Development assistance as social education

The Vrinda Handbook -  Development and Aid  -  Development

see  General Index

See the issue:   Do developed and developing nations agree on the road map for global development?  Is there a difference in the way different cultures see "development"

REPERTORY  3 -  Vrinda' s Introductions to WIKI chapters    07:35- 10:21

http://www.facebook.com/pages/EUGAD/211965065353

Change" is a key term for those who work in international cooperation. A specific "change" is always the intended objective of a cooperation action. Development workers always ask themselves and the project stakeholders the question: how can we produce a change? What kind of "change" do are they looking for? How can we change human relationships from a zero sum game to a positive sum game?
To build a school where earlier there was no school is relatively easy. But how can one bring in dialogue where earlier there was rhetoric and mistrust? How is it possible to induce a cooperative climate where earlier there was conflict and competition and exclusion? Is it possible to change human relationships from a zero sum game to a positive sum game?
Those who work in International cooperation say that the change they want to induce in the people they assist is not a transformation of their values; it is not a conversion. On the contrary, they want their project beneficiaries to be better able to choose in accordance with their values. For development workers, development assistance is empowerment. Like educators do for individuals, development workers do for communities.
Development workers help in "leading out" human potentialities. And using the famous words of Socrates, they act as midwifes in assisting women to deliver. Development actions are therefore a concrete form of social maieutics.
All cooperation projects run the risk of being implicit or explicit forms of coercive socialization aimed at making the counterparts abandon their values and adopt the values of their masters. But these cooperation projects also bring along with them new opportunities for education when they are authentic, i.e. a service given to the beneficiaries with the objective of enlarging the horizons of opportunities, possibilities and choices.
Whenever we have a "community" that is the intended target of "social change", we always run the risk of imposing values that are alien to these community. This risk is particularly high when the target community comprises of marginalized and voiceless persons; and the educator is acting on behalf of more powerful and richer communities, as is usually the case with development assistance projects.
Development experts take a number of mitigation measures against potential risks based on dialogue processes that enable people to participate in all steps of planning, implementing and evaluating development actions. These are risks that educators know they face in their job of trying to make others adapt to their pre-determined plans rather than as an education, enabling people to lead out their human potential in harmony with their own values.

 

For more details on how Development experts take a number of mitigation measures against potential risks that are based on dialogue processes enabling people's participation in all steps of planning, implementing and evaluating development actions see the manual chapters on Participatory Approach and Transparency to Development Actions and Policies).

But risks are present with or without politically correct methodologies. These are risks that all educators know they face in their job; educators without self criticism try to convince others to adapt to  pre-determined plans; but the true work of educators is enabling, in others, a spontaneous development of their human potential, in harmony with their own values. For a more detailed analysis of the risks of using cooperation as a form of dominance see the issue  Do developed and developing nations agree on the road map for global development?  Is there a difference in the way different cultures see "development"?  and the Eugad article "international cooperation: is it dialogue and solidarity or an effort to export western stereotypes?").