Why Some Development Works

Understanding Success

Meera Tiwari

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781786993625
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Why do some development projects succeed where others fail? This book looks at some macro and some less known micro success stories and considers what enabled them to bring change in some of the world's most deprived communities. Using case studies from ten countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, Tiwari's innovative approach offers a multi-layered understanding of poverty which provides insights into causal, enabling and impeding factors. While a macro level analysis of development is a common feature of the current literature, there has been little attempt to develop a micro level understanding of development at the grassroots.
Tiwari's work fills this important gap while drawing attention to the importance of engaging local actors at an individual, collective, and state level, demonstrating how achieving a "convergence" of goals among all actors is a crucial component to a development project's success. Looking beyond the case studies to consider how this unique "convergence framework" might be usefully applied to other contexts, the book has profound implications for how we view fragile states and conflict zones, and the ability of the international agencies to take effective action. A unique study based on extensive empirical research, Why Some Development Works will make essential reading for students and researchers studying international development across the social sciences, as well as humanitarian and development practitioners and policy makers.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The world has more negatives than positives, or does it?

All ancient civilizations are founded on the central concern for Demons and Gods, some of whom had the sole remit of protecting humankind from the evil forces. The elaborate demonic heritage in the Greek mythology was through the cacodemons along with the other gods and goddesses of the underworld. The Olympian Gods, on the other hand, presided over every aspect of human life from the God of love, fertility, war, wine, wealth, harvest, sea, animals, hunters and heroes to name a few. The ancient Egyptian mythology revolved around the balance of the good and the evil. The Gods and the Demons were the vehicle to express the good and the bad in the society. They ranged from Ra, the solar deity, to the personification of evil through the giant serpent Apep, the female demon Ammit with multiple parts of different animals to the deities with expertise in specific domains of human life. In the Hindu mythology, the ten-headed king Ravana was bestowed with exceptional daemonic and eudaimonic powers, symbolizing the presence of the good and the evil in all living beings. Ravana chose to be governed by his daemonic side and became the most powerful demon king. Durga, with her nine forms, is the warrior goddess with the remit of combating demonic forces that pose menace to peace, prosperity and the dharma of goodness.

In recent modern times, the epic Star Wars films depict the battle to restore the balance between the evil and the good through the Siths and the Jedi knights. The presence of both the good and the evil or the daemonic and the eudaimonic powers as the ‘Force’ in every living being resonates with mythological depictions of the good and the evil in Ravana and several characters in other mythological traditions. As does the idea of individuals then opting to either become part of the dark side – the Siths – or join the side of the Jedi knights to oppose the Siths.

In real human life, the negatives (the evil and its outcomes) can be conceptualized as a loss of human dignity, human deprivation and unequal opportunities, predatory states and leaders, famines, epidemic disease and conflict-related deaths as well as crime to name a few. The positives (human goodness and its manifestations), on the other hand, comprise actions arising out of the human attributes of compassion, healing and humanity. One genre of these actions can be bundled into mitigation of the negative outcomes noted earlier. Goodness can also be its own sphere of action and not always counteracting the negative outcomes, such as respect for all genders, other living creatures and the planet. Though, the different mythological traditions and the history of human kind suggest a paradigm of balance restoration between the good and the evil.

The first genre of goodness can be mapped onto much of the modern human development domain of addressing a gap or a negative outcome, such as improving opportunities for girls’ education or mounting humanitarian effort to combat conflict-inflicted suffering. The proposition under scrutiny here is whether the global balance is weighted more towards the negative outcomes. Hans Rosling (Rosling et al., 2018) contests the negativity thesis ‘the world is getting worse’. Rosling acknowledges the basis for the perception that engenders the negativity thesis by drawing attention to events that have changed the global socio-economic order for the worse. These include the reversal of the declining war fatalities’ trend since the Second World War with the start of the Syrian conflict, environmental damage and threat to other species through irresponsible consumption. Further, the precarious financial regulatory mechanisms and the push to weaken the global collaborative culture are likely to unleash recurrent economic and social hardship for the majority, barring the small club of global elite. To make the investigation more current and contextual, Rosling et al. examine some global data trends. A selection of their counterarguments for the negativity thesis are as follows:

• In the last twenty years, the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has almost halved.

