Development Practice

I would say Bribespot.com could be one of the tools for a humanitarian worker to report incidents and see the corruption situation and type of corruption near her current location.

I've worked in NGOs in Kenya for a year, as well as in Guatemala (not totally irrelevant) and have just two short thoughts that I haven't seen above.

Firstly, I have seen dependency on a small scale, but it seems to me that the type of aid that distorts national economies seems to come from government aid, not NGO activities. It often has a political context, like the aid to Egypt!

Secondly, I think it's ironic that the most worthwhile aid is often the most old-fashioned, service-oriented and unsophisticated. Most of these were already being carried out in colonial times: hospitals, schools, and agricultural training. Let's add in nutritional supplements and vaccines though they are a little more modern-day. These things build capacity without giving people sources of support that make them dependent, and without telling them how to be in a very fluid and unpredictable world.

Ironically, road-building is a crucial colonial-era activity which can be fantastically helpful economically, but this is where we start to get into the iffy teritory discussed above. Thanks for reading, what an interesting feed!

I think the range of answers so far highlights the complexities of development assistance - not surprising given we are talking about lots of different strategies by different organisations and countries, working with lots of different communities over the last 50 years or so.  No blanket statements are likely to be true.  However as some have pointed out there have been some amazing improvements in poverty indicators (eg child and maternal deaths, new HIV infections, literacy, position of women etc).  These improvements are probably due to a combination of new technologies, economic development and aid.  Recent drops in new HIV infections and deaths and in child deaths from malaria appear to be largely the result of aid.

I am presently based in Africa and my job requires me to travel around the Horn, East and Central African countries on development related work. 

This is a complicated question with no one ‘correct’ answer. We already have a lot of excellent answers already. I am going to try and answer this from my
perspective and understanding of the aid business and Africa.  

The question, imo, is the top-of-mind-question for most governments, African or otherwise, multilateral agencies, NGOs and communities.

The fact is that whether is does good or bad depends. I am not copping out. Just saying that it depends on a lot of aspects like

• What is the aid for?
• Whom does it target?
• Is it time bound?
• Is it conditional?
• What are the non-obvious strings attached?

I would parse aid into two parts

1. Humanitarian aid targeted at life saving for communities suffering from natural disasters or conflicts. This aid offers short term gains and is not expected to build something sustainable.
2. Development aid which is longer term which is targeted towards more sustainable work. 

Even as I say this I know that there is only limited value in looking at this in
independent silos. Humanitarian aid strategies need to eventually dovetail into
long-term development strategies, lest one be left with the unenviable option
of repeated humanitarian support.

Another way of subdividing is to look at aid that is provided to governments and aid that goes directly to communities via NGOs. We will need to analyse them separately.

One of the areas where aid has helped significantly has been in the area of health - immunisation, malaria control etc. It has also been an area where it failed - HIV/AIDS. Investments in prevention came much too late (of course most African governments were also at error in not taking the early warnings seriously) with the result that a large portion of aid is spent in ARTs. 

I am going to focus my answer on the issue of Aid through NGOs. There is otherwise danger that this answer will be much longer than it already is.  

Humanitarian aid, mostly, does a lot of good. It saves lives and helps rebuild livelihoods. When you think of this, think 15 million starving people in the Horn of Africa in 2011 who would have mostly perished had it not been for aid.  

Then why do I say ‘mostly’? Three reasons

1. Sustained Aid makes communities dependent on it and throttles entrepreneurship.
2. Governments are let off the hook when it comes to protecting their citizens; they know that the international community will respond.
3. Wrongly targeted aid, mainly arising out of poor understanding of ground realities, does a lot of potential harm. A case in point is aid provided to the millions of Rwandan refugees, who streamed into the Eastern provinces  of Democratic Republic of Congo in the aftermath of the genocide in 1994. The fact of the matter was that most of these refugees were genocidaires who were fleeing the rapidly advancing army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. They were not victims of the genocide but perpetrators. All aid did was to help them recoup and eventually re-arm.

