NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - What is Called Development?: Exploring the Nexus of Economy - Comments

Not so Simple

Joe Bornstein — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:33:49 -0400

Dear Ms. Santana, Clearly choice is a key element of what we are speaking about here. In fact, it is the key element. However, I'm afraid that the conversation is much more complex than simply saying "choice is what it's all about." Please refer to the conversation above and the original blog post to see how so. The idea of "absorption" or "reception" may be of particular use in clarifying things. It may also be helpful to consider what it means to offer a choice, and how choices are contextualized. Thanks! Joseph

Paternalistic Development Ideology

Jessica Santana — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:53:34 -0400

Mr. Bornstein's argument is nothing new. Another ideology that views technology as a capitalistic colonisation of the poor, innocent rural people who would rather be left alone to their bucolic livelihoods. As someone who grew up in a rural community and has now committed her career to doing all she can to ensure rural communities have full access to the tools of information exchange, I can tell you that the rural community has a great deal of things of importance to communicate to urban communities as well as to other rural communities. Who is Mr. Bornstein or anyone else to decide what communication is or is not important to a community or individual? The point of information and communication technology is to provide the CHOICE to communicate or not, even if that is something as "anti-progress" as two rural kids playing a computer game.

Informatiion availability and social capitalsim

Jeff Mowatt — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:58:21 -0400

I offer first a little known thesis on the relationship between poverty, the information age and the reform of capitalism delivered to the US President 12 years ago.

From the paper:

'We are at the very beginning of a new type of society and civilization, the Information Age. Historically, this is only the third distinct age of civilization. We lived in an agricultural age for thousands of years, which gave way to the Industrial Revolution and Industrial Age during the last three hundred years. The Industrial Age is now giving way to the Information Revolution, which is giving rise to the Information Age. Understanding this, it is appropriate to be concerned with the impact this transition is having and will continue to have on the lives of all of us. In that it is a fundamental predicate of "people-centered" economic development that no person is disposable, it follows that close attention be paid to those in the waning Industrial Age who are not equipped and prepared to take active and productive roles in an Information Age. Many, in fact, are scared, angry, and deeply resentful that they are being left out, ignored, effectively disenfranchised, discarded, thrown away as human flotsam in the name of human and social progress. We have only to ask ourselves individually whether or not this is the sort of progress we want, where we accept consciously and intentionally that human progress allows for disposing of other human beings.'

'The greatest initial social and economic risk of the Information Age is in creating two distinctly different classes of people: the technological haves and have-nots. Those who have access to information and information technology have a reasonable expectation to survive and prosper. Those with limited or no access will be left out. This holds true for individuals as well as nations. The key to the future is access to free flow of information. To the extent that the free flow of information is restricted or diminished, people will be left to endure diminished prospects of prosperity and even survival.'

'With an initial P-CED business enterprise set up in a given community, it becomes possible to bring people into the fold, so to speak, of the Information Age. No existing company need change anything whatsoever about how it does business. New web development, software development and information management enterprises, for example, can be set up quickly for extremely low seed capital outlays. Existing businesses who need web/software development and management services can have their business readily enhanced for costs that are relatively insignificant compared to increased viability and long-term profitability of entering into a much broader marketplace--without a brick being laid. The design firm wins, the existing business wins. Most importantly, the community-at-large wins by way of decreased poverty and unemployment, since the design firm's profits for the most part go back into the community--for adult education or retraining, high-tech head start programs for underprivileged children, seeding new small businesses, and social relief. Along the way, the design firm's employees benefit from good wages, profit sharing, and normal benefit packages. Well paid employees in effect produce, inevitably, highly desirable social and community outcomes. In short, everyone benefits. In that this new enterprise effectively becomes a primary node and locus of much-needed information for the community, it is appropriate to seek seed capital to start the enterprise from traditional development and aid funding sources. The result is a self-sustaining and self-perpetuating enterprise that feeds on the very need, or demand, for resources that hampered the community and its people to begin with.'

So, based on this understanding, we set about building a national scale strategy, in a location where we knew that decaying rural infrastructure often meant no communications at all, sometimes not a telephone. Yet we could identify a business, government and educational need for information and the possibility for delivering both affordable access with profit for social purpose in a network of wireless rural telecentres.

