Well meant and well done

Competition, or a natural constraint, is a powerful driver of innovation and can thus create a new prosperity. However, this form of innovation is extrinsically strained and carries a number of harmful risks for people, society, nature and the economy. It is my conviction that therein we find the subtle difference when it comes to success or fail of any development project.

This is because an intrinsic development through empowerment (capacity building) and subsequent enjoyment of success (new prosperity) holds far greater potential for sustainable development through innovation.

Other countries, other values

Particularly in non-Western cultures that perceive the Western principles of competition as rather alienating and repulsive or where natural constraints simply did not exist in cultural history, the emphasis on means of intrinsic development is a working counter-model to the classic way of poverty reduction.

In the diverse cultural entities of mankind, other value concepts and basic attitudes are decisive for individual actions. This has a direct impact on the perception of personal prosperity and contrasts with the Western-style model, which is highly competitive and seeks to dominate competitors through monopoly and profit maximization and to extract more and more of the best for its own.

From my point of view, this is one of the main reasons why the Millennium Development Goals of the agricultural sector have been largely missed on the African continent to date, and largely achieved in Far Eastern cultural entities. The Western, well-meaning mothering is not the last word on the subject. It is only logical that today approaches are rethought and thought anew – at best from within the affected culture.

Which model for greater prosperity is proving successful?

Performance springs from both models. But these are contrary to each other and in my opinion it is a rape of other cultures to try to impose one’s own way of thinking and values. The imperative of freedom is decisive here.

Using and developing existing technologies and innovations originating from the respective cultural environment hold an appreciative and respectful appreciation to build upon. As a rule, these assets are highly significant and best-option solutions, since they have been developed over centuries and even millennia in these respective environments.

Very important principles for this have been defined and applied in recent decades for international development cooperation, which, for example, uses participatory methods to put the scepter in the hands of the local people. The role of the development aid worker is then that of an amplifier and facilitator for independent innovation.

Sustainability from the grassroots

In the best case scenario, the country in need commissions and finances the consulting services itself as it develops, including from outside if necessary. Where green innovation centers want to push through political agendas, private-public partnerships want to force people into dependencies in the best colonialist manner, e.g. for hybrid seeds, the work of independent non-governmental organizations with proximity to the grassroots movement is most probably the actual sustainable movement towards new prosperity.

In order for projects and plans to have a lasting impact in the respective cultural groups, it is important to design prosperity projects adapted to the target group. As in the work with soils, what counts as foreigners is that we make ourselves common with peoples’ cultural mindset as best we can and truely appreciate it. It is necessary to find ways of linking the Western-influenced idea of new prosperity with the self-image of prosperity of the respective culture. The cultural sensibilities of the target group always take precedence.

The resulting synergies of this communion make a significant contribution to new wealth and development aid per se. This is precisely where the principle of the customer-supplier relationship, which originates from quality management according to ISO 9001, comes in handy for development projects in general.

My offer includes support of R&D projects providing services of general project management, quality management according to ISO 9001:2015, marketing and sales support, workshops, trainings as well as product validation according to scientific standards.