Full Circle Associates

The folks at ODI (Overseas Development Institute), an international development consultancy in the UK, have a new blog with quite a few interesting posts. I have appreciated working as a volunteer with one of their researchers, Ben Ramalingam in the KM-for Development community so I was happy to hear of the blog from Sarah Cummings. (I'm really looking forward to a paper ODI is working on on Networks!)

It took slow-me a while to figure out that the main blog page was not the full blog posts, but just summaries until I clicked into this one by Simon Maxwell: ODI 2005 WebLog : 'Yes, but... or Yes, and...': How to pitch the 2005 debate. Ah, some of my favorite topics. "Yes...and" and how to communicate complex issues. Or perhaps more accurately, how we can talk about complex issues together to a point where the conversation becomes productive.

Here is a snippet:

"A double challenge, then. The complexity is unwelcome, equally so any questioning of the political drive. What should be our response? I think we need a two-pronged response. First, on complexity, the answer has to be ‘horses for courses’ and gradual deepening of the conversation. Sometimes the message has to be simple. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, I watched Jeff Sachs and a small group of show business people like Sharon Stone, Richard Gere and Angelina Jolie working the crowd. Jeff’s MDG report was just out - a rich and complex piece of analysis – but he chose to focus on one key message, the value of ‘quick wins’. Bednets was the example: a simple message, which is that many, many lives lost to malaria can be saved by spending a few dollars on bednets impregnated with insecticide. At the time, I thought this was an irritatingly simplistic way to approach the issue of African development, and on various panels I tried to have the technical discussion on absorptive capacity, investment policy, trade issues and all the rest, as above. It didn’t work. I was wrong. Jeff and the gang really drove the issue, and created the space in which Blair, Brown, Clinton, Obansanjo, Mkapa and others could talk policy (By the way, you can read my review of Sachs in the new issue of International Development Magazine, due out next week). I have had other experiences which reinforce this basic lesson about simplicity. On radio phone-ins, for example, the immediate feed-back is often that there is no point helping Africa because ‘they’re all corrupt’ (unlike Thailand, and Sri Lanka, say, at the time of the tsunami, because they’re better managed). Our response needs to be simple: Africa is not homogeneous, aid does work, there are ways of reaching the poorest.

The second prong of our response is always to try to end on a positive note – to be constructive, not destructive. This can be difficult. For example, there is a respectable view that Africa’s problem is not too little aid but too much: a view that aid decapitates political systems and entrenches accountability to donors not citizens; also that absorptive capacity is limited because of shortages of skilled personnel. That is a flat contradiction to the political message. However, there are ways to be positive. Thus, one of the messages we have fed into this debate is that capacity constraints can be tackled, country by country and sector by sector. Look at the way Saudi Arabia has used imported architects,
construction workers and other skilled workers to build a modern economy. Or look at the way relief agencies have provided the capacity to protect refugees fleeing the crisis in Darfur. On the politics, too, the messages can be positive. Africa needs developmental states like those found in East Asia. Measures are needed which build state competence and accountability, with long term compacts by which outsiders can provide support. I often quote Margaret Thatcher, who is alleged to have said: 'Don’t give me problems, give me solutions'. That’s not a bad motto for a think-tank which want to be both serious and constructive."

Take a peek. I'm happy to see more blogging in the international development sector. Now, what would REALLY be cool is communities blogging about their own development from THEIR perspective. I know the Global Voices project is uncovering some of these. But I wonder about how people might imagine the value for themselves. Worth consideration.

international_development, ODI, blogging, globalvoices