tools and ICTs to support these voices to join the debate.

What about you?  What do you think?

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ICT4D in Uganda – “ICT” does not equal “computers”

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, Uganda, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2010| 5 Comments »

As part of our ongoing work around using ICTs (information and communication technology) in our programs and general operations, 10 staff in Plan Uganda did a 2-day workshop in March, 2010.  The workshop was based on a distance learning pack that my colleague Mika Valitalo (Plan Finland), Hannah Beardon (Mobiles for Development report) and I put together. It includes some narrated slide shows, short videos, and a series of questions and exercises to guide discussion around strategically incorporating ICTs into our work where and when it is appropriate and feasible.  So far the workshops have been conducted in 6 countries with 2 still to come.

Anthony Makumbi, from our Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, facilitated this Uganda workshop (and credit for the information below goes to him). Anthony is the Regional Community ICT Advisor and has a long experience working on ICTs and ICT4D in the region.  He’s also just written up a pretty impressive draft document which will guide Plan’s ICT strategies in Eastern and Southern Africa.

“We initially thought that when you talked about ICT you were referring to the computer guys, but our minds have now been opened further on the topic. We’ve learned that ‘ICT’ does not equal ‘computers’. Instead, the term ICT encompasses any technology tool that enables information flow and communication.”  (participant)

This always seems to come up in these trainings – people realize that thinking about and using ICTs is not something that is limited to technicians, geeks, network specialists, programmers, the IT Department, etc.  Demystifying this term is so important in order to get people interested and to open up to thinking about how ICTs can support their every day work.

Staff also said that they needed more exposure to new ICTs and innovations. “People need to be informed of something in order to be able to seek further information about it.  If we know about available technologies and what they can offer, we will further explore them.”

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Below is a summary of the Uganda team’s general reflections from the workshop:

Multi stakeholder approaches are necessary to promote innovation and a favorable climate for integration of ICTs.  It is vital to work with governments as the main regulators, the private sector to effectively explore the use of technology, and civil society to ensure that the services are accessible to the population. (For example, the Seacom cable was meant to reduce the Internet costs yet there has not been a notable reduction in costs for the general population – what is the role of civil society in making sure this happens?)

Participatory community assessment around trusted information sources. Before embarking on a community ICT initiative, it’s critical to do a participatory assessment of what the trusted information sources are at the community level. This is important especially if you plan on building awareness on particular issues within a community and would like this information to reach as many people as possible.  A participatory assessment can help gain a better understanding of how people communicate and what communication tools  are most effective to reach a particular goal.

Access for women and girls. Cultural practices, the availability or cost of acquiring a tool, and access to that tool or source of information need to be taken into consideration.  Women in many areas are excluded from accessing ICT tools because they do not handle money. A key focus in ICT programs in Uganda should be to strengthen access to information sources, including programs that mitigate women’s and girls’ barriers to use and access. Another tactic might be programs that promote access to basic information for women so that they are also informed and able to utilize information for their own purposes: eg., nutritional information for their children, the need for girls to go to school or avoid early marriages; programs that share information from other sources that influence women’s decisions.

Building on what is available.  Organizations should look at what is around them and leverage available opportunities. In Plan Uganda’s case, for example, this could mean looking at mobile money transfer services linked to Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA); closed user group (CUG) services that define private networks and allow calls made within the private network at large discounts; and services such as the Pakalast promotion on Warid Telecom, which gives users access to each other on the same network for 24hrs for about 80 cents. Awareness should also be built about tools that can provide radio signals apart from a radio, such as a phone with radio access.

Literacy levels and local language. In Uganda, literacy levels are low.  Many people do not manage English. Technologies need to be made available in local languages. Fast track learning could also be considered, such as the development of an integrated education program to address technology and literacy. A close look at mobiles phones — which have taken off at their own pace with the existing literacy levels – could help us to think about how other technologies might fare similarly well.

Electricity.  Solar power should be built into all of our initiatives.

Mobile tools. Mobile data collection could be used instead of paper systems that are currently in place and very laborious. Services like use of SMS for accessing national exam results could serve as a stimulus to further expose communities on what these technologies can do for them.  SMS services could also be used to acquire basic quantitative data in, for example, VSLAs to collect information about group portfolios, or gender ratios or youth participation by age. This can then be vital for designing further programming.

