What constitutes success?

Success is when the implementing NGO satisfies the funding institution that the money has been disbursed well. The leads to sustainability for the NGO that remains in a favored position to get more funding. But of course this type of success has nothing to do with actual success in development. Success in development requires that there is tangible value delivered to the beneficiaries. The critical things for a community are related to economic value adding, whether in the form of more productivity from their local labors, or more jobs created by outside investors, or better water, or health services or education opportunities, or water or electricity or telephone or Internet. In some communities the priorities may have to be related to security and safety and staying alive.

At the start of the 3rd millennium, socio-economic conditions in SOUTH are horrendous. From a purely financial perspective most of the governments are essentially bankrupt. Something has gone dramatically wrong. There are enough people. There are enough resources. There is enough technology. Why is it that it does not come together to deliver success.

For Africa its even worse. There is a population of around 800 million people who are amongst the world’s poorest. Yet the resources of Africa are enormous. The wealth of Africa is drawn down every year as financial and material resources are shipped out of Africa to pay debt or to satisfy foreign investors’ claims. The process of development used for most of the period since independence has failed.

I responded with some additional observations. I thought that Claudio's set of data showed results, and there is general agreement that results are awful. But the data I want to see is the transaction data that will show why we have these very unsatisfactory results. It will show not just that the results are terrible, but that the process does not function.

Year after year the development experts report on the disaster of development. The macro-numbers are reported, and some heart-rending individual stories about the human dimension to the crisis. But that is about as far as it goes. I have responded to these reports over and over again. This was written several years ago.