• Between 1997 and 2017 China reduced the proportion of people living in poverty from 42 per cent to just 0.7 per cent.

• Between 1997 and 2017 India’s share of poor decreased from 42 per cent to 12 per cent.

• The average life expectancy across the world today is seventy-two years (in 2018) compared to thirty-one years in the year 1800.

• The share of undernourished people in the world fell from 28 per cent in 1970 to 11 per cent in 2015.

• New HIV infections per million people have declined from 549 in 1996 to 241 in 2016.

• Share of children aged five to fourteen working full time under unacceptable conditions had fallen from 28 per cent in 1950 to 10 per cent in 2012.

• Countries allowing leaded gasoline diminished from 193 in 1986 to just 3 in 2017.

Rosling frames the human tendency to hone in more on the bad outcomes and events as our negativity instinct. The use of statistical evidence as an antidote to the negativity instinct is to draw attention to positive trends and outcomes while acknowledging the negatives. Further, Rosling’s statistical therapy demonstrates the balance in favour of the positive changes. Other recent literatures of the same genre include the works of Pinker (2018), Deaton (2013) and Kenny (2011) amongst several others, ¹ none of whom were apparently recognized with any prizes. Steven Pinker makes a powerful case for progress, humanism, reason and science, grounding the argumentations in the discourse on Enlightenment, Optimism and Pessimism. Referring to the ‘Optimism Gap’ and the negativity bias, Pinker suggests insufficient knowledge to be the driver for failures, negative outcomes and evils. Drawing on his earlier work, he points to the gains humankind has made in life through steep improvements in life expectancy and quality of life, in health by the eradication of infectious and killer diseases in many parts of the world, wealth, sustainability, reason, science and human rights over the course of history. The positive trends noted here must be acknowledged within the context of the good and the bad discourse that shapes the societal trajectory and not magnified out of proportion to obliterate the negatives.

Deaton’s (2013) work, while drawing out the remarkable journey of humankind through leaps made in life expectancy, health and disease control, material wealth, education and knowledge frontiers, returns with a sceptical lens to unpack and contextualize the title of the book – The Great Escape. Where we stand now, the great escape story of humankind indicates a tilt towards the goodness balance with escapes in multiple domains. Deaton reminds of the tragic ending of the movie The Great Escape: the recapture and execution of all of the 250 but a handful of POW escapees of the Second World War. Pondering over how might our great escape story unfold in the future, Deaton alerts to the negatives, that is, the perils of a multitude of threats that loom in the horizon. These include climatic volatilities caused by human action, populist movements with divisive politics and abuse of scientific knowledge. While the human instinct to survive and the global challenges that lie ahead are tenacious, to mitigate the negatives, it is essential to remember the positive story of our escape.

Charles Kenny (2011), in his inquiry into global development over the last century, also grounds his claims for human progress into the positive–negative balance paradigm. The central thesis of Kenny’s work highlights the unprecedented advancements in several domains of human development, including health in particular, without the need for high levels of economic growth to sustain this progress. Kenny draws attention to the spread of low-cost technologies and investment in provision of public goods as significant enablers in countries that have made progress in these domains. Further, the case for continuing aid for developing countries is to support the success they have made in combating complex development problems and not for the failures. Another key insight emerging from Kenny’s work is the need to accept and explore what constitutes a good life beyond its conceptions solely within material wealth. These understandings are needed more than ever before in history to sustain progress, resources and life on earth. Throughout the argumentations Kenny makes for the world ‘Getting Better’, and he remains cognizant of the development failures but draws attention to what has been achieved and what can be achieved.

The story of why some development works

The thematic inquiry of this monograph is situated in the good outcomes and the positive development paradigm highlighted earlier in the works of Pinker, Rosling, Deaton and Kenny in addition to the literature noted in the footnote. The research builds on the development positives to investigate why some development interventions have worked: in some instances, creating pathways out of poverty for the most deprived communities or addressing complex problems to mitigate their impact, and in other instances, offering resolutions to difficult situations. The study attempts to draw attention to success stories and what made them successful. Within multidimensional understandings of poverty, the inquiry aims to offer insights into causal, enabling and impeding factors for this progress at both macro and micro levels. A theoretical construct that captures the dynamics is developed based on research carried out in rural Bihar in India between 2009 and 2013. The model is then deployed as an analytical framework to investigate development successes at both macro and micro levels in several countries located across Latin America, Africa and Asia (India). The construct is also applied in fragile contexts to investigate how things might work in volatile and unstable situations.

