from Hacker News

The Problem With International Development and a Plan to Fix It

by specialk on 11/25/14, 11:08 PM with 9 comments

• by cpks on 11/26/14, 11:25 AM

  > 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.

• by ggchappell on 11/26/14, 12:42 AM

  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.

• by danieltillett on 11/26/14, 12:06 PM

  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.

• by ommunist on 11/26/14, 11:37 AM

  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.