Put People at the Center of Everything
People are the key engine for development
People need ways to do what is essential for themselves and their family in an
efficient way. People are essentially enterprising, and will do a lot if it benefits
themselves, their families and their community.
People will work long and hard to make a living ... and they would prefer to
work long and hard for good money than just enough to get by. This is a
function of the efficiency of the work available and the buying power of the
community and the country.
In poor places, people walk long distances to get health care. They would prefer
to walk a short distance, and not lose so much working time. People have their
children walk long distances to go to school, but would prefer it if the children
could go to a school that is close by.
People are often constrained by a lack of education and experience. Don't try to get people to do what they cannot reasonably be expected to do, but figure out what it is that they can do that is valuable, needs to be done and is worth paying for.
People ... human resource
People are the most under-appreciated asset, and because of this planning often
excludes their impact on the process of development, and little goes as planned.
When people are pulling the process there is a very different outcome than
when the process is trying to push the people.
The best way to make a person valuable is to organize so that they have
something valuable to do, and they can do it efficiently. People who are
educated and healthy and unemployed doing nothing are of little socioeconomic value ... worse they can create civil strife ... but give people like these
an opportunity to work in a good organization and get paid for it, then there is a
big value and good progress.
Some of the most successful organizations give credit for their success to the
quality of the staff ... and they are absolutely right to do so.
Rebuilding after World War II
The rebuilding that took place after World War II was funded ... but the success
is attributable not only to money but also to people and motivation. People can
do almost anything if they want to do it, they are encouraged to do it, and there
is a reasonable level of funding so that the needed materials are available.
Rebuilding Europe after World War II
The success of the Marshal Plan in helping to rebuild Europe after World War II is
explained in large part by the willingness of the people to do a lot of the work.
Provided there was some money, some food and some materials, people could put
the society back together.
There was a lot of red tape, but it was not doing planning as much as it was trying to
be reasonable about the allocation of scarce resources. The speed of Europe's
recovery, and especially Germany, was frequently referred to as a miracle.
More Good People Than Bad People
Iraq is full of good people
Most of the people I know seem to be “good” people. Wherever I
have worked (something like 60 countries) I have found that most
people are good. This experience transcends both religion and race ...
I have had the good fortune to work with good people of many
different religions and races.
In spite of this, global society as a whole and especially the socioeconomic situation is a disaster. There has to be a reason why good
people do not have a more livable global society. Good people need
income to pay their bills. To support their family, good people have to
work and are constrained by the opportunities available.
When good people meet bad systems
A lot of good people are stuck in jobs where systems are not very
good and the organizational culture is ethically challenges, but they
can do little to change the situation. Good people get beaten by bad
systems, bad processes, and ineffective or unethical organizations.
They work where it is very difficult for them to perform well and get
good results. The situation in Iraq is no different ... plenty of good
people with an enabling environment for socio-economic progress
that needs help.
Good people live in bad societies ... and no matter how hard they try,
they are stuck in a bad situation and can do very little about it without
help.
Good people ... working hard
In government ... public service ... and in the international relief and
development sector, there are a lot of good, ordinary people who
work hard and willingly put themselves on the line to get good
outcomes. From time to time these good people put themselves in
harms way, and sometimes get into the news as they work against all
odds to mitigate the impact of disaster.
I have become convinced that most people are good people at heart, in spite of
some outward appearance to the contrary, and some aberrant behavior from
time to time. If people can be as successful being good as being obnoxious then
there would be more people looking good, but sadly, being obnoxious is often
the best way to get ahead. The challenge, then, is to give good, hard working
people more of a shot at doing well.
How Should People Organize?
People organizations
There are all sorts of ways that people can organize informally to do collectively
what they may not be able to do individually. An example of this is the way
children will organize themselves in order to play a team game like soccer.
People organizations like trade unions have had a very important role in getting
a balance between the greed of capital in the 19th century and the dignity and
value of the worker. Eventually a strong middle class emerged and later the role
of collective bargaining and the union diminished. There is still a legitimate role
for organizations to advocate for good conditions and workplace safety for
workers around the world.
How does this get coordinated?
Broadly speaking ... the less coordination the better. Sustainable
development will perpetuate itself as soon as there are incentives that
pull development, and decisions are made automatically ...
organically, if you will ... by community groups. It is a distributed
decision model. It has been described in economics as the working of
the “invisible hand”.
