| By Gavin Chait,
on 01 March 2007
|
 Until you measure it, you don't know
We have also been on an informal road-show introducing our concept to various organisations. A presentation yesterday amongst a wide range of interest groups was a welcome reminder of how far we have come. The team is so immersed in our work that we take a lot of the information for granted. It is only once we come to explain it to others that we are reminded again of how much we have learned and the differences between the development and commercial sectors.
No matter what you buy for yourself there are always choices and options. Analysts, journalists, and bloggers vie for your attention to communicate their opinions on everything from watches, to doctors, to movies and microwave ovens. You can get contrarian opinions on health food versus junk food.
The development sector is a massive no-go area.
Who says that the products and services offered by NGOs and charities are any good? You can give anything away, but that doesn’t make it useful. Charities themselves experience this when they go on donation drives. Old clothes are donated that are so far beyond use that the charities are left worse off, since they have to now have the added expense of carting the stuff to the dump. If well-meaning individuals can be so short-sighted that they don’t realise that their “gifts” are of no use, why should we take it for granted that the organisations themselves are any better?
As in everything in life, we would expect a diversity of approaches and results; some outstanding and innovative, some depressing and destructive, and everything in-between.
Outside measurement allows a harmonisation and collected endeavour. Sprinters are timed over the same course to see whose ideas of training and strategy are best; computers are measured against each other running benchmark software to see which delivers best results; consultants compare return-on-equity measures to see who delivers better profits. The purpose is not to compare approaches, or define the mechanisms by which these results are delivered, but to analyse the final results achieved in an objective and uniform way.
Poverty only becomes entrenched when you genuinely don’t care what you give away to those less well-off than yourself. That is what entrenches poverty.
If you consider the poor a market worthy of competitive services then we can find the most effective and efficient way of bridging that divide.
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