"...much of my work energy is directed to reducing the potential damage which we...could mete out whilst trying to help people."


Sorry to bore you. The first post to a blog by an absolute beginner must drive regulars crazy. Ah well...

The thing is - as a manager (male, westerner) in a non-government organisation (NGO) involved in international development, it's very hard to be real:

I once told our international marketing department director that much of my work energy is directed to reducing the potential damage we and those we 'partner' with could mete out whilst trying to help people. She was quite shocked! She hadn't visited any field programmes at that stage in her career (having just joined from the business world) and told me she thought most of my energy would be spent creating and monitoring wonderful and exciting ways of helping poor people...

Whenever I visit our donor managers I also warn them, "Don't put me in front of our supporters unless they can handle some reality." After sharing like this with the donor manager for one Western country, he thought hard for a moment and then said, "Well I guess that rules out over 95% of our supporters." It's not that I don't like public speaking - I love facilitating a large group discussion - it feels like I'm performing and I get a little bit high. But don't ask me to be publicly unreal.

At least in my current job I am usually left alone. But the questions remain. And I feel driven to share a few of them with you as they bubble up in coming posts. (Sorry... Not trying to turn you off!)

By the way, I'm reading an intriguing book by William Easterly at the moment called, 'The White Man's Burden'. In it he notes, "...there is much scope for improvement just by having the West follow the rule 'First do no harm'." (Incidentally, I have just discovered upon locating his web site, that he had previously coined the term 'De-velop-Mented' which looks suspiciously similar to my blog title! It's got some fun bits anyway and I swear: I thought mine up before seeing his!)