Reinventing yourself: Creative Human Development
Once in my life I thought I wanted to be an expert on Eastern Europe and Russia. I did not know what that meant…but I was fascinated by the sound of Slavic languages, I thought those who lived under the Soviets were cultured and cultivated people, loved borsch soup with a spoon of sour cream and cold weather. Out of all those useless classes at high school and university, I only remember subjects related to Communism, I regret not having read more books and novels instead of memorizing those dates and facts at school that give you no historical culture at all. That brought me to Poland, Albania, Russia and anywhere where (some) men wear Adidas sweatpants with leather jackets.
I quickly realized that an expert on a region was not enough. I needed a subject, an area, an amount of knowledge on something. I chose human development thinking that education, health and social protection - how donors define human development-, was the part of development that resonates with my values. However, I often felt disappointed. Maybe it was my fault, the opportunity to see human development policies top down at a very early age may make you loose part of the positivism, optimism and sometimes naïveté that should characterize youngsters in their early twenties. I became critical on structural adjustment, budget support and anything and everything that required more than a 50-page document as a strategy.
Slightly disaffected with the macro level of the development business I moved into micro: microfinance and financial services to low-income population. It seemed to me (and still does) that market approaches to development are the way to go as long as we find the way to monitor social performance! Not a small endeavor. Providing a financial service (a loan, a no-frill savings account…) to a low-income person, who might be borrowing money from a relative or a neighbor at abusive rates, is already an improvement. Go where the loan shark is, says somebody I truly admire. We can go long debating the impact of microfinance but I am interested in what is the key improvement to me: the mental change, the “I borrow, so I repay” mental process. It is in this behavior, away from donation and dependency mentality that change lays.
To end this dependence, sustainable livelihoods must be created for the poor. And this demands skills, markets, technology, material inputs, infrastructure and institutions, says an article in The Hindu. The borrower needs the skills that will help increasing his/her wealth. Back to human development. Using the name of an excellent blog called ‘creative capitalism’ http://creativecapitalismblog.com/, can we also design ‘creative human development’?
I quickly realized that an expert on a region was not enough. I needed a subject, an area, an amount of knowledge on something. I chose human development thinking that education, health and social protection - how donors define human development-, was the part of development that resonates with my values. However, I often felt disappointed. Maybe it was my fault, the opportunity to see human development policies top down at a very early age may make you loose part of the positivism, optimism and sometimes naïveté that should characterize youngsters in their early twenties. I became critical on structural adjustment, budget support and anything and everything that required more than a 50-page document as a strategy.
Slightly disaffected with the macro level of the development business I moved into micro: microfinance and financial services to low-income population. It seemed to me (and still does) that market approaches to development are the way to go as long as we find the way to monitor social performance! Not a small endeavor. Providing a financial service (a loan, a no-frill savings account…) to a low-income person, who might be borrowing money from a relative or a neighbor at abusive rates, is already an improvement. Go where the loan shark is, says somebody I truly admire. We can go long debating the impact of microfinance but I am interested in what is the key improvement to me: the mental change, the “I borrow, so I repay” mental process. It is in this behavior, away from donation and dependency mentality that change lays.
To end this dependence, sustainable livelihoods must be created for the poor. And this demands skills, markets, technology, material inputs, infrastructure and institutions, says an article in The Hindu. The borrower needs the skills that will help increasing his/her wealth. Back to human development. Using the name of an excellent blog called ‘creative capitalism’ http://creativecapitalismblog.com/, can we also design ‘creative human development’?
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