In terms of more than and less than full cost recovery, as Muhammad Yunus might describe it, this would be a projct mix which would be delivered a nil overall cost.

The primary social target would be childcare reform, to deliver homes for all institutionalised and dispossessed children with new sustainable business catalysed by national microfinance availability and a faculty for social enterprise.

We call it Microeconomic Development and Social Enterprise, a 'Marshal Plan' for Ukraine. Delivered to targets in Ukraine and US goverment in Oct 2006

http://www.p-ced.com/projects/ukraine/national/ http://www.p-ced.com/about/history/

Jeff Mowatt - P-CED

Correctly noted

Joseph Bornstein — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:59:01 -0400

Joseph Bornstein

World Resources Institute, Markets and Enterprise's New Venture's Program

Andy,

Thank you for keeping a keen eye. Yes, I completely agree with what you said. My apologies for not responding to that comment earlier.

Joseph Bornstein World

Joseph Bornstein — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:01:26 -0400

Joseph Bornstein

World Resources Institute, Markets and Enterprise's New Venture's Program

"Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none." Emerson, paragraph one of "Experience"

This conversation has been truly exhilarating in that it has offered key themes for how we can perhaps answer the critique that I suggested as well as new criticisms in their own right. And like all good conversations, we now find ourselves in a series of thoughts and questions which illuminate our humility and lack of ultimate Knowledge. Not one of us was able to offer a clear approach to development that navigated all of our concerns and could claim the title of being the final answer which we seek. If anything, we offered more questions than answers. I personally do not believe that this is a bad thing per se. Indeed, it seems to be a necessary aspect of our lives to be constant seekers and never completed finders. Socratic dialogues are famous in their aporetical nature, which is to say that they often do not end in a clear conclusion. Our inter-continental dialogue has many similarities in this regard. We sought to go to the deepest level of what we are dealing with in "BoP Development" and asked what it means and how we can do justice to the end that we seek to realize. Though we did not perfectly determine a "how-to" guide for practicing our desire to help marginalized and impoverished peoples, and though we did not even perfectly define what "helping" really is, or the terminal for-the-sake-of-which, or value we which seek to promote-we have taken steps in a "series of which we do not know the extremes."

Below is a summary of the steps I believe that we have taken as a community in dialogue-

Addressing the Key Issue of Reception or Absorption Regarding Technology: Our commentator Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam provided an excellent way of framing the question we have been exploring. He made the point that a knife is not just a knife, that a phone is not just a phone, and that computers are not just computers. Each technology represents a means to a myriad of ends. Knives can be used to kill people or they can be used as life saving tools. Phones, as my original post notes, can be used for mobile banking as well as entertainment. Nuclear technology can be used to provide energy to communities, or it can be used to destroy life. From this point of Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam's, it is clear that it is not the technology itself that makes a community rich or poor, but rather what that technology means and how it frames one's life. A house in communist nation MEANS something completely different than a house obtained in a purely capitalistic one. The philosophy behind a technology therefore presents the way in which that technology will be absorbed. My extension of Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam's point is that it is ridiculous to claim that it is only our responsibility to provide for basic human needs in whatever fashion we can get them there. That model is not socially sustainable as commentator Ben Carrier points out with reference to the IMF and WB. For example, it would be unjust to introduce knives into a community with the unpinning philosophy of violence being why you are offering that technology. Now take that hyperbolic example, and ask how is it that we present development projects to communities. What systems of truth and value do we offer through each project? I would say that one of the deepest value propositions we offer is free market capitalism. Personally, I am not versed enough to determine whether or not free market economics is the best approach to political economy, but what I can say is that presenting issues and projects through solely political economy is insanity. We need to stand at the nexus of economy and ground ourselves first and foremost in an economy of life so that the right kind of absorption can happen.