Longer Term Development aid through NGOs does not really make an impact at a significant enough scale. 

There are excellent examples at micro-level but the dent made in overall poverty statistics remains limited. This is because many micro experiments are delivered with focussed & intense resources and strategies. Also many a time strategies for taking the learning to scale are often not developed or even developable.

There are many reasons for micro impact. The quantum of aid flowing in through NGOs for long term development work is limited.  Therefore, their reach is limited. Further, since space for NGOs in overall discourse is restricted, their impact on long term policies and markets is limited.  

So while aid long term development aid through NGOs may not be doing harm to Africa, it is not doing a great deal of good either.

A passing thought on aid to Governments: apart from 2 or 3 examples of aid being leveraged positively, aid to governments has done more harm than good to Africa.

Not for Reproduction

So this would be an enhancement for a solution that doesn't exists?

Kinda like ''how do we colonize earth-like planets after we get hyperspace engines?''.

Given the size of the original problem, much like with FTL drives I think that if we ever arrive at a real concise solution to poverty we will figure a way to solve any communication irregularities that may arise.

Similarly we can land on a planet, we just can't get to the planet.

Climate change is that process that has been occurring for over 4 Billion years, Global Warming is what happens in between Ice Ages

I don't think there are any drawbacks to this technology in emerging markets where the number of people not covered by banking services is overwhelmingly high. The technology provides the closest thing to a banking service. In Kenya fro example, there are an estimated 20 million people living below poverty. However, a great number of them possess mobile phones and more than likely,M-Pesa.

It really does depend on how it is done. One thing is to switch from the mindset of foreign assistance as foreign "aid" which connotes charity. There are different ways of engaging, but for too long the debate about foreign assistance in Africa has been an academic exercise rather than an on the ground analysis. We've measured inputs--dollars or school books--instead of outcome--growth in GDP or literacy rates. Recently Secretary Clinton gave a speech at the 4th High Level Meeting on Aid Effectiveneess that addressed many of the issues in this chain. I recommend you take a quick look (entire speech here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hi...)

I'm pleased to be the first American Secretary of State to attend such a
forum.  We've already heard some excellent addresses with a lot food
for thought, and I imagine that all of the prior speeches will be
studied and relied upon as we judge the outcomes of our efforts here at
Busan.  Let me therefore say that I will put my entire remarks on our
website for anyone who wishes to read them, but let me make a few
comments about how I see what we are doing here today together, because I
think it's important that we recognize the accomplishments that have
occurred, in some places quite dramatically, as we have heard not only
about Korea but also about Rwanda.  But let us also acknowledge honestly
the challenges and the problems that we must address if we expect to
see greater progress. 

It's imperative to recognize a fact that is important in all of our
deliberations. Official development assistance from governments and
multilateral organizations is no longer the primary driver of economic
growth.  In the 1960s, such assistance represented 70 percent of the
capital flows going into developing countries.  But today, because of
private sector growth and increased trade, domestic resources,
remittances, and capital flows, it is just 13 percent - even as
development budgets have continued to increase.

So what does that mean for us?  Well, with official development
assistance representing a much smaller share of the resources flowing
into developing countries, we have to think differently about how we use
it.  I believe it must serve as a catalyst to spark self-sustaining
progress - by helping to reduce risks that prevent companies from doing
business in developing countries; by helping governments and domestic
financial institutions expand credit to local small and medium
enterprises; by working with governments to address the structural
barriers to advancement, especially for women - and we've heard already
about education, but there are also outdated land tenure laws and access
to capital that are real impediments - and by lending technical
assistance that helps governments build their capacity to better serve
their own citizens.

In short, we need to continue shifting our approach and our thinking
from aid to investment,  investments targeted to produce tangible
returns.  And we have to be very honest about it, because wise investors
choose their investments carefully.  They manage for risks; they
amplify their impact by trying to draw even more participants to the
table.  But when a particular investment is not producing the projected
returns, there have to be tough decisions made about whether to modify
or eliminate it.

Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hi...

This is a somewhat difficult question.  It might be worth contrasting working in Nairobi to working in Dar es Salaam or else contrasting working in a town in Kenya to a town in Tanzania or contrasting working in a village in Kenya to a village in Tanzania.

For Nairobi vs. Dar, they are both commercial hubs with a lot of infrastructure in place to support businesses.  They both are filled with head offices of companies, NGOs, government agencies and most of the other big players you might need to deal with.  They both have horrible traffic jams and have higher crime rates than the rest of the countries (though Nairobi is probably a bit more dangerous--only based on my experience, I don't have any links to back that up).  Dar is ahead of Nairobi in terms of scenery (once you get to the beaches, anyway), but in most other categories, Nairobi has the edge (if not a substantial margin of victory).  In part, that comes from a perception of the coast (of both countries) as more slow moving (partially due to the oppressive heat).  But also, it comes from the fact that the politicians in Nairobi have done a much better job of fostering a climate that favors investment and allows people working there to accomplish what they are trying to do.  Not to say that the majority of people succeed in what they set out to accomplish, but that tends to be true in a lot of places around the world.

For comparing towns, Kenya has Tanzania beat in most cases on infrastructure.  In addition to the better transport links and network coverage, Kenyan towns tend to have more branches of companies, banks and NGOs.  Also, both will have local government offices that you will probably need to work through.  In many cases, it is difficult to work with those offices and they can drag down a program.  However, in most towns, there are a few government ministries that really have their act together and can really support awesome projects if they align with their priorities.  Of course, there is a lot of variation between towns within Kenya and Tanzania, so it depends a lot on where you end up.

For comparing villages, it's also going to depend very heavily on where you are in each country.  In Tanzania, you'll usually be able to get by with Kiswahili, while in Kenya, you're more often faced with a tribal language (though in some communities, they will speak a good amount of English or Kiswahili).  In Kenya, tribe will play an important defining role in the community, while in Tanzania people have more of a national identity.  One aspect that is usually nice but occasionally frustrating on both sides of the border is the limited role of local government (often easier to work without their meddling), though it is probably more limited in Kenya than it is in Tanzania.

A reputable recycling business in your area can cull gold and other precious metals from used electronics. And that business can keep heavy metals and other toxics out of landfills in the same way. Recycling is a win-win. Never throw your used equipment in a dumpster!

And when it comes to recycling, management rather than disposal is key, as the question suggests. Look for a recycler that takes a management approach, either breaking down all used equipment in their facility or contracting out the work to a processor that doesn’t ship equipment overseas. Be absolutely sure to ask your recycler about these two points before contracting with them.
Not all used equipment needs to become waste, however. Some laptops, printers and other electronics can be refurbished for resale to low-income households and the general public alike.

A recycler may refurbish equipment for charitable or commercial reasons. But be on the lookout for resale businesses that ship to third-world locations. Some claim to be charitable organizations donating used equipment to the poor, but sometimes the reality is very different. Some third-world villages have be come dumping grounds for unusable equipment, making environmental hazards a reality in places where there is no way to protect the local people and wildlife from the resulting pollution.

Here again, be sure to ask your potential recycler about their resale practices before signing them on.

-Frank Gustafson

RenovoData Services, Minneapolis, MN

www.renovods.com

Can you be more specific about the goals of the strategy?

Frankly I believe it does more harm than good, but Andrew
Mwenda can articulate it more than I can, check out his presentation at Ted Talks http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_...

I think you' ll see more banks implementing west ern style mortgage programs as more home ownership programs are introduced..you will also see the infrastructure being built to facilitate mobile cashless transactions..I think 2012 is too shirt a time frame..I would say in 3-5 yrs..

Check out ODK Build. This is a free online interface for developing the
surveys and deploying using ODK Collect. But I am sure you could do a
local install of ODK Build too if needed:

http://build.opendatakit.org/