Well said Meera. With the Grameen bank, there was actually a “learning curve” stage when existing lending practices amongst the poor were incorporated.

I see anecdotal examples all the time of westerners or urbanized/westernized Indians going off for a little country adventure. I’ve made such trips myself (long time ago when it was a lot less common) since I know people in many social service organizations. My mother runs a free school and I’m wary of telling anyone about it lest they approach me for a free vacation. My mom has attracted some of these “volunteers” on her own and doesn’t need my help.

If it were to choose between armed men in tanks and peace-loving tree-hugging Westerners to invade/help any developing country, of course I’d want the latter. However, I believe it is ideal that the only way to set a developing country on a correct course is to have neither present on its soil. In the case of non-profits, I stand by the idea that for every supposed “positive” action, there will be a negative reaction of equal intensity. I worked overseas in Africa and South Asia for organizations dedicated to women’s health and education personally while also having the chance to survey the local orphanages, microfinance ventures, and other such institutions. One conclusion that I have drawn from these experiences is that though they are established with good intentions, their services might enable people to be even more irresponsible. I remember one particular rural village in Africa that was teem full of orphanages financed by Westerners, and many of its inhabitants were hoping that no more would be built because it basically had given many of the area’s women the green light on abandoning even more of their children. But of course all these Westerner’s are not realizing that; they are going home to Europe, Australia, and the US with smiles plastered all over their faces for all the “good” they’ve done.

So scandal or not, stories like Mortenson’s are a joke to me. The few successful organizations out there are the ones that rationally recognize and mobilize key immutable cultural factors towards the socioeconomic mobility of its target population, one fine example being Grameen Bank and its use of the tight-knit community infrastructure in Bangladesh as a basis of loan issuance and repayments. And Grameen Bank was spearheaded by a person from the “inside,” not some Westerner that is craving a little culture and adventure.

@ Lindsey: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” Keynes said that, and he’s still right. While White people may not always wield direct political authority, Western culture still maintains hegemonic dominance over the international discourse on everything from economic policy to human rights and education. You can’t be an internationally acclaimed author unless you write in English and do a lecture circuit in the US and Europe. You don’t get to be an internationally recognized expert in your field, any field from the humanities to the sciences, unless you spend some time in the US or Oxbridge or a few recognized continental universities.

@Alina: You read Lexus and Olive Tree in high school? That’s a good high school. I’m not a huge fan of Friedman myself, mostly because he takes about 400 pages and 40 anecdotes to communicate a paragraph’s worth of content. I put my money on Joseph Stiglitz. His writing isn’t quite as light as Friedman’s, but he maintains a really balanced perspective and he not only diagnoses issues, but proposes solutions. Mostly, though, I think he has a really good handle on the importance of letting communities take the lead on their own development.

It is cool that you’re doing field-work though. Having field experience when you’re young will help so much in getting a job in the development field. Disregard haters giving you grief about putting it on your resume. If you think you have something to offer, don’t be afraid to toot your own horn. Don’t sell yourself short about not being interesting enough for a blog or twitter either. Your traveling, the pictures alone will be subscribing to.

So at this point I will probably continue to say “developed” vs “developing” under the full recognition that we are all really developing constantly and it shouldn’t be one group of countries trying to emulate another…again I really don’t know what to use and am sorry if people in poorer countries get genuinely offended by these terms.

Thank you for such a thoughtful reply. I don’t think that 1st/2nd/3rd (2nd being the dirty “reds”!) world OR developed/developing countries are either appropriate terms– both place the West as fully evolved and at the “top”– superior, most knowledgeable– while placing the “developing” nations as something that will eventually learn how to “get it right” (i.e. do what the West did). In reality if all the countries try to emulate the west– we will probably not have a world left to live in due to war and environmental degradation. Personally, I think western countries are still learning and developing as well– and I hope they continue to do so, for all our sakes.

I do agree though that it is difficult to then find appropriate terms to use– and most would then be awkward and long– I have seen the global north and global south used in anthropology, or the west (vs. the rest, I guess).