|Consensus on Increased Sensitivity: If there was one major theme of the commentary, it was a call for increased sensitivity to the community in a number of ways. Though we did not specifically outline best practices that could be taken-up now and ever more, we did begin to address the issue. Our commentator Pradeep Suthram made the point that we must not introduce supply without first thinking about a community's needs, or the demand within that community. The point was furthered by Curt Bowen, Ben Carrier, ECSP, CJ Fonzi, Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam and Harrison. The key insight seems to be that we do not fully understand what a community is, that it is a dynamic system and one which we must approach with a full investment of care and mutual respect. Key elements of sensitivity include:

1. Studying what the community truly demands rather than what we think it demands.
2. Questioning what richness means in terms of the community itself, and not our own definition of richness.
3. "Sector Scaling" does not incorporate enough of an integrated approach to community development. The community "served" needs to have a sufficient voice to ensure the social benefits and social sustainability and of a given project. From what I can gather of our commentary, the appropriate mode and means of such integration remains unknown. Stu Hart, Erik Simanis, CK Prahalad's first book, and ECSP's posts are all good places to start in divining for the right balance.

The Genie is Out of the Bottle: No matter what one's perspective about whether or not the world should have less or more technology, it is quite clear that this genie is out of the bottle. Technology and "progress" are not going to go away. The hand of connectivity is reaching its global capacity and there is little chance of preventing that. As our commentator CJ Fonzi put it, "People in the village want to play with my computer, they enjoy it when I give them a ride in my car, and the community leaders already have their own mobile phones. A market exists for western products, and someone is going to fill that market." This leads us back to Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam's point of absorption regarding technology. If technology is here to stay and its reach is ever-expanding we must consider the way in which we will absorb or receive that technology as well as the way in which we will present technology so that it is absorbed in beneficial ways instead of destructive ones.

Though this review of our dialogue does not cover all of the issues we have discussed, I hope it hones in on the most complex and unique insights we have drawn. Starting August first 2008, I will be traveling on a Watson Fellowship until August first 2009 studying the philosophies and strategies of environmental organizations in Latin America, India, Thailand, England and Ghana. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for places to visit or people to speak with. I look forward to continuing this dialogue of the course of this year and intend to make guest posts throughout the year (with Nextbillion.net's permission of course). For the sake of our own self-growth as well as the quality of the work that we bring into this world, I hope that we continue forward along this series of thoughts and questions. Indeed, it seems to a topic worth a lifetime of contemplation and a lifetime of attempted implementation.

Please, let's keep discussing this if people are up to it!

Things?

Andy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:04:50 -0400

Joseph: I commend you for a very thoughtful and well-written essay! I absolutely agree with your conclusion that we must rethink what development means. I wish to point out one small quibble with your diction. (I think I know what you meant to say, and perhaps others paid no mind.) In your 10th paragraph you say, "The point I intend to make is that technological solutions as well as solutions grounded solely in political economies are not solutions at all, but rather the introduction of goods or services that distracts us from things which enable people to lead richer lives." THINGS? Do things enable us to lead richer lives? You and I would probably agree that it is not material things like electricity and communications that allow us to lead happier lives, which is why I was a bit confused. Thanks for the article.

Staying Tuned

Joseph Bornstein — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:10:10 -0400

Joseph Bornstein

World Resources Institute, Markets and Enterprise's New Venture's Program

This unfolding of thoughts and questions has been exhilarating. Since it's been a couple of days since I posted a reply, I wanted to convey that I have been interviewing colleagues, researching, and doing a lot of thinking and writing so that I can post a response which does justice to the content we have laid out thus far. It should be done by Friday. In the mean time, I will be enjoying learning from you all and building from what has been said.

