To set things straight I am not ques­tion­ing the need for aid or the good inten­tions. What  really dis­turbs me are the pater­nal­is­tic and mis­in­formed approaches that end up as a waste of resources and cause more harm than good in the long run. This approach to aid has been cri­tiqued before, there’s even a term for this kind of design in acad­e­mia:  para­chute design or remote design. What hap­pens when some­one does a para­chute design is that the well and nicely designed objects aimed to “improve” aspects of a com­mu­ni­ties are over­look­ing the real prob­lems and the con­text of that com­mu­nity, and hence, if lucky, they end up as part of the fur­ni­ture or as chil­dren toys (if they are durable). As a side effect the designer is mocked in that com­mu­nity for years to come and will be dubbed “El gringo” from then on, pass­ing that name on to any other white guy that set foot in that vil­lage. Oh we’re such a bunch of smart asses in the devel­op­ing world.

There are of course (and gladly) plenty of suc­cess­ful attempts to help the devel­op­ing world. So why am I focus­ing on the bad? Because there’s more of the Bono and Bob Gel­dorf and Brangelina type of aid out there than of the use­ful ones. Yes, its great to have celebri­ties involved to raise aware­ness but where does all that money go?  I don’t see much change here, instead I see how the devel­op­ing goals (you know, the “make poverty his­tory”, have clean water, basic edu­ca­tion) keep being pushed fur­ther into the future.

But there’s some­thing else. Design for the First World shouldn’t be funny. The phrase “Third World minds design­ing for First World Prob­lems” pro­vokes smiles in many includ­ing myself. But why is it funny? Why do we assume that Third World minds shouldn’t be involved in the prob­lems of the First World? In all hon­esty and bold­ness I think we (the Devel­op­ing World) have grown accus­tomed to the top help­ing the bot­tom and because of that we’ve grown lazy. We don’t even think things can be both ways. We can help them! I believe there is a need to re-educate our­selves as devel­op­ing coun­tries and gain agency. Let’s clean the mess in our rooms after we play; our rooms being the whole world.

Fur­ther­more, the prob­lems the First World is hav­ing are and should be our con­cern as well, after all that is where we are head­ing. We’ve  cre­ated a cul­ture that relies on aid and we (and them) often dis­card our respon­si­bil­ity in improv­ing our present con­di­tions and shap­ing a bet­ter future. True, there’s a lot on our plate (prob­lems, that is), but there are enough inspir­ing indi­vid­u­als in our com­mu­ni­ties that have stood up and made a dif­fer­ence. It’s time to fol­low their exam­ple and wake up (per­haps in reverse order). Not only are we capa­ble of pro­vid­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to cre­ate a bet­ter and more sus­tain­able soci­ety in both the devel­oped and the devel­op­ing worlds, it is our respon­si­bil­ity as inhab­i­tants of this planet.

Please get in touch if you want to dis­cuss any­thing regard­ing the com­pe­ti­tion or these topics.