The White Man's Burden

In his much acclaimed book The White Man’s Burden (2006), William Easterly has made a sharp distinction between the planners and the searchers, when it comes to foreign aid. Although Easterly’s thesis leaves ample room for question marks and doubts (as shown by a.o. no less an authority than Amartya Sen), the general line of thought, that planned foreign aid is much less successful than searched foreign aid, has continued to spark the imagination of everyone involved with foreign aid programs ever since.

Says Easterly, the two foremost parameters almost solely owned by the searchers, in contrast with the planners, are Feedback and Accountability. Searchers know if something works only if the people at the bottom give feedback, he remarks, and lack of feedback is one of the most critical flaws in existing aid. But there is more: Feedback works only if somebody listens, and Feedback without Accountability is nothing much more than a “Don’t like my Driving? Call I-800-Screw You!” car bumper sticker.

The divide between planners and searchers in foreign aid mirrors a long-standing historical dichotomy in Western intellectual history about change. As any corporate change manager will confirm, to choose between Karl Popper’s utopian social engineering and piece-meal (democratic) reform, or between Edmund Burke’s revolution and social reform, remains a key challenge, in whichever environment change might be desired or needed.

Sustainable Business and Corporate Social Responsibility

Lately, the management of change has become a major subject in management studies all over the world, and the tenets of utopian social engineering have come to be favoured less and less by professional change implementeers.

More and more, gradual, organic and dynamic change has become the cornerstone of succesful change implementation programs, both in the profit and non-profit sectors – all the more so, when programs of Sustainable Business & Corporate Social Responsibility (People-Planet-Prosperity) are concerned.

True community change is possible only when the process contains the six community change conversations as identified by Peter Block, viz. the conversation of invitation, the conversation of possibility, the conversation of ownership, the conversation of dissent, the conversation of commitment, and the conversation of (mutual) gifts.

 

Dunya joins Anand.be

Lately, Dunya, already an active member of the Kauri network (Belgian Meeting Point for Global Sustainable Action), has gone one step further. In November 2009, Eddy Van Hemelrijck and Francis Laleman travelled to Bihar (India) together, for a scheduled annual field visit to the Anand/Jeevan Deep projects in the Bodhgaya District (see the Anand website)

The Dalit (Outcastes) and Scheduled Castes Communities surrouding Bodhgaya's Mahabodhi Mandir are to be counted among India's most backward and deprived population groups. The Anand Society, founded in 2003 by Jerry Meuris and Francis Laleman, aims at supporting these people in their own development, ensuring their future strength to fully claim their basic human rights.

At Bodhgaya, Anand and Jeevan Deep are not envisaging to change the world. Merely, through a sustainable educational program, and with continuous application of Block’s six conversations, and perpetually listening to the community feedback, we are aiming at reaching out a helping hand to the Dalit & Scheduled Castes communities, creating an environment in which they can help & develop themselves.

Res, non verba !

With its involvement with Anand/Jeevan Deep, Dunya wants to go a lot further than merely producing words. We are actually inviting our clients to participate. This can be done in a variety of ways:

• Dunya Clients could permit the Dunya consultants to spare a limited timeslot during a training session to introduce and discuss its Anand/Jeevan Deep projects.
• Dunya Clients could become corporate sponsors. To do so, Dunya, Beyond Borders (bvba Francis Laleman) and Maror suggest to raise their invoices to their clients with 5% of the invoicable amount, upon which they commit on adding another 5% by themselves – securing 10% of the invoicable amount to be reserved for Jeevan Deep.
• Dunya Clients could become actively involved, and let Anand/Jeevan Deep become part of their own social responsibility activities.
• ... and you might think of a lot more ways to help us make the world (Dunya) a better place to live in?

We are looking forward to your suggestions