“I think we’re like medieval surgeon barbers. We’ve put up a sign outside, and we’re happy to operate on you, but we don’t really know what we’re doing. We don’t really understand the systems we’re trying to change in these fundamental ways…”
“It's impossible to do aid without some level of abstraction and simplification… it becomes problematic though when we start to drink our own koolaid and when we forget that the categories that guide our own intervention are inherently limited. None of our conceptual understandings, none of the ways in which we divide the world, adequately describe an individual, much less a given situation. Instead, they simply reflect our need to give aid to those who need it as opposed to those who don’t. So, we can provide inputs, we can feed starving children, we can provide basic services for at least most of the time for a limited duration. I’m beginning to wonder if our ability to do anything more is fundamentally constrained… What if we simply lack the understanding to design interventions that address any sort of complex causality? I think we need to be more open about facing our own limitations.”
-Aidworker Michael Kleinman at Yale University "Future of Development" Conference (23 April 2010)
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