Recently the New Yorker published a profile of economist Esther Duflo of MIT’s ‘Poverty Lab’, a think tank and experimental social laboratory seeking to measure the effectiveness of aid programs in the so-called developing world (New Yorker magazine, May 17, 2010). To accomplish this, “…they subject social-policies ideas to randomized control trials, as one would use in testing a drug” in an effort to connect cause and effect, sending researchers into the field to interview people from communities intended to benefit from these aid and development schemes. ‘Randomization “takes the guesswork, the wizardry, the technical prowess, the institution, out of finding out whether something makes a difference,”’ Duflo says.
The problem is that her approach also takes the community and Nature out of the equation as well. Duflo’s assertions are both intriguing and dangerous: intriguing because there is a need to test the efficacy of policies and programs; dangerous because of her many untested assumptions about Western expertise and the needs of the poor.
My experience over the past seven years working in Liberia is that development/aid agencies seldom consult their intended recipients as to what they know or need. Few aid agencies see their host/recipient communities as resourceful, resilient and wise. Few show appreciation of local wisdom and local knowledge systems or seek to create locally based solutions. Most see themselves as accountable primarily or exclusively to donors. Failed programs are abandoned, not corrected, without apology or redress. All of us, including influential ‘experts’ such as Duflo, Jeffrey Sachs and others, would do well to study what is intact, resilient, and healthy before jumping to conclusions about what needs fixing or what our role in the West might be.
The article doesn’t mention how Duflo and her associates enter a community or select the people whose opinions they seek. The ascendancy of science with its zeal for quantifiable, cause-and-effect results renders traditional and earth-based knowledge systems invisible. A scientifically randomized approach creates its own reality, often at odds with complex societies in which people are related through tribes, ethnic groups, religion, gender, birth order, clans, chiefdoms, taboos, secret societies, trade, counties, districts, and intermarriage. In most rural, earth-based societies, and among the urban poor, some people are prominent or accessible and others are often hidden. Outsiders and even locals who simply come in and ask questions can expect a variety of responses depending on the perception of trustworthiness or influence of the questioner, and perception of potential gain or detriment.
It is dangerous to think that we can isolate symptoms of imbalance such as poverty, water shortages, crop failure, etc. and address them out of context. Environmental degradation is inseparable from relationship degradation, both of which began with colonization and continue to be exacerbated by industrialization, political manipulation and greed, particularly Western over-consumption and corporate influence. There are those that argue – and persuasively so, in light of the record – that the West has a vested interest in the failure of aid programs. It might be interesting to invite some of the world’s poor to design projects to ‘fix’ the West.
Monocultures, including monocultural mind-sets, are not healthy or viable. In order to thrive, systems need to be based in principles of Nature, ie symbiosis, openness, flow of information, and interconnection resulting in mutual benefit, enhanced interconnection and diversity. Any other approach is destined to fail. We in the West have much to learn from people that have suffered at our hands yet remain willing to welcome us, and from people that are still connected to their ancestral lands, know their neighbors, and live modestly. Instead of viewing aid as a one-way transaction flowing from the over-consuming West to the so-called developing world, we need to explore ways to build relationships based on mutual respect, mutual benefit and mutual accountability.
Cynthia Travis
Founder & President
everyday gandhis
820 East Mason Street
Santa Barbara, California, 93109
Monrovia and Voinjama, Liberia
everydaygandhis.zippykid.it
