1.  Ensure gender is at the center of what we do.  Free and empower women who often prove to be the responsible family members who will push for change.

2. Use bottom-up approaches, working people-to-people, to achieve self-reliance.  Increase dialogue between local development efforts and national level efforts.  This includes listening among donors and collaborating together. Consider development as a means to create freedom of action and being as an important concept.

3.  Do local level empowerment, starting from the bottom up:  local governments, groups and others.  Work with local systems and cultures.

4. Emphasize effectiveness of development efforts over efficiency (fast mobilization, quick hits, etc.).  Effective development efforts take more time, slowing down the process to achieve greater buy-in and participation.  Starting slowly, first empower people and give them ownership of the activities.   Spend time with people to build trust.

5.  Highlight social transformation in development efforts to achieve the people’s self-reliance. Assist developing the person’s whole life and destiny.

6.  During project implementation, build in communication mechanisms to achieve feedback.  Follow up on the feedback.

7.  Re-invent the current aid model; build in more adaptability.

8.  Include systematic feedback mechanisms, which go beyond the project.  At the end of an aid effort, aid providers should do a client (aid recipient) survey to determine, “How’d we do?”  In impact analysis, include local client feedback.

9.  Develop cost-effective methods for doing M&E, such as developing a local capacity to do M&E.

10.  Ensure accountability in development programs, which is largely absent now.

11.  Differentiate between the donors, e.g. U.S., European, etc. when listening for cumulative and long-term impacts.

Learning Events following the theme of “Fielding Effective
Development Teams are being schedule for March-June 2012.  Stay tuned!

]]> http://www.devidea.org/news-about-presentations-jointly-sponsored-by-idea-and-sid/feed/ 0 http://www.devidea.org/training-event-international-development-leaders-in-action/ http://www.devidea.org/training-event-international-development-leaders-in-action/#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:09:07 +0000 DEVIDEA Staff http://www.devidea.org/?p=80 IDEA invites you, the international development practitioner, to participate in our upcoming, leading edge working session. This Washington-based training program, International Development Leaders in Action: Elevating Performance and Effectiveness, is designed to enhance your capacity to make a difference in your development organization, NGO, consulting company or business.  If you are out to make a major difference in our field or gain traction in your international development career, this Working Session is for you.  The program will provide you with:

• Actionable insights into the source of leadership and performance limitations
• Tools for enhancing performance and effectiveness
• Ability to determine what would be a major breakthrough for your organization
• An accessible model for a new paradigm in international development.

The next working session will take place on April 19 and 20,  2012, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at aWashington, D.C. location to be determined.  Follow-up coaching and mentoring groups are also available to support participants to achieve the outcomes they define in this program.

Companies and organizations represented at recent working sessions include:

AZMJ                                           CARANA Corporation

Cardno Emerging Markets        Checchi and Company Consulting

Chemonics International          Glevum Associates

Fintrac                                        Kaizen Consulting

Making Cents International     Segura Associates

Weidemann International        Environmental Protection Agency

THE TIPPING POINT[1], a comment by Ron Ivey

This widely read book does not discuss international development.  But it does discuss something that should tantalize interesting for international development practitioners.  Gladwell writes on social epidemics like crime, shoe styles, and Sesame Street, but, if we allow our imaginations to roam a bit we can see how this, always in a positive sense of course, is what we are really working for in international development.  We’re trying to create positive social epidemics.  Too often, however, our well-intended messages and capacity building have little effect.

What are the fundamental elements that cause a positive social epidemic?  Gladwell says that social epidemics do not need a lot of money, immense public information campaigns, or other large investments.  Social epidemics are a function of the people who transmit the message, the message itself, and the environment in which the epidemic is taking place.  He calls this the three rules of epidemics:  1) the Law of the Few, 2) the Stickiness Factor and 3) the Power of Context.

In this age of mass communication (what you’re reading is just another example of that to the nth degree), people become bored and tune out quickly.  There are more than numerous internet blogs, mass advertising, and other types of instant and multidimensional communication, all meant to reach a vast audience.  Most of the time those communications fall short; the receivers of the communication are “immune.”  Gladwell writes that Law of the Few meansmthat in certain kinds of communications and efforts, some people matter more than others.  These are what he calls the Connectors, Mavens and Salespersons.  Connectors are people who have a large number of acquaintances (1600 people on their Outlook – 1000 people on LinkedIn.  Mavens are people who are highly technically knowledgeable and just like to educate people around them.  Salespersons are those who can transmit an idea in a way that it will appeal to someone and “stick”.  Who are those people in international development settings?  IDEA feels that these are natural local leaders, but perhaps an even more precision definition must be found.  They may be leaders, but we must also be aware of others in a particular development context who can help shape a specific message and transmit it in a way that people will listen.  Gladwell demonstrates in various examples that these few people are somehow and amazingly linked into to everyone else, and the majority of people are linked to the world through these special few people.  We need to identify these special types and include them in our project planning.

The Stickiness Factor means that the idea needs to be memorable and move us to action.  The line between acceptance and rejection of a development message is often a lot narrower than it seems.  While this may be challenging, we need to shift our unsuccessful messages as there will be a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, will make it irresistible.  Word-of-mouth communications are definitely more powerful through Connectors, Mavens and Salespersons than other types of communications. To achieve Stickiness we need to recruit Connectors, Mavens and Salespersons to create the social epidemic.

The Power of Context requires that we reframe the way we think about the world.  A leader can shift how we define the context in which we’re living, operating and working.  The Power of Context is an environmental factor, implying that the positive or negative behavior is a function of social context.  Not everything in the environment needs changing, however, to achieve Tipping Point effects.  The Power of Context and the examples in Gladwell’s book imply that a group intend to develop themselves don’t need to solve all the big problems to resolve their underdevelopment.  Small indications of a positive shift may be enough to shift the entire context (removing graffiti from subway cars to reduce crime).

The implication from Gladwell’s book is that we need to think about new ways to design development programs and projects.  A mere project website won’t be adequate to shift how people see their world.  Fast internet fixes are unlikely to be successful. We need to think about how Connectors, Mavens and Salespersons can be identified and incorporated in the design.  They need to help create a message that has a social “ring” that’s recognizable and appealing to the people. We need to develop local leaders who can re-define and shift the context in which people are living.  These can cause people to take action to improve their own lives.