Some modest level of active coordination is required in order to get
the best possible results. A market that is manipulated because of the
lack of balance between buyers and sellers, or inappropriate access to
information or the exploitation of monopoly power does not result in
good outcomes from the market.
Getting people organized - teamwork.
People can do a lot when they are organized, and all pulling in the
same direction. There is a lot of people energy wasted on
disagreement and conflict. People will not put a lot of energy into
doing something that they oppose ... but will put a huge amount of
effort and energy into doing things that they want to be done.
This is not a complex idea ... we see it everywhere.
When people have opportunity, they usually make good use of their
abilities. But the most value usually comes when people are part of a
team and the team acts together to do something of value. This leads
to the question of how teams can be established and how people can
organize to get things bigger done.
How do you build teams? The better question is how do teams get
built ... because a team that works is going to be one that has a natural
birth. They can be encouraged, but they cannot be created from the
exterior.
How everyone can help ... a little bit
There is a need for everyone to help. A small amount of help many times over
works very well. Everybody should be doing something to help.
Everyone can be a part of this. Planning becomes local and is not
dominated simply by Soviet style Gosplan or the World Bank style
equivalents. Planning is done in a “distributed mode” where people
close to the problems identify priorities and how progress can be
made. And people who are remote from the problems and can help
have opportunities to build linkages that can assist in a practical
manner.
It is understandable that there are busy people who are fully committed to their
work, their families and their social activities ... and already do more than their
fair share in their own communities ... so cannot reasonably become engaged in
helping the “south”. But they can help by ensuring in their day to day activities
that they are not supportive of anything that is fundamentally wrong and doing
socio-economic damage in the “south”.
Ordinary people can have an important impact wherever they are.
When everyone is intolerant of global bad behavior, and is prepared
to make just some modest action to make things right, there can be a
sea change in relief and development performance.
There are many competent people who are not able to do very much
of value because present organizational structures do not embrace
merit very much and opportunities are limited. Competent people are
doing good work, but at nothing like their full potential. Getting the
most from a community of people is not done from the top of the
pyramid, but by a lot of knowledge at the bottom ... something that is
possible in a community and in a small organization, but rarely of
much effectiveness at the top where everyone has become a number.
What Do People Need?
Basic needs
Everyone needs the basics ... food, water, shelter, clothing. At the bottom of the
pyramid it is not self-evident that even the basics are going to be available ... and
if they are available, are they going to be affordable. In Iraq, the national wealth
should make it easy to all to have a lot more than the basic needs. Everyone
should be able to share in a quality of life that is of an internationally high
standard.
People need opportunities
If people have opportunities, almost everything else will fall into place. But in
the real world there are constraints on opportunity that are draconian.
Developing opportunity requires a careful matching of people and possibilities.
People need opportunity, and not to be constrained by everything around them.
Everyone needs to think more about what people are doing, can be doing and
should be doing.
Making better use of people is a huge opportunity. Local people need
opportunities to go to work and do something useful. Organizing so that people
in the community can do things that are needed by the community and valuable
is one of the big opportunities.
Possibilities at the bottom of the pyramid
More than anything else the opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid should be
something that does good for the community. People need places to work where
they get paid and do something of value. They need jobs. They need profitable
ways of using their time.
People have all sorts of skills ... there needs to be some sensible matching of
skills with needs. Education can help, but it is the vocational rather than the
academic that is probably the most use ... the practical rather than the
theoretical.
What someone does is not important, merely that what someone is doing should
be of value to the family and the community.
People need health
People get value from a good health system. A good health system is one that
makes it possible for all to get adequate health care without an undue economic
burden, and be better able to contribute productively to society.
People need education
People get value from a good education system. The cost of education is low
compared to the life-time value of being educated ... but of course that value is
only realized in a society where people have the opportunity for work and pay.
Though one of the biggest successes over the past 40 years has been the increase
in the number of the “educated” around the world, this has not been matched
by an increase in the number of decent jobs. Because of better education, things
are possible today that could not have been reasonably contemplated a
generation ago. But the number of people who have opportunity for gainful and
productively employed is not enough. There are very large numbers of people
who are either unemployed or underemployed ... and there are also people who
are employed but unpaid.
People need religion
And people get value from their religion. Religion and the spiritual dimension
of life and the society should be adequately recognized, and taken into
consideration when trying to understand what priorities should be given to
various options.
I like to think of religion as an enormous force for good ... and when that is not
what I am seeing, it is usually because guns have taken over and religion is
merely being used as a front for secular militarism.
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