GPS. This could be a useful tool in a program like Community Lead Total Sanitation (CLTS). Latrine coverage could be mapped at the start of a CLTS project in a community and after the project has been implemented over time. This could be linked to health programs that could track a reduction in diarrhea cases in the community, and then this information could be linked to home improvement campaigns as evidence based approach.

ICTs in Governance. ICTs can give communities a platform to provide feedback on services rendered and also know of services available to them.

New ICTs or ICT applications that staff found most interesting:  SMS and mobile data gathering, platforms such as Village Diary for managing confidential legal services and potentially HIV/AIDs program information, blogging to open up channels for discussion on issues and bringing together social movements and organizations working on similar issues, wikis for writing reports, podcasting which could be used in capacity building interventions for multiple groups.

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Plan Uganda staff felt that this type of training on ICTs should be expanded to more people in the organization, and to partner organizations, to build more buy in. They recognized the importance of organizational commitment to moving forward in this area, and asked for continuous training on new ICT tools and innovations.  Ongoing evaluation was suggested to measure the value added by ICTs to program activities, and a follow-up workshop was requested to check progress on the ideas that were generated.

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Mind the gap

Posted in development, disaster and emergencies, Haiti, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, smart aid, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2010| 11 Comments »

There are a lot of great ideas floating around about how Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) and technology in general can help to rebuild Haiti.  I hope these ideas keep coming.  I would love to see international development organizations, aid agencies and non-profits in general open up more to ideas on how technology can improve the lives of the people they are trying to support as well as facilitate coordination and program implementation.

But I also hope that the technology folks who haven’t worked in a crisis context such as that in Haiti will lend an ear to those who have experience working in past disasters and on-going development programs, human rights work, volunteer initiatives and advocacy. Those experiences shouldn’t be tossed out as old-school.  Good programs and experiences exist that can be examined, processed and built on.

I work globally, with one foot in community development and the other in ICTs, and I notice a gap between these 2 sectors, though they could really learn a lot from each other and work nicely together.

Cool technology ideas, just like cool program ideas can flop on the ground if the local culture and context are not taken into consideration, users were not involved or consulted during design and testing, the supposed ‘problem’ really wasn’t a problem at all, the proposed idea is not sustainable, a better/preferred local solution already exists, etc., etc.

Sometimes when I hear enthusiastic people sharing ideas for new applications, innovations or program ideas that they want to implement in ‘developing’ countries, I find myself thinking:  “Wow.  They have no idea what it’s like on the ground.”  I don’t want to shoot down someone’s excitement.  But I do wish that those who are not intimately familiar with their end users would slow down, think for a minute, and realize that local context is king. I wish they would remember that ultimately this is not about them and their ideas for other people. I wish they would stop being mad that abc organization won’t take that shipment of xyz technology that they want to send over, or that no one wants to implement such and such program that was so successful in such and such place.  Solutions looking for problems are not the best way to go about things, even when you have the very best of intentions.

However, non-profit organizations (large and small)  can be totally resistant to trying new tools, technologies and programs that could make a huge difference in their effectiveness, impact and quality of programming. They can be bureaucratic and slow to put new ideas to work.  They can be risk averse, afraid of failure, and resistant to innovation and new ideas.  The seemingly limitless relationships that need to be negotiated around can really slow things down.

Sometimes I see non-profits doing things they way they’ve always been done and I find myself thinking “Wow.  I wish they’d be open to trying ________.” I wish organizations would be more willing to test out new technologies and new ideas that don’t come from within their sector. I wish it were easier to make change happen.

When it comes to the Haiti earthquake response, the technology and non-profit sectors are 2 of the key players.  I’m worried that the outpouring of interest in helping will lead to a lot of wheel re-inventing.  I’m worried about local relevance and executability (if that’s even a word) of some of the ideas I am seeing.  I have concerns about the amount of projects being conceived and designed from afar.  I also see that there are new program and technology ideas out there that have the potential to make people’s lives easier if they were well integrated into the local reality, yet there are many factors that prohibit and inhibit organizations from exploring them or using them.

The technology and non-profit sectors benefit quite a lot from each other when they work together and understand each other.  It would be great to see a bigger effort to bridge the gap between these sectors.  Regardless of whether people believe NGOs and/or private enterprises and/or technologists or the Haitian government or the UN are good or bad, there are a lot of experiences that can be learned from and/or improved on from all sides.

