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(Formerly Peace Dividend Trust/PDT Global) We build markets, create jobs, and sustain peace in developing countries by championing local entrepreneurs and connecting them to new business opportunities.
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This is an incredibly brave TEDx talk by David Damberger from Engineers Without Borders Canada about the nature of aid and the importance of recognizing, publicizing, and learning from aid failure. Dave now works for Ethical Ocean, but here he discusses his experience overseas and EWB’s current work in Malawi to illustrate some of the idiotic failures happening in international development and how they can be avoided.
This is important.
(Source: ted.com)
"We don’t just encourage risk taking at our offices: we demand failure. If you’re not failing every now and then, you’re probably not advancing. Mistakes are the predecessors to both innovation and success, so it is important to celebrate mistakes as a central component of any culture. This kind of culture can only be created by example — it won’t work if it’s forced or contrived. A lively culture is nebulous, indefinable, ever-changing. Try to package it in a formal mission statement and you just may suffocate it."
Jeff Stibel on “Why I Hire People Who Fail,” for Harvard Business Review. (via invest2innovate)
#Failure
#preach
(Source: blogs.hbr.org, via invest2innovate)
"We have long allowed ourselves and our donor constituencies to believe that development work should never have bad outcomes – there is a pervasive belief (under challenge right now, at least by some) that, at worst, a failed project will not change anything […] This has a lot to do with the very imagery of a helpless and oppressed global poor the aid world relies upon to raise funds. When people see someone in a situation that difficult, they assume things could not get worse. There is no discussion of what is working in the lives of the poor, and therefore the public has little sense that there are fragile things in peoples’ lives and livelihoods that should be protected as we bring new programs and projects to ground. As a result, development takes on the image of a low-risk enterprise in which social protection and “do no harm” safeguards are superfluous, as the worst we could do is leave people as they were."
Edward Carr, Author of Delivering Development, in an excellent post on admitting failure in development. #preach
#ed carr
#failure
#international development
#globaldev
#quote
#poverty
#admitting failure
#doing something is not always better than doing anything
#engineers without borders
#preach
