And the next generation

• • Find good, effective, respected organisations to work for which seem to you to be sincere in their development thinking and which are prepared to push hard for their thinking to be implemented.
• • Be certain that any plans to be enacted have been produced with the collaboration of those on whom they are going to be enacted. This is the mantra of people with disabilities — “Nothing done to us or for us without us.”¹⁰
• • Be aware of an exit strategy for anything that you enter - how will you leave people better off than when you met them and able to sustain any gains they may have made?

• • Research the reality of corruption and see where it is harming poor and marginalised people. I don’t know what you will be able to do about it, but move beyond complacency and denial.
• • Save money so that you can hold on between jobs and choose only worthwhile ones.

It is an interesting life, and I wish you well.

If you want to learn more

Anderson, Mary B. and Woodrow, Peter J. 1988. Capacities and Vulnerabilities Workshops: Trainers manual. Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA.

Anderson, Mary B., Brown, Dayna and Jean, Isabella. 2012. Time to Listen: Hearing people on the receiving end of international aid. CDA Collaborative Learning Project, Cambridge MA, USA.

Chambers, Robert. 2012. Participation for development: why is this a good time to be alive? IDS blog.

Chambers, Robert. 2014. Perverse payments by results: frogs in a pot and straitjackets for obstacle courses. IDS blog.

Sida. 2012. Reality Check Bangladesh 2011: Listening to poor people’s realities about primary healthcare and primary education — year 5. Sida, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Notes

• 1 Although the always optimistic Robert Chambers said in 2012 that this is a good time to be alive: there are so many wonderful realities and potential for making a difference for the better (see “Participation for development” blog).
• 2 See Reality Check Bangladesh 2011. This documents yearly serial homestays with very poor people over a period of five years to become acquainted with health and education issues from their perspective.
• 3 Mary Anderson, also one of the authors of Time to Listen, co-authored the book on this methodology.
• 4 Anderson, Man' and Woodrow, Peter. 1988. Rising from the Ashes: Development strategies in times of disaster. Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA. This was followed by Disaster and Development Workshops: Manual for training in capacities and vulnerabilities analysis - by the same authors, but now sadly out of print.
• 5 Etan trucks were first built in Isarn from recycled material around stationery Yamaha engines. They can cany' farm produce — and their engines can be moved and connected to other machinery (pumps, threshers, sawmills) when needed.

• 6 Time to Listen: Hearing people on the receiving end of international aid.
• 7 Ibid., p. 38.
• 8 Ibid.
• 9 Ibid.
• 10 This is a strong argument against the log frame (logical framework analysis) as it is currently used. When its use was first pioneered, it was constructed with the people who would be affected by the project. However, it is much more common these days for log frames to be designed by the donor without local input.