
The Problem With International Development and a Plan to Fix It - specialk
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120178/problem-international-development-and-plan-fix-it
======
cpks
> The repeated “success, scale, fail” experience of the last 20 years of
> development practice suggests something super boring: Development projects
> thrive or tank according to the specific dynamics of the place in which
> they’re applied. It’s not that you test something in one place, then scale
> it up to 50. It’s that you test it in one place, then test it in another,
> then another. No one will ever be invited to explain that in a TED talk.

Perhaps. That model works very well in Silicon Valley. It's just that the
expectation is that most projects will fail. Development projects are similar,
only with an unrealistic expectation of success early on, and without
appropriate processes to fail fast, recover money from failures, etc.

What I'd like to see is fundraising with:

* Big figures * Long-term windows * Milestones

In other words, I raise $10 million as $2 million per year, contingent on
meeting specific milestones. Or $200k/$1 million/$4 million. Or whatever. As a
fundraiser, I have a strong interest to write realistic plans -- not just
grandiose but impractical visions -- since if I fail to execute, I lose
funding. I also have a confirmed, steady, long-term source of funding, so I'm
not spending 90% of my time selling.

If I do fail, the money is recovered.

~~~
wozniacki

      In 2010, “Frontline” returned to the schools where they had filmed children 
      laughing on the merry-go-rounds, splashing each other with water. They 
      discovered pumps rusting, billboards unsold, women stooping to turn the wheel
      in pairs. Many of the villages hadn’t even been asked if they wanted a 
      PlayPump, they just got one, sometimes replacing the handpumps they already
      had. In one community, adults were paying children to operate the pump. 
    
      Let’s not pretend to be surprised by any of this. The PlayPump story is a sort
      of Mad Libs version of a narrative we’re all familiar with by now: Exciting new
      development idea, huge impact in one location, influx of donor dollars, quick
      expansion, failure.
    

Frontline Video from 2005 "The Play Pump" :

[http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/watch/player.html?pkg=entr...](http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/watch/player.html?pkg=entrepreneur&seg=13&mod=0)

Frontline Video from 2010 "Troubled Water" :

[http://video.pbs.org/video/1533347949/](http://video.pbs.org/video/1533347949/)

~~~
cpks
And it cost $15 million.

The annual cost of product failures in the US is $100 billion.

Big whoop. PlayPump is 0.1% of that. Your share of the PlayPump (assuming
equal cost to everyone in the US)? A nickel. You don't just fund a PlayPump.
You fund a thousand PlayPumps. Nine hundred fail, and one hundred have impact.

Someone tried to do good. Perhaps they didn't succeed. What happened as a
result? They got ridiculed. That's the failure of PlayPump. Not the folks who
did it, but the folks in 2010 mocking them. It brings about a culture which
doesn't take risks, and that's a culture which cannot bring about change in
the world.

------
ggchappell
Interesting article. Worth reading all the way through.

FTA:

> The repeated “success, scale, fail” experience of the last 20 years of
> development practice suggests something super boring: Development projects
> thrive or tank according to the specific dynamics of the place in which
> they’re applied. It’s not that you test something in one place, then scale
> it up to 50. It’s that you test it in one place, then test it in another,
> then another. No one will ever be invited to explain that in a TED talk.

On the contrary, I think this idea would be an excellent topic for a TED talk.

~~~
jasode
I think you missed the journalist's jaded sarcasm embedded in " _No one will
ever be invited to explain that in a TED talk._ "

I'm guessing TED has had 50+ presentations on "solutions" for Africa over the
last 5 years. We'd expect that some of the ideas have failed to deliver.
However, we can't expect TED organizers to give stage time to followup
presentations explaining why they failed (or why the ideas at smaller scope
didn't scale up to large one like they hoped.)

So yes, _we_ would get more value out of hard-hitting TED talks explaining
warts and difficulties but we can't expect TED themselves to highlight it. A
similar concept is "publication bias" against negative or non-repeatable
research results:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias#Definition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias#Definition)

------
danieltillett
I found the most interesting part the gaming of the system by the aid agencies
to hide their overheads to hit the required 10% level.

~~~
wozniacki
This reminds me of the account of NGOs ( Non Governmental Organizations )- key
functionaries in the dispensation of foreign aid - in Jim Rogers' book,
Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip, something I read many many years
ago:

    
    
      "Even in countries with no roads to speak of, Mercedes service is available – often
      to the exclusion of things like food – thanks to all the US foreign aid, the IMF,
      and World Bank money being shipped in.  It is no secret that this money is aimed at
      nourishing only those corrupt enough to get their hands on it, while at the same 
      time fattening the bureaucrats on both sides of the transaction who diligently 
      work the trough.  And none of them is driving a Chevy.
    
      I knew much of this from my last trip.  The upcoming trip, especially as it took
      us through Africa, would be an eye-opening education into the workings of the
      latest foreign aid scam: the nongovernmental organization, or NGO.  As an American
      taxpayer, I would be amazed to discover that a lot of the money we send to these 
      countries goes to support Mercedes and BMW dealers and various Swiss bankers."
    
      "After cocoa, the commodity produced in greatest abundance in the Ivory Coast is to
       be found in the commercial capital, Abidjan, one of the more cosmopolitan cities in
      West Africa: NGO bureaucrats.  They grow here in enormously high concentration, even
      for Africa.  They and their like have been directing Africa’s destiny for centuries. 
      One might wonder why so many national boundaries in these parts consist of straight
      lines.  In Germany in 1884, at what was called the Congress of Berlin, the European
      powers came together and divided up Africa.  They paid no attention to religious,
      ethnic, linguistic, tribal, national, or historical differences – the Ivory Coast,
      for example, is divided between a majority Muslim population in the north and those
      who hold to indigenous beliefs and Christianity in the south, explaining why peace
      in Africa may be far away.  And why there will always be work for Western
      bureaucrats." [1]
    

On the other hand, this is what Bill Gates has to say on corruption and why it
should not be a deterrent to the continued giving of foreign aid:

    
    
      There is a double standard at work here. I’ve heard people calling on the government
      to shut down some aid program if one dollar of corruption is found. On the other 
      hand, four of the past seven governors of Illinois have gone to prison for 
      corruption, and to my knowledge no one has demanded that Illinois schools be shut down
      or its highways closed. [2]
    

Even fully discounting the fact that the man is unimaginably wealthy and can
afford the graft and misuse of funds, I am still not quite convinced by this
line of reasoning. At this point I'm just hoping that I don't wake up some
eight years from now to discover that even things like Kiva loans [3] had been
all along a huge waste of effort, time and - yes - money.

[1] Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812967267](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812967267)

[2] 3 MYTHS THAT BLOCK PROGRESS FOR THE POOR

[http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-
two](http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#section=myth-two)

[3] Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems

[http://www.cgdev.org/blog/kiva-not-quite-what-it-
seems](http://www.cgdev.org/blog/kiva-not-quite-what-it-seems)

------
ommunist
Nice article. I especially like the revolutionary idea that deworming pupils
does not affect their school performance. Yes, human development is the thing
that has to be fixed. But dreaming smaller is not going to fix that. Working
harder - can, but it is not that much attractive.

Disclaimer: I have been involved in development projects feted by JICA.