The links below might be helpful for thinking about designing technology, ICT and programs in ‘developing’ country contexts and to help avoid known pitfalls and overcome obstacles. They can help reduce the amount of time and other resources wasted on projects that are not sustainable or impactful, or at worst are actually harmful in the short or long term to the very people that we all want to support and help.  There are certainly many more resources out there… please add ones that you find helpful in the comments section.

ICT Works and The 4 C’s of ICT Deployment

Mobiles for Development Guide by Hannah Beardon

IDEO Human Centered Design Toolkit

Changemakers and Kiwanja collaboration: SMS How To Guide

Mobile Active‘s case studies

ML4D:  Mobile learning for development’s design narratives

Ushahidi Blog: February Archives have a lot of information on the Haiti response

iRevolution: thought provoking posts on technology and crisis situations

Educational Technology Debate:  Sustaining, rather than sustainable ICT4E and Designing and sustaining a sustainable ICT4E initiative

Posts on Wait… What? that might be useful:

7 (or more) questions to ask before adding ICTs

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Revisiting the topic of Girls and ICTs: Tech Salon Discussions

Posted in children, development, gender, girls, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, participation, protection, youth, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2010| 1 Comment »

I recently had the honor of leading a group of tech, development and gender folks in a discussion around Girls and ICTs at the Technology Salon.  The conversation revolved around 5 aspects I wrote about in an earlier blog post On Girls and ICTs:

  • Tension between participation and protection
  • Online behavior is an extension of, and a potential amplifier of offline behavior
  • Qualifying the digital divide
  • Girls’ involvement in developing and designing ICT solutions for their own needs
  • Research on Girls and ICTs

Check out the Technology Salon’s page for a round-up of our discussions!

Photo:  Informal evening one-on-one ICT time at a Youth Empowerment through Arts and Media (YETAM) project workshop in Cameroon.

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Related post on Wait… What?
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It’s not a black and white photo

Posted in El Salvador, random, musing or confusing, smart aid, tagged , , , , , , on December 28, 2009| 9 Comments »

Before I went to El Salvador in 1991 (read why in my earlier post here), I had never traveled outside the US. I had read lots of articles about the country’s Civil War and intense poverty in the LA Weekly, a lefty newspaper in Los Angeles where I went to school.  I imagined El Salvador as a somber, high contrast black and white photo, with some thick red paint dripping down it to represent the bloodshed and suffering of a noble people being crushed by US Imperialism.  (yeah, pretty dramatic)

To my surprise, El Salvador was more of a bright, animated 3-D movie with endless layers of depth and detail.  The poor, simple, suffering, downtrodden people I had imagined I would live among in San Salvador were in reality intelligent, active, politically savvy individuals who listened to a lot of loud cumbia music (and some Rock en Espanol), privately followed politics with a passion, piled into a pickup truck on Sundays for soccer games, and bustled around with intensity.  There were meals to make and bills to pay in spite of the sporadic skirmishes outside of the capital, the possibility of being outed as an opposition supporter or recruited forcibly into the military, and the lack of free speech in the company of certain individuals and in the media.

Kids went to school, played marbles, laughed and flew kites.  Although lack of money was an obvious issue and there were scary soldiers with machine guns on every street corner downtown, people lived their daily lives pretty much like people do everywhere, dealing with the good, the bad, and quite a lot of the petty.  There were no noble sufferers.  There were no simple portraits.  Life was not a black and white photo.  Rather there were people living within intricate layers of economic, political, family and personal relationships, adapting skillfully to an ugly cold war reality.

Like everywhere, each individual was complex, as was every set of relationships.  The man who beat his wife would step aside with a gracious smile to allow you to pass on a narrow sidewalk. The woman who offered to help you carry your basket from the market might also be the one burying effigies and lighting candles to bring down business at the local tienda out of envy.  The guy who handed out cash to the kids to buy a soda was likely also the one who was informing the government of the names of people who sided with the opposition.  And (as I found out on this trip) the midwife’s daughter, who accompanied your children’s births along with her mother, might one day go to prison for being part of her husband’s organized crime group. These situations were all open secrets to everyone in the Barrio.

The “80% of people living in poverty” statistic (or whatever the number was at that time) didn’t mean a lot once you dug into it. Those newspaper photos of the impoverished, suffering people were a very thin reading of reality.  Behind them there were layers and layers of economic hierarchies and social depth.

