How can we bring a Web 2.0 sensibility to international development work?
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Global Health Council 2009 Conference, where the theme was global health and technology. While I heard many things that excited me (you can read my thoughts here and here), I couldn’t help but notice that the traditional approach to international development still prevailed. As someone who has become immersed in social networking and the tools of Web 2.0, I had to wonder how we could bring that kind of sensibility to our development work.
As I see it, this would mean:
- Build from the ground up rather than the top down.
- Start by sharing and making connections.
- Then let a community emerge that can collaborate to solve the problems they identify as important.
- Large institutions (donors, big NGOs, government) need to facilitate this process or get out of the way.
- Above all, we have to let go of our need to control.
Working this way would certainly require a fundamental shift in mindset. No longer could we design every step of a project in our comfy offices, take them to the field and work the plan, measure and report our results, then leave when the funding cycle is over. But there are already successful models for working in a different way — Kiva and OpenMRS come to mind.
Web 2.0 has exploded because it fills a human need and fits in with natural human behaviors. That makes it less like work and more like fun, and people who are having fun can accomplish a lot. I think we could too, if we don’t let fear of change or of trying something new stand in our way.
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shannon.turlington AT gmail.com 
Yes! Let’s do that! I’m going to see what can be done about and with OPEN to do exactly that.
Hi Shannon,
I agree, this requires a fundamental shift in mindset. It is about learning to “get out of the way”, as you put it very well. But I think there’s also something more – it is about embracing compexity. You might have seen IISD report (http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2009/social_net_gov.pdf)
on the implications of web 2.0 on the governance of the development sector. My favuorite quote: “if you believe that sustainable development is a largely logical process achieved through planning and government policy-making, social networking sites do not fundamentally alter the dynamics of the political landscape.”
To answer your question on how can we bring a Web 2.0 sensibility to international development, you might want to check out the Development 2.0 manifesto – still in draft form – at http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2009/05/a-development-20-manifesto.html. Would love to get your views on it.
Cheers,
Giulio
Giulio, Thank you for commenting. I will read the manifesto, and it is nice to see the World Bank thinking about such issues.