Organization of the book

This chapter sets the context in which the thematic focus of the monograph is situated. It draws on mythology from ancient cultures to posit humankind’s central concern with goodness versus evil and the presence of both in life. The course of history is scattered with endless struggles towards restoring the balance in favour of goodness by combating the negative outcomes of the evil. The current literature demonstrates the progress and positive outcomes in human life over the centuries in terms of health, quality of life, violence and overall well-being, thus, suggesting the balance in favour of the positives despite the tenacity of the negatives and the threat these pose in achieving future progress.

The monograph engages with the ‘more positive outcomes’ theory to examine why a positive change happens in one context and not in another. The objective is to identify the key ingredients that enable a policy intervention to succeed and develop a framework to capture this process. The framework is then applied to different contexts to test its validity. The following five chapters provide the thematic development of the monograph.

Chapter 2: The story so far . . .

This chapter presents an overview and critique of the literature on the development successes since the Second World War. While the desire to better one’s situation and expand opportunities is an inherent human trait, Weisdorf (2005) traces it to the Neolithic Revolution, which ushered in the beginnings of the modern civilization. It was some 10,000–5,000 years back that the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers transitioned into settled agriculture, leading to inventions, discoveries, knowledge and wealth creation. Fast-forward several millennia to the mid-twentieth century, the discussions in this chapter bring to foci the overview and the critique of the literature on the successes of the ‘development story’ so far.

The chapter frames the development story as good practices and achievements in improving the lives of the poor people living in the less developed parts of the world. These efforts comprised the poverty reduction strategies that began in the post–Second World War period in the richer countries for implementation in the poorer countries. The story in this chapter examines the literature on interventions that are noted to have brought about positive shifts. The chapter thus lays the groundwork for investigation into the author’s fieldwork in rural Bihar to examine the achievements of the Self-Help Group (SHG) Network JeeVika.

Chapter 3: The convergence framework (CF)

This chapter draws on the key reflections from the ‘Story So Far . . .’ to investigate the research into positive changes being achieved through women’s SHG network in rural Bihar. The objective of this analysis is to develop a generic framework that identifies conditions needed to achieve positive outcomes, which can then be made context specific. The chapter first examines perceptions of poverty at the grassroots together with drivers of development to understand how this impacts actor engagement. A CF is developed that offers insights into what makes some interventions achieve better outcomes than others – what makes development successful, not so successful or a failure.

This chapter thus presents the conceptual framework anchored in the author’s research in rural Bihar to illustrate the theory of convergence. This framework draws attention to the critical role of the state, partnerships through macro–micro linkages, grassroots engagement and ownership together with collective action as some of the factors that can be attributed to enabling successful interventions. The conceptual schema of the conditions needed for achieving the desired outcomes are captured in the CF. The epistemic foundations of the CF are rooted in three key theoretical discourses: the Freirian...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD HAS MORE NEGATIVES THAN POSITIVES, OR DOES IT?
• Chapter 2 THE STORY SO FAR . . .: ACHIEVEMENTS AND GOOD PRACTICES IN IMPROVING THE LIVES OF THE POOR
• Chapter 3 THE CONVERGENCE FRAMEWORK (CF): INSIGHTS INTO WHAT MAKES SOME INTERVENTIONS ACHIEVE BETTER OUTCOMES THAN OTHERS
• Chapter 4 THE MACRO LANDSCAPE: DOES THE CONVERGENCE FRAMEWORK EXPLAIN DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AT THE MACRO LEVEL?
• Chapter 5 THE MICRO LANDSCAPE: UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS AT MICRO LEVEL WITHIN THE CONVERGENCE FRAMEWORK
• Chapter 6 THE FRAGILE CONTEXT: CAN THE CONVERGENCE FRAMEWORK BE USED TO EXPLAIN HOW SOME DEVELOPMENT WORKS IN FRAGILE CONTEXTS?
• Chapter 7 CONCLUSION
• Bibliography
• Further Reading
• Index
• Copyright