What if, instead of trying to fix problems, we empowered those people better placed?
You can’t market research away poverty.
It is increasingly fashionable to save the world, in the developed world. It always has been, but things are becoming more accessible for anybody to take a shot at donning some questionable eye wear and changing things.
This is great, don’t get me wrong. The more people we get to attack a problem, the more chance we’ll make a change. However I think there is a better, more efficient way to go about the whole thing.
I work in product design and engineering, I always have done. The most important thing I have experienced (okay maybe second most) is that to solve a problem, you need to really understand it.
As an outsider looking in, I’m seeing us privileged people hopping on a chartered jet to Africa. We take a holistic overview of the problems in developing world countries. We walk away with an idea to solve a problem, as we see fit in our own world. But is a few trips and questions really enough to efficiently solve problems and change the developing world?
Last week I met Katrin Macmillan. Among other things, she is working on Project: Hello World as part of Projects For All. What fascinates me about Kati and her organisation, is that she isn’t trying to solve somebody else’s problem. She is empowering communities to solve their own problems.
It struck me that this is to be seen in our society too. Those who start companies and design products to solve their own problems, tend to succeed better than those who go after problems they can only research their way around.
Why is it that we are trying to ‘solve’ poverty? We are mere spectators to the conditions and situations, however many surveys you take.
What if we were to provide developing worlds with the resources to solve their own problems?
Those who have nothing, have no choice but to innovate from the resources they have. Over the years we have seen incredible innovations in energy and engineering, spawned from cola bottles, hubcaps and general ‘rubbish’.
Now think what if those same minds had access to the infinite wealth of resources, that is the internet. What if they had access to the materials and manufacturing facilities you have in your underfloor heated garden shed? What if they had access to online payment systems and credible transaction portals, that would allow reliable trade with the developed world? What if they were able to ship products, or even have access to manufacturers who could ship their products?
With those resources (not solutions) these communities would have the ability to solve their own problems.
I’m not proposing a solution. It is impossible to even comprehend how one would implement all of this. But just maybe, if 25% of us who are trying to make a difference, shifted our efforts to empowering, instead of fixing, what might happen?