ends and means

Harrison — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:51:21 -0400

This post is particularly refreshing in light of the rhetoric of progress that is present in our everyday lives. Issues like environmental consciousness, politics, tax and medical reform, even the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are all ultimately couched in terms of improvement and moving forward. Joseph's post causes us to pause and consider the consequences and even the advisability of "progress" in certainly more places than rural areas and/or developing nations. I'm intrigued by his discussion of means and ends, and agree that gross "modernization" of rural or developing areas will likely precipitate negative externalities. This has been an extremely incisive theoretical observation about introducing technologies to these areas that must not be overlooked. That said, I was also inspired by "Anonymous'" post. While I agree with Joseph that it is foolhardy of us to assume that rural and developing areas want to be modernized, it is also silly of us to assume that they don't want outside help. As CJ Fonzi noted, children in the area of India he's working in enjoy toying with his computer, and that individuals of high status have cellular phones. In a sense, denying technology or aid to communities is just as paternalistic (to borrow just that one word from "Anonymous") as forcing it upon them. Joseph has said that he's put time and energy into community development, so I doubt he's suggesting that we abandon developing communities--rather, he is warning us to tread carefully, and not to buy into progress for its own sake. He has articulated an extremely important point in terms that I hope will inform future discourse on this subject.

A Topic Worth Discussing

CJ Fonzi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:16:22 -0400

Joseph thanks for this post!

This discussion clearly creates more questions than answers, but the topic is one worth exploring. I’ve very much enjoyed reading ALL of the responses here.

I’m currently working in India on a BoP Protocol project that has me splitting my week between a rural community and an urban slum. At the rural site in particular, I often find my self asking “Why am I here? Do these people not live a better life than we do in the west?”. The respect I have for the simplicity of their life is immense, and given the option to make a paternal decision about simply blocking them off from the west- I would have to think long and hard about it.

The fact is that we cannot decide to block anyone off from the rest of the world, even governments have proven unable to do this, and the development community acting alone wouldn’t stand a chance. People in the village want to play with my computer, they enjoy it when I give them a ride in my car, and the community leaders already have their own mobile phones. A market exists for western products, and someone is going to fill that market. Attempting to take a paternalistic role of what is good development and what is not, while tempting, would in the end really only be swimming against the current.

In Al Hammonds May posts on “Sector Scaling” he suggested we take a broad integrated systems view of development. My fear with this is that we’re really just continuing the failed development policies of the UN, and World Bank from the last century. Again, we’re missing the voices from the ground and sitting in DC trying to come up with a paternalistic solution- granted we’re at least considering business and economics now.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Stu Hart and Erik Simanis. The answer to the problems stated above, according to Simanis, is to make all business efforts at the BoP so “indigenous” to a community that their feedback loops are tiny. In this case, any development that was hurting a community would be quickly rejected. Simanis makes a good case that in order to truly understand market demand, and deliver a product that will be accepted, the business and technology must be co-created with the community. While there is a lot of value in this approach to development specifically in building defendable competitive advantages for the business partner, it begins to breakdown when economies of scale for technological innovation are required.

I find it interesting that no one has pulled the natural environment into this discussion. Because, if that was a limitless resource I’m not sure we would have a problem. We could simply pull the BoP along the path the West took; they would adopt what they liked and leave the rest. What I’m very concerned about is that we certainly don’t have unlimited natural resources. With this in mind, how do we find paths to development that protect our finite environment, while not punishing those already at the short end of the economic stick? Is the only solution paternal governance? Is that best done by the Government? NGO’s? Or is it required to do a profitable lasting business at the BoP as Stu Hart would suggest?

Let’s keep this discussion going! I find this topic to be something constantly on my mind!

In defense of Mr. Bornstein: we're only half-way done

Noah Bronstein — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:55:29 -0400

(First, I should comment: Mr. Bornstein and I are not related, despite similar last names.)

Too often, critical thought is lambasted for picking apart, tearing down, and nay-saying. "Look at this atrocity," the critic laments, "this needs to stop!" And the dear listener, sick of hearing critiques that offer no solutions, finds the critic to be annoying and pretentious. But of course, the critic isn't finished! The next step is of course the hardest, as anyone who has ever dabbled in philosophy will know: after riding through the woods at break-neck speed warning the public about The British/Global Warming/Fast Food/Bird Flu/DDT/Sexism/Racism/Obesity/etc., there must be both a decision of what should be done, and a decision to do it (Aristotle talked for ages on this topic). It is a relatively simple matter to logically dissect a problem in the world. But coming up with a viable solution is intellectually difficult, and acting on it requires charisma and bravery verging on heroism.

So the next step should not be to merely cry into a pillow with our newfound disgust at our self-centered approach to foreign aid. No, we have an obligation to re-examine what foreign aid is all about, and divine a method more profitable in the economy of life.

