Security is Development

"Collaborative Behavior at the Edges" -- D. P. Reed

The legacy industrial paradigm for commerce, society and government has tried for over 100 years to discover a successful model for international development. The fact that over 2 billion of us still have no electricity, suffer from inadequate supplies of clean water to drink, healthcare, education and sustainable employment at reasonable wages is proof enough that our well intentioned efforts are, to be candid, failures. Clearly, something about the centralized, top down, large scale, command and control approach to development, capitalist and socialist, does not work enough of the time.

Is there any reason to suppose that we can now envision new approaches and systems that incorporate modern communications, partnership thinking, direct personal engagement, and emphasizes the critical role of women? What can we do if we engage all of us at the edges and leverage the energy and power of bottom up approaches?

This essay was originally written as two email comments on the Washington, D.C. based World Resources Institute's program for their recent meeting on Eradicating Poverty through Profit

The new model described below may be more effective than the traditional industrial approaches we have used to date. It proposes a system to integrate the efforts of governments, NGOs, corporations and individuals in new ways to create something greater than the sum of the parts. In short, what we need, in the face of the development challenges around the world, including the problems caused by the AIDs epidemic in Africa and the earthquake damage in Asia, is NOT another Industrial era Marshall Plan. We must seek something new that takes full advantage of everything we have learned since the end of the 2nd World War and Robert MacNamara's 1966 speech.

How can we greatly increase the number of Americans and other citizens of "developed" nations interested in, and participating in, economic development efforts on a global scale? Would such individual constructive engagement be far more effective in improving our image and security than unilateral campaigns to break things and kill people?

I suggest we can only develop honest, strategic Bottom of the Pyramid [BoP] solutions if the people at the far edges can become full participants in the modern, connected, economy. Like us, they must be appreciated and respected as fully multi-dimensional beings: producers, distributors and consumers. Just thinking of them as traditional one dimensional consumers with a difference, cash flow but not capital, is not going to work. Simply put, we need a new master narrative for all of us every where, not just the BoP.

For more on this, see my Mr. Jones post.

A case in point: I do not think cell phones will do the trick. While a cell phone is better than no dial tone at all, their bandwidth is too low to compete fairly with the new "first world" standard of 10 gigabits to everyone every where. What we will need is very high capacity and affordable connectivity at all scale levels -- from household, to neighborhood, to village and on up. This will inevitably lead to ubiquitous communications over IP as a service, making communications something "we do, not something we buy." By the way, these new hand-held communications devices will soon be able to produce, distribute and receive hi-def television. Why should we all not be able to have our own hi-def television capabilities? Must we accept the current state of affairs that renders some voices more equal than others?

Local governments, and corporations doing business in the host countries, will have vital roles to play in establishing the regulatory environments and infrastructure systems to enable this high capacity connectivity essential to this proposed model.

Lastly, I see far too little discussion of the inter-relationship of social capital, trust, and economic activity. See my post on Greater Democracy The Destruction of Social Capital in America has a Price. As Reed points out, Group Forming Networks can become key tools for social capital formation, the foundation for economic development.

Draft outline for an Open Source model for a system of 360 Full Circle Clubs as a possible BoP strategy:

If our producers/distributors/consumers have cash flow, but not capital, let's provide them with seed capital.

Can we imagine starting 360 Full Cirlce clubs? 12 members per circle, each donating $1 per day [$30/mo] -- less than the cost of a cup of coffee per day.

The money would be transfered directly to a women's self help group in the partner village. The funds will be used in micro credit programs -- A micro-finance bank in every village. Thus $360 dollars of seed capital goes into the Village Micro-Finance Bank every month for as long as the bank is operating prudently and there are the agreed upon tangible results on the ground: Checks and balances with measureable, results based, outcomes. Obviously these parameters would vary depending upon the local context.

The Village Micro-Finance Banks in the partner villages, mentored by experienced NGOs, will most likely be run by women who are also members of the local self improvement society. This suggests that the 360 members be limited to women -- at least at first. With no men present, the women are more likely to reveal the real issues and challenges that need to be addressed for strategic advantage. As we have learned, if you really want to discover what is going on in a rural village, get women to interview women -- with no men around.

Sponsoring organizations, including government, corporate and non-profit, would provide advisors and native language speakers who have, perhaps, Peace Corps experience, as well as micro finance etc. training to help mentor the new village-based Micro Finance Bankers. Various corporations with experience with their own programs in economic development and Corporate Social Responsibility might put together a range of "appropriate green technology" solutions kits for typical problems faced by rural villagers:

renewable energy
lighting
water purification
waste management
literacy in the broadest sense of the word
viral communications
education, training
health care and health records
micro industry
micro enterprise [village photographers etc.]
blog, podcasting, and video chat solutions [essential for the 360 concept based on partnership and feedback]
village center infrastructure
drip irrigation
weather information and warning systems
electronic marketing
etc

The goal is to provide seed capital for loans that will leverage the human capital on the ground in the village. Where ever possible, money lenders, distant bankers or other non-resident 3rd parties should be disinter-mediated. This is not gift money per se. It may only be invested in projects agreed to by the partnership with approved and appropriate technologies -- hopefully with the highest possible local inputs [raw materials, labor, etc]. See, for example, the SolarAid hearing aid project in Africa.

Using viral communications, including voice, email, blog, and podcasting solutions, the partners in the villages and the partners in the Full Circle Clubs will be in very regular conversation. This will create a distributed dynamic system with a full circle feedback loop. I would also urge the use of at least monthly video chats between the partners. Maximizing the face-to-face communications will help to engage, leverage and sustain the native innovation capacities of all the partners. A result should be an increase in both social capital and economic activity.

Obviously, the seed capital might also help to fund the acquisition of the enabling and infrastructure goods and services created by some sponsors. The business opportunity is on top of the Open Source solutions approach. The goal is an implementation that allows the 360 Full Circle Club concept to scale up very rapidly and benefit from the input of the maximum number of creative minds.

If we assume 12 employees/donors/partners per small rural village, how many villages could American citizens help to jump start into new economic activity?

1,000,000 villages could be supported by just 12 million Americans. The total economic leverage created by 1 million 360 clubs would be over 4.3 billion dollars per year. Imagine the interconnected, global, social network this could form. The cooperative gain from collective behavior at the edges would be enormous.

Related posting: A Liberal Long March?

Posted by Jock Gill at January 7, 2005 5:32 PM | TrackBack