Listen to the right people. Okay, so you probably don’t know what it’s like to carry fifty pounds of firewood on your head. Well, don’t pretend that you do. Talk to someone who has done it. I believe that the key to innovation in international development is truly understanding the problem, and using your imagination is not good enough.
This is my favorite secret from exhibit A because of one main reason: you can't solve a problem without knowing what it is. For instance, say we were really dealing with the japanese food crisis. We couldn't just come in with an instant solution. The situation is too complex. Before we find a solution, we would need to know more about the problem first. How did the crisis start? What has kept it going? We could easily get answers to these questions by asking the people it affected. Many times (usually by westerners) people will skip this step when they are trying to help people. They think they know it all, and they have the right better way. They think they are helping people by changing their ways. This is exactly what the spanish thought when they built all the missions. They basically just ended up enslaving many native americans. if we listen to the people, we will see what works and what doesn't, and therefor can come up with the best solution.
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