I have a suggestion, to start things off: what would foreign aid look like if instead of offering up solutions, we asked people "What do you need? What can we do to help you? What would make your lives better?"

I have a sneaking suspicion that, in the search for a solution to this conundrum, we could learn how to redirect our endless and incredibly banal desires toward things that will actually bring us happiness.

Bornstein's article

Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:56:26 -0400

A couple of questions arise in my mind from the article and the traffic of emails.. 1. Is there a question of absorption capacity of new technology (however sophisticated) into any society. In other words our ability, desire, motivation to make good use of technology rather than allowing technology to draw out the "bad" in us? One of the sad truths is that telecoms profits, internet cafe profits and other nodes of telecoms make as much money from gambling sites and pron as they do from other "good" services. How can we determine how people use the tools that are given/provided - even knives are used for bad and the very open gun laws in USA seems a violation of everything that might make society happy? My question is about our capacity to absorb? And this would then place the emphasis on a principle of "caveat emptor" on the consumer and means that the development community needs to think more about building the capacity to absorb... 2. Is it not the human condition to seek technological progress - from the very first invention of the wheel and presumably even levers and devices to build the pyramids..

Tread careful because you're treading on my dreams.

Joseph Bornstein — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:15:21 -0400

Anonymous (and nextbillion.net community),

I dream of a development community that is alluded to by the responses of my colleagues in the comments below. I must admit that I had a great deal of fear when writing this post because I did not want to be taken in the way that Anonymous has read me. I believe my fears to be well grounded as evidenced by Anonymous' misrepresentation of my thoughts, which was quite expected since the argument I make is nuanced and requires generosity of the reader to understand the true working of my words. With that said, I am happy to report that I am heartened to see a vast majority of generous reading at this point! It bodes well for the possibility of finding a viable solution to the problem outlined by the comments below and my blog.

I think that if you, Anonymous, take a read of the comments made by our community, you will find some other, perhaps more useful, illuminations of the shared point that we are making. With that said, your argument about my "bottom line" being one that deserts the BoP is good in that it calls for us to develop a practical solution for how we can find the appropriate grounding within an economy of life and a political economy for BoP development. As noted by Pradeep Suthram, ECSP, Curt Bowen and Ben Carrier, the problem is extremely complex! There are many more questions and methodologies to explore.

Some key ideas that must be examined to fully address this issue are an understanding of what it means to be rich because that is the ultimate aim of development (Thoreau gives his definition in "Economy" of "Walden"), and how we could implement what Curt Bowen calls a "human" way of doing development. Perhaps it would be of use to turn to Mr. Suthram's point that development should be run by people and not markets. On that note, the blog reference made by ECSP may be considered as a successful model of "human-based" BoP development. Mr Ben C's reference to IMF and World Bank projects offers a useful contrasting perspective of non-human development that is mired in its own assumptions of technocratic and multinational systems of development.

To Anonymous and others I ask the following questions:

What would it look like to really build development grounded in the appropriate framing of an economy of life and a political economy? Do you have successful models to share or ideas of such models? If such economy of life-based (or "human") development takes more time to make its progress, does that mean it is an impoverished model when compared to other "efficient" models that compromise ethics for speed?Also, if there is some consensus that perhaps it is the middle and top echelons of the pyramid that need to change most because it is those elements which marginalize the BoP, what changes within those realms should be made? A book could be written on all of this. Perhaps we can lay the groundwork here. . .

The anonymous poster is way

Ben C — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:45:26 -0400

The anonymous poster is way off the mark here. The poster fails to realize that development programs since World War II have typically been exactly how he describes Joe's blog entry: paternalistic and condescending. The mega-projects of the World Bank and IMF did not/ do not take into account indiginous cultural predispositions, wants, or needs; rather, development was and is largely an enterprise between huge multilateral organizations and disconnected technocratic developing-nation governments. The question of whether the poor benefit from such development programs is a fair one. Even if a country sees GDP growth, the poor of that country may not gain a net benefit as their environment becomes more polluted and their social fabric rips apart. I believe Joe's post is humanistic and thoughtful, not paternalistic and condescending as the previous poster described.

