1. The World- The Big Picture
Since the end of World War II in 1945, the world has tried to devise ways to decrease the gap between the richest and poorest people in the world. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that getting the rich to sacrifice things so that the poor may have a better standard of life was a difficult proposition. The reasons for this seem to be twofold. Firstly, there are some people who just do not care enough about the 'invisible poor' on the other side of the world. What is important to them is what they see right in front of them, in their suburb, city, state or country. Asking these people to dig into their own pockets to assist people that they have never met is unlikely to be successful. Secondly, even those people who do care enough to contribute financially to the plight of the poor do not know how to do so effectively. This concept applies equally to private citizens and private companies.
Consequently, the terminology most used today in relation to improving the welfare of the poorest people in the world relates to "lifting the poor out of poverty." This implies that the rich are not willing to sacrifice much themselves in terms of changing their own lifestyles to be more sustainable, but rather they would like to lift the poor up so that they are a level closer to their own.
If we look at economics, historically one of the key factors in countries achieving economic growth has been the introduction of technology. What economists call technology, others may call innovation. This does not refer simply to machinery or capital stock, but rather the new ideas and processes that can be used in order to improve a countries revenue.
One of the ways to look at innovation is to think of ways in which to generate more output from the same number of inputs into something- or how to "do more with less." This is critical for the developing world where inputs are limited and many people find themselves in a poverty trap as a result.
It is clear then that innovation is vitally important to the world at large if we wish to see people lifted out of poverty.
If we look at infrastructure as an example, it is estimated that in order to fulfil the worlds infrastructure requirements by the year 2050, a significant percentage of the funding will need to come from the private sector. Though traditionally, infrastructure financing has come exclusively from the public sector. One of the hot topics at the moment in the international development community is how to develop new mechanisms for funding infrastructure which include the private sector. This has led to a whole new discipline called Public Private Partnerships, which looks at innovative finance models for infrastructure.
2. My Profession - Career Growth
As the readings for week 1 demonstrate, more and more jobs are being automated. Capacity Building is one of the key skills for an International Development Practitioner such as myself (for now at least). Traditionally, capacity building was achieved through classroom teaching. People today still devote their lives to teaching people how to do their jobs better to enable better public services to be delivered. Though through the use of new technology, the face to face capacity building models of old are being phased out through interactive online training courses, and what is now known as the "master trainer" model. Even in the developing world (in fact, at times especially in the developing world), innovation is becoming par for the course in how we implement international development programs.
So it is becoming increasingly clear, that in my profession, which is linked closely to my first point above, innovation is critical for me to demonstrate excellence in my field. An understanding of what leads to innovation, and how creativity and innovation can be encouraged, will be crucial for me to further my career.
3. My Technical Skills - A Ray of Hope
The week 1 readings were heartening for me. I have always considered myself to be an executer. I hope one day to start a business which can assist people in the developing world to achieve greater standards of living, while still being sustainable. I have always struggled, however, to come up with new ideas which could be implemented to create efficiencies or to disrupt the common practices that we see in the developing world. Until I read the readings for this week, I thought that innovation was simply not for me. Though even now, in day 1 of the unit, I am seeing that I could still add value in the innovative process, through my skills in execution. I have always been good at taking new ideas and putting them into action.
Perhaps through this unit I will also learn to foster the creative side of my brain to actually be the one to come up with new ideas, rather than just implement them.
I am excited!
