A particular weakness in the development experience of India has been the absence of a strong conduit for the transfer of knowledge and practice between institutions and geographies having successful experiences and those where the potential exists but remains untapped.

There is a strong need for collaboration in the sector among policymakers, bankers, private sector, farmers, and other institutions on how they can act to benefit the sector as a whole and the poor working within it. This can lead to cross-learning and cross-pollination and sharing of best practices, unique experiences, and breakthroughs, and both successes and failures within the sector.

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Good leadership and long-term change happen when people are open to understanding each other, willing to learn from each other and mutually invested in fostering change that positively impacts the community as a whole. This collaboration can help in influencing and shaping policy environments in favour of the marginalized communities. When done well and from the ground up, development can improve people’s lives by connecting them to their environment, and other actors in the ecosystem.

The current free market lens will only give us a picture of these people in terms of their monetary value ~ believing as it does, that they are commodities from which to extract value. Through convergence and collaboration, locals benefit from the expertise and support of professionals, and professionals benefit from the perspective and knowledge that locals offer. We need to collaboratively scale action around a particular problem through the engagement of all stakeholders affected by an issue. Only then will we be able to make meaningful changes in how complex social problems are tackled.

An underperforming or failing system can be rescued not by a holier than thou attitude but by an evidence-based approach. We need to make the process of social change “flatter” ~ namely, by devolving leadership and decision-making to the communities most impacted by the issues themselves. Instead of giving people a readymade solution, we should attempt to create an environment where the solution comes from the people; it could be a local community or a nation.

In early independent India, we still had a traditional model with a strong Gandhian ethic. But later we strayed from that ethic, even though we like to trade on it. But India can still draw from it to create a better development model. The Western model of development defines the solution, even though it often does not define the problem very well. Then it decides the time frame within which it will execute the solution. That paradigm is not people-based or culture-based.

We need to create a system where public institutions are more community based, community-governed, and community-led, as Mahatma Gandhi advocated. We need to unleash these traditional processes so that they have a life of their own or have a multiplier effect. We must understand that it takes time for local realities to unfold in their entirety. Before changing the system, we must change ourselves. We need to be aware that economics is about the triumph of opportunity over scarcity.

A highly demeaning approach to local development is to homogenise people into a single type. To deprive every group of its special traditions is to convert the world into a robotic mass. Processes can be standardised; not human beings. The uniqueness of every individual is the miracle of human civilisation. We have to keep believing in the goodness of people ~ including ourselves. We have to finally align all actors to make the whole system work towards the development goals aimed at.

Any work you do in any community has to be owned by the community. They have to see it as theirs, otherwise, they will agree to what you say; but as soon as you pull out, they’re going to revert to their old way because they don’t own the changes you introduced. So, one of the things we had to learn was that you have to go in with partners who’ve worked in these places for a long time and are from the community. The idea is to understand what works for the poorest. This needs local knowledge, understanding and experimentation; and people willing to work in difficult environments.

The hallmark of any intervention for the poor is that it should stand on the following legs: empathy, humility, compassion and conscience. Observations like “I am a farmer myself”, “you can’t pull wool over my eyes” and “I was born and brought up in a village and know rural problems better than anybody else” are a sign of arrogance and will not go down well with the people with whom one wants to work. There’s a famous Chinese proverb that says, “Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck leads the flock to fly and follow”.

We have to lead by action, and not preaching. The fundamental logic is very simple: by just listening, just trying to understand what is going wrong from the perspective of the people we are supposed to serve, and by being open to listening to solutions from people who are most impacted by the problems, we are opening the gateways to lasting change for local communities.

We must first understand their economy and society at a granular level and, most important, familiarise them with their local culture. That approach is a contrast to the grandiose foreign aid schemes that do more harm than good. There are three key reasons for having community participation. The first is that it builds community confidence in the planning system. The second is that it sets direction on the need to manage growth and change while preserving local character. The third is that it provides access to community ideas and knowledge.

Experts voice concern with the second reason which focuses on preserving local character while somehow managing growth and change. They believe most communities will see this as encouraging them to say no to new development as it will change the local character. The final strategy must depend on local conditions and the local context. There is a need for the integration of an entire gamut of resources, ranging from financial and human to markets and entitlements.

When we address these issues empathetically, we can move ahead with a more selfassured, robust and proactive engagement towards inclusive growth and livelihoods development. What we essentially need is a community-based, business-like approach, encompassing grassroots action, policy advocacy, and everything in between. The people who pioneered the world’s most successful development programmes recognised this potential and always sought to evoke it. They are the ones who enabled the poor to take the right step on the right ladder at the right time. The results have been miraculous.

If we see and analyse societies that have grown and prospered, we will observe that several development successes have occurred in less than optimal settings. Many good programmes got their start when one individual looked at a familiar landscape freshly. In each case, creative individuals saw possibilities where others saw only hopelessness and imagined a way forward that took into account local realities and built on local strengths.

We increasingly have the tools. But we lack the necessary political will. If we dare to use them, the course of history will be truly different. It is worth recalling the words of Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations: “Only when ordinary men, women and children in cities and villages around the world can make their lives better will we know that globalisation is indeed becoming inclusive, allowing everyone to share its opportunities. That is the key to eliminating world poverty.”

(The writer is an author, researcher and development professional. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com)