Dear Anonymous, The idea of

Curt Bowen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:16:51 -0400

Dear Anonymous, The idea of knowing better for a community then they know themselves is exactly the idea that both Mr. Bornstein and Thoreau are critiquing. If you read his post well, you will notice that he offers a story in which an outside attempt to bring technology and spur development ends up developing the community from an econotechnological perspective, but denigrates it from a human perspective. The technology came at the expense of the happiness. In other words, the means came at expense of the end.

The traditional critique of paternalism and condescension to the poor attacks a lack of sensitivity, a lack of communication, between an actor (the paternal agent) and the receiver (the feminine colonized). This critique would very much apply to the NGO who simply thought in terms of an econotechnological bottomline. That the gift the NGO would be giving can't be bad is akin to the sexual force which isn't allowed to be conceptualized as rape. It is politics, discourse only after conquering. This, anonymous, is the critique that you make reference to.

What can respond better to this critique than the decision to become sensitive to the other as another human being--as more than a potential consumer, a lower class, a peasant. This is where I see Mr. Bornstein moving towards. It isn't "don't call me, I'll call you." It isn't "stay poor so that I can feel good." Rather the sentiment is, "How can I be open to who you are as more than a consumer, as more than a class, as more than I originally saw you? How can I see you and myself more truly--and interweave this truth into my actions?"

The heart of Thoreau's critique, as referenced by Mr. Bornstein, is that the "poor" to whom he is being "condescending" may in fact be far richer than we think, perhaps even than ourselves. Before your critique can hit home, Anonymous, we must ask Mr. Bornstein's question--who are the "poor?" Perhaps a good place to start would be one of the foundations of our culture. Matthew chapter 5 lists the beatitudes--he praises those pure in heart, the meek, even those who mourn. These are those who will see God. He never praises the blackberry user, the mac addict, or the mortgage payer. In fact he asks the rich man to give up his possessions.

If we move so fast that we never stop to think what poor really means, that we never stop to examine the critiques being thrown by intellectual and spiritual leaders throughout our culture, then we may end up doing far more bad than good to those we label "poor." To ignore the invitation to learn to love better in favor of a fury of “help” isn't itself just paternalistic and condescending--it is codependent, virulently codependent.

Integrated Development Programming

ECSP — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:34:37 -0400

The question of which development is appropriate and which is ultimately not beneficial is complex, and it is true that adding one material component to a community may not be the panacea some envision it to be. There is a host of literature on integrated development programs working to enhance healthcare services, education, and livelihoods while concurrently promoting conservation efforts. For example, there are fascinating programs at work in Ethiopia. For more, see this New Security Beat blog post.

What is Called Development?: Exploring the Nexus of Economy

Joseph Bornstein — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:03:04 -0400

I recently had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Al Hammond which detailed his plans for revolutionizing rural medicine and access to telecommunications in developing nations. Here is a condensed rendition of the picture he painted: The majority of rural communities in developing nations have no access to telecommunication systems, and this is a problem considering that telecommunications are an essential tool for offering the poor services and possibilities that they would otherwise not have access to. The communications gap can be bridged by installing wireless access hubs in remote communities and the hand of wireless technology could leapfrog reaching almost any community at a cheap price.

This innovation opens a whole new market for cell phone companies and offers yet another excellent pipeline for BoP development and for getting a share of the fortune at the base of the pyramid. This is what we in the BoP community would call a double bottom-line profit model because the business plan is not only economically profitable, but also reaps social benefits by providing the services of telecommunications to poor rural communities. In this model, social justice meets capitalism. They shake hands, and build a better tomorrow.

Like many bad things, the concept sounded fantastic at first. But then, I found myself stopped in my thinking's tracks when the presenter remarked that the natural progression of services provided by this newfound rural telecommunications industry would be as follows: First there would be mobile banking. Then, education services. Lastly, entertainment would inevitably enter the market. This progression, if we can all it "progress" invokes Henry D. Thoreau's critique of the technology boom that took place during the industrial revolution in US America.

(This post continues past the break; click "Read More" to continue)