‘Some people just don’t want to develop.’ During my years of work in international development I’ve heard this view expressed, implicitly or explicitly, by frustrated practitioners. It sounds bizarre, and demonstrates a monumental lack of empathy, but funnily enough it can often be right. Many communities don’t want to ‘develop’ according to someone else’s definition…
By Barry Knight and Colin Greer I dream’d in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the Attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends. Walt Whitman The unseen driver of our troubles causes no pain. But it is quietly destroying you…
Our organization, MICAIA, works in different parts of Mozambique to help people achieve local prosperity. PSJP’s recent paper on ‘Dignity and Development’ looked at the concept of dignity in development and philanthropy and this occasioned me to reflect on our own approach to our work. MICAIA has chosen to build its theory of change, and our practices,…
PSJP’s recently published paper on ‘Dignity and Development’ looks at the concept of dignity in development and philanthropy. At the Zambian Governance Foundation for Civil Society (ZGF) this paper provided us with an opportunity to revisit our own journey from a dignity lens. In this blog post we would like to share the practices at…
PSJP’s recently published paper on ‘Dignity and Development’ looks at the idea of ‘dignity’in development and philanthropy. The first point to be made is the need to recognize that development practitioners do not impart dignity to others. We do not ‘empower’ people – a word that carries a taint of colonialism in its definition of…
Is your program respectful? How, exactly, do you know that? Did you ask people? Development is frequently disrespectful. We all want to do better. But right now we don’t have the tools to do so. The Dignity Project creates open access, ready-translated tools to properly measure respect. There is public support for more respectful development.…
When it comes to the role of dignity in development, there is a conversation of growing rigour and seriousness. It is in that context that we welcome this paper on dignity in Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace’s ‘Defining Key Concepts’ series. Dignity has been the starting point for many conversations in development and global…
We need to build the capacity of actors on the ground to deliver an empowering strategy for users and beneficiaries, while satisfying the needs of multiple stakeholders, so that we can deliver our sustainable goals in accord with our vision and mission to foster human dignity. I wrote the above sentence in a 20-second stream…
This paper looks at the idea of ‘dignity’ and forms part of PSJP’s series on ‘defining key concepts’ in development and philanthropy. The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights enshrined dignity as the central goal of development, yet the term is not clearly defined, which makes it difficult to pursue and impossible to measure. Different people…