About 3 years after I moved to El Salvador I started my first NGO job. One of my responsibilities was accompanying delegations to see different community projects. In many cases, as soon as we’d arrive to the communities, people would approach me and unleash the litany of their troubles and poverty, sometimes wringing their hands or their hat, asking for help, painting themselves as victims because I was white, had arrived in a 4×4 with an NGO logo on the side and a group of foreigners, and could translate their pleas for help.

I must have seemed pretty heartless, but it was hard to see people prostrating themselves when they lived in similar conditions to the ones my neighbors and I did in the Barrio, and no one in the Barrio saw me as someone who would fix things for them.

It probably seemed to the foreign visitors that a terrible thing had happened to me.  I had become “immune to the suffering”.  But what I think was really the case is that I didn’t feel sorry for people. I had no illusions that I could solve anyone’s problems and I felt really uncomfortable in this unfamiliar hierarchy.

My biggest work-related take-away from my time in El Salvador is an awareness of the hidden community dynamics and of what I represent when I visit different communities wherever my work takes me.  I’m acutely aware that there’s a lot happening under the surface that I know nothing about, and can’t know about, especially if I don’t speak the language or live in the community for a really long time or develop close and familiar relationships with several people so I can hear different viewpoints. (Perhaps that’s the anthropologist in me).

I’m hyper sensitive that I need to stay in the background. Community members, community organizations and local staff need to take the lead.  And when I see that there is a seat for me at that table up in front of the community assembly, I die a little inside.  When possible, I grab my camera as an excuse for not sitting there and roam around taking photos (of the non-black-and-white-with-dripping-red-blood variety).

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Development Education – a relevant term?

Posted in development, random, musing or confusing, tagged , , , , on August 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I recently participated in some research that an organization is doing to update its Development Education strategy. One of the questions during the interview was whether the term ‘development education’ is relevant anymore, and for whom. It made me think about a comment I recently came across asking if people in ‘developing’ countries use the term ICT4D or just call it ‘ICT.’

Development Education is often used to describe different activities that development organizations do ‘in the North’ to educate donors, students, and/or the public in general about the realities of the “developing” world. It aims to help people better understand ‘good development’ and to get them to make personal choices that would contribute to ‘good development’ overseas (eg., voting, purchasing or consuming differently, supporting policies that offer certain benefits to the developing world, volunteering, ‘spreading the word’, etc.).

Development Education can be used to prime or soften people up for advocacy campaigns and concrete actions. It can be directed at large donors when organizations are attempting to get them to change policies or funding habits. It can be part of the school curriculum, created in a way that maintains a middle ground, but prompts students to think about issues and choices faced in development or the global context (see Choices for the 21st Century Curriculum). And some governments give grants out under the category of ‘development education’ when they are funding organizations to ‘educate’ people overseas about how friendly and generous the donor country and their policies and people are.

In most cases, I think the concept of Development Education is a good one. It helps people understand the broader picture, the structural causes of poverty, cultural relevance, why hand-outs are not the way to go, why local ownership is important, and why the way people do things ‘here’ isn’t necessarily the way people should do things ‘there’. It helps scratch under the surface of advocacy campaigns so that people better understand why they are signing something or clicking on that email to their senators. It can be a way of bringing examples of good practices and real situations to large donors to change their perspectives on what they donate to based on concrete experiences rather than hyphotheses and theories or the latest trends.

Development Education seems especially important in the US where people often give out of a charity mindset or guilt; where they are bombarded daily with pathetic images of starving children who can be fed for just 50 cents a day; and where stories of American heroes who go off to ‘solve’ problems for those living in other places get more airtime than stories of capable people in other countries resolving things on their own. It has a place with US young people who don’t have access to much global education in the classroom because standardized tests focus on the 4 basics. (As opposed to the UK, for example, where schools are mandated and funded to offer topics that provide global perspective on global issues). Yes, in the US there is very likely a place for something along the lines of ‘Development Education’.

But can a global organization talk about ‘Development Education’ in a way that is relevant across all countries where it’s working? And if so, what would be the common term? What constitutes Development Education ‘in the South’ and is it even a relevant concept? Can development education be separated from civic engagement, advocacy and political processes? I have some thoughts around this, but haven’t hit on one that convinces me enough…. I’m sure I could just google it, but what would be the fun in that?

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