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Blog Comments: "Investing in the immaterial": Development practitioners reflect on the messy business of facilitating change
April 2011
Development resources are scarcer than ever before which means that at all levels of development practice, there is pressure to demonstrate (and perhaps to creatively tweak) the results of projects and processes. It is therefore refreshing to come across a set of candid personal reflections on the challenges of facilitating change in complex real-life settings. "Investing in the Immaterial" is the first of what aims to become an annual practice digest compiled by the South-African based Community Development Resource Association. Its goal is to contribute to building a body of practice in this area and kicks this off with 10 thought-provoking contributions from practitioners across the development spectrum.
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Complexity and results
To me it seems that we need to crack the dilemma, where on the one hand we are faced with increasing calls for (short-term) results from donor agencies (partly driven by a more critical, maybe right-wing, European public), and on the other hand we realise that our practice is not linear, is messy and complex and does not contain the quick fixes we are demanded to show.
It seems to me there are three options of dealing with the dilemma:
1. Conjure up results, because that is what is required to stay afloat, while simultaneously trying to convince donors that reality is not that simple.
2. Trying to address donor agencies on their short-sightedness, and attempting to convince them of the complexity of practice.
3. Or, maybe, trying to formulate 'intermediate results', which are both of a more fundamental nature than the bean-counting and which also can indicate good progress. Unfortunately, I have not seen many such convincing results yet.
Thanks very much for the interesting blog.