Here’s your very belated “Saturday morning” reading (due to an impromptu weekend in Nairobi)…
1. National Development vs Poverty Reduction, in charts | Lee Crawford – Roving Bandit
“Projects to increase an individual’s income in developing countries can help people get a better livelihood amongst those available in that country, but they probably aren’t going to change the overall set of opportunities facing people living in a country. If you want to earn yourself rich, you need to sell stuff to rich people – that means exporting goods or services to rich countries (trade), moving to a rich country to sell your labour (migration), or encouraging rich people to come visit your country (tourism).”
“Anti-poverty programs can’t solve poverty.”
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2. Speaking truth to power in energy for all | Sasanka Thilakasiri – The Politics of Poverty
“Energy distribution is important, not just energy generation”
“The discussion around how to meet the needs of the energy-poor households is being dominated by a focus on scaling-up centralized, large scale generation capacity. The latter is more helpful for industrial and commercial needs rather than for households and schools, primary health clinics, and small businesses. These needs are probably better served through decentralized off-grid, clean energy sources.”
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3. Development work & the myth of the “warm fuzzies” | Dani Barrington – WhyDev
Tackling three big myths in the public perception of development work:
1. “Communities must be so GRATEFUL to you!”
2. “So you build toilets, then?”
3. “Hearing about our silly ‘first-world problems’ must drive you crazy!”
“Development workers aren’t really saintly individuals who want to be placed on a pedestal–we just want to do something mildly useful for humanity without losing our minds in the process.”