There’s been lots of discussion lately about the value of development. Some people say it’s just a waste. Countries, like people, can only change when they want to change. You can’t speed up that process or alter it. In fact, trying to do so, may only make the situation worse. William Easterly, a professor of economics at NYU, has eloquently wrote about this in his recent article “The Ideology of Development.”

On the other side of the debate is the John Kerry of the development world, Jeffrey Sachs. He is a consultant’s wet dream. He comes up with the a new “solution” to development problems every decade or so. The current trend that he is selling is that with 70 Billion or so and with the coordination of the Vatican of the development world, the UN, all of Africa’s problems can be solved.

Lastly, there is the economist, Peter Collier, who just wrote the book, “The Bottom Billion.” He is closer to Easterly then Sachs, but he realizes that the world isn’t so black or white. His angle is that most development work is based more on the heart than with head as his witty phrase “the headless heart syndrome” comically denotes. An excellent review of this book was recently written in the New York Times called “The Least Among Us.”

My personal view is that development is like education. You want to give the best education to people as possible. This won’t guarantee that they will make the right decisions. People are individuals and they all grow at different times and in different ways. Some people don’t “mature” until their forties despite all the education they may of had. Some people mature in some aspects of their life but not in others. Countries are exactly the same.

Also, when it comes to practitioners of development there is also a parallel to education. Just like teachers should be held accountable, development practitioners should be as well. Yes, they won’t like it. They’ll say it isn’t possible. They’ll say the countries they are working on are too far below average to be able to do anything about them. Just like teachers say, “we aren’t here to teach, we’re here to babysit,” development practitioners will say, “we aren’t here to help them succeed, we’re just here to keep them alive.” Those are all really just excuses to continue to waste time and grovel in mediocrity.  

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