Bottom Dwellers

Easterly mentioned it very early on, but I failed to grasp his real development proposal until page 157: the most effective, helpful, and non-intrusive development projects are those that "help very poor individuals with their most desperate needs." It sounds like a no-brainer, right? help poor people. But as Easterly illustrates, that may or may not happen as often as we'd like to think.

As I've seen various "humanitarian" and "development" projects, I've often been confused as to which ones are helping and which ones are hurting. Debates are ongoing about projects that are supported entirely by markets and projects that are funded entirely by tax dollars and private donors. But perhaps the distinction should focus more on projects that improve the lives of the poor, and projects that don't. Obviously, most developers feel that their projects do help the poor and it is often extremely difficult to measure results. I don't know of any real solution here. But I do want to bring up the question: If it helps the poor, is it a good project? regardless of markets, taxes, governments, bribes, etc.? Even if it just helps the poor for a few days? (and by "help the poor" I mean projects that simultaneously "do no harm" by creating dependency or undermining nad weakening exisiting instiutions).

I really like the idea of just helping the poor. I came across a great organization based out of New York called "charity: water." To me, they are a great example of searchers and are an organization grown from the bottom up. this doesn't mean they don't have a plan or goals (in fact they plan to get clean water to 1 billion people), but they are doing it piece-meal and from the bottom up:

The story of charity: water - The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.