Development

Learn how to fish is not enough
How (not) to do development

An example to illustrate the differences between the 3 approaches:

• If one argues that a man is hungry because he has no food, the solution is to give him food. (charity approach)
• If one argues that a man is hungry because he is unable to get sufficient food from his small plot of land, then the solution will imply increasing the amount of land available or its output (needs approach)
• If we add in extra information, i.e. that the plot is too small because most of the village land was taken over by a government farm then the solution is different again. If we also identify that he is in fact more likely to be a she, and that being a woman she was not eligible to the government scheme of redistribution of land then the complexity deepens further (rights-based approach)

Simple solutions may thus scratch only the surface of the reality that makes up poverty. Let’s have a look at some deeper causes of the problem.