This was cross-posted on Medium, here.
In the past few years, the start-up culture in the States
and parts of Europe has exploded. Along with the explosion have come a record
number of companies that aim to do a “social good” by providing products and
services for the world’s poor. While the Global North’s[1]
private sector (GNPS) wages its debate on what type of solution is needed –
from social enterprises, to (lean) start-ups, to venture capital funds, to
philanthropy to corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of major
companies – I want to offer some thoughts from an international development
prospective, regardless of which private sector solution you favor. After all,
the areas these GNPS “social good” initiatives are aiming to reach come on the
heels of decades of international development work. Both sides stand to learn a
lot.
Ceremony with the Burundian Ministry of Health and the vaccination alliance, GAVI - October 2014
How International
Development Thinking Differs
Level of
Accountability
By far, the concept in international development (ID) work
the GNPS seems to understand the least is level of accountability. In ID, our
ultimate goals are to lessen poverty and better economic empowerment in a given
context, such as a community, a city or even an entire country. If a GNPS company
offers a product or service to a client that fails to meet their needs, there
is no punitive recourse so long as legal obligations are met. If I go to the
drugstore and buy paper towels that are not strong enough to handle and
actually create more of a mess in my kitchen, the company that made the paper
towels may choose to better their product to stay competitive, but there is no
inherent obligation on their part to ensure my particular needs are met with
their product. So long as the company sold what they advertised – paper towels –
they have met their requirements.
On the other hand, one of the first things we learn in ID is
that we must ensure stakeholder participation does not lead to a worse
situation than before. Fulfilling this obligation is incredibly hard in places
with weak governments, infrastructure, social benefits and a dearth of
employment opportunities, because if our work fails the stakeholder, we have
wasted their limited assets, time or trust. If we advise an impoverished person
to participate in a training program that doesn’t yield better employment
opportunities, we have asked them to spend time and money to commute to the
training program, to forgo their normal daily work wages, and to raise their
expectations for no benefit. If we advise a farmer to purchase an individual insurance
policy to protect against failed crops, and then her crops fail but not to the
extent to receive compensation, we have asked for money she could have used to better
her yields or purchase food for her family. Even seemingly benign methods of
participation have a trade-off, and it is up to us to determine what that
means.
Because of this higher standard of accountability, ID
organizations have robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mechanisms. The
main purposes of M&E are to define what constitutes “success” and “failure”,
how to prevent unintended harmful consequences, how to improve, and to document
what went wrong. M&E is a huge chunk
of any given ID project because it is central to protecting our stakeholders
and to how ID organizations fulfill donor requirements. The idea of
accountability is thus present from start to end of the ID work lifecycle.
Understanding a
context
Being a minority (South Asian) in America, I can speak from
lived experience that many companies poorly understand segments of the
population in the Global North. However, there are commonly used methods to get
around this poor comprehension; as we move toward the Internet of Things, more
and more of these methods will involve passively generated data. Other common data
examples include analyzing purchase patterns and Internet analytics, or conducting
focus groups or surveys.
Data certainly exists in the Global South. A large part of
what the United Nations (UN) does is collect and analyze data on everything
from populations to health centers to crop yields. Data in Global South often
does not, however, paint as complete a picture because there are so many more
unknowns about a society. That’s why building relationships on the ground is
invaluable to contextualizing our work. In fact, these relationships are one
set of critical advantages proper ID organizations, particularly the UN, have. Without
these relationships, we do not understand why a community does what it does,
where a community gets its information, what values are held in high regard,
and what we can do to better the situation.
Similarly, understanding a country’s current landscape
requires historical, political, and economic knowledge. I once attended an
event hosted by a private sector firm that proclaims itself as a “leader in
international development consulting”. As I got into the elevator to leave the
event, I overheard one of the firm’s associates say that tonight she needs to,
“Put together a presentation on Ethiopian food security”. The Ethiopia country
office of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is a massive operation, serving 8 million+ people. The time,
money, and resources that go into WFP Ethiopia cannot be boiled down into a few
PowerPoint slides, and neither can the entire food security landscape of the
country.
One running joke I have is that ID is all think and no
action, while the private sector is no think and all action. Of course the
truth for both sides is somewhere in between. It should go without saying that
if an issue is central to a company’s work the company needs to have a thorough
understanding of the landscape beyond just market competitors.
Recommendations
for GNPS companies trying to “solve poverty”
Define “poor”
Whether someone makes 2 USD a day or 10 USD a day makes a
big difference. Anyone who wants to work with the “poor” should define what they actually mean by "poor". We have numerous indexes in ID to define and contextualize poverty – use them! Common indexes include GDP per
capita, the Human
Development Index and the Gini coefficient.
Do not push products
and services unnecessarily
Along with understanding what “poor” actually means, a
company trying “solve poverty” should understand their job is not simply to
push products and services. Every company thinks they have stumbled onto
something truly innovative, and while some products and services could do a lot
of good in a particular context, to truly alleviate poverty and better economic
empowerment, the humility to differentiate between a market opportunity and a
value-add is critical.
Do not be afraid of
the government
As an ID practitioner, it is truly painful to watch current
US politics because the Republican party seems convinced that the government
fundamentally has no place in helping people. For those of us who have worked
intimately with governments that have little capacity, we know nothing could be
further from the truth. The reality is that the poorest of the poor will not be
captured by the private sector (Global North or Global South). Further, certain needed services, like public
transportation and healthcare, have to work at scale (and often at a loss) to
stay viable, and therefore cannot be privately run.
ID work is not competing with the government. More often
than not, we are working directly with the government to strengthen systems and
services. Likewise, a GNPS company should not compete with or circumvent the
government. Undoubtedly working with governments can be expensive and
time-consuming, but even if direct collaboration with a government is not
possible, a GNPS company should at least be aware of how the government
operates, what they do, and who should be providing what.
Learn international
development language
Like every industry or sector, ID practitioners use a set of
terms and phrases – we have our own language. For the reasons listed above, ID
work is important to a GNPS company trying to “solve poverty”. Some of the most
brilliant colleagues with whom I have ever worked have been based in
sub-Saharan Africa, rural South Asia and Latin America for years. They will not
learn GNPS lingo, nor should they be expected to. If you want to work with
them, learn how to communicate with them, even if that means finding someone
like me who straddles the two worlds to translate.
Good luck, do well at doing good and get used to using a lot
of acronyms.
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