Schools and wells are good.
They are valuable.
However, research has shown that 50% of the time, within 5 years, schools are being
used to house goats and sheep, and that wells are just the first step in growth.
If all the community needed was a school, they would have built a school.
What they needed was an economic system that would support children going to school.
What is needed are strategic, networked economic development plans –
plans that include:
what is already happening locally,
multiple grievance pathways,
(these need to be inclusive and institutionalized),
And support for entrepreneurs;
and which partner private, public and civil sector actors
in the same goals toward the same ends.
That is, firms, governments of all levels, and local people, all working together.
Now that’s a goal worth working for.