Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980710225923.6092A-100000@dante> Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 23:16:52 -0600 From: "SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL (SSI)" <mailto:juwandem@NMSU.EDU> Subject: Re: BAD EXPERIENCES/ PARADIGM SHIFT To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Your post below is either very naive or offensively simplistic. In any case development problems are profound and only a RADICAL paradigm shift can ensure a positive change. This radical paradigm shift must be based on a contextualistic and Open-Systems-Theory based approach. More specifically, bureaucratic or First Design Principle structures (at every level) must me transformed to Second Design Principle systems.The methodologies for accomplishing this transformation have been developed over the past 50 years by social scientists, notably Fred and Merrelyn Emery from Australia, and are known as Search Conference (SC) (pls. do not confuse it with one of its bastardizations called "future seach") and Participative Design Workshop (PDW) and have been available for more than a decade. The reasons for their slow diffusion are too many to mention here but they have proven to be beyond any doubt as THE best and perhaps only way for the "genotypic" or true transformation of bureaucracies.
More on this two-stage methodology can be found at: www.nmsu.edu/~iirm and at web.nmsu.edu/~juwandem/seminar.html
Best regards, JC Wandemberg Ph.D.
On Fri, 10 Jul 1998, Loucks wrote:
> You can always try not applying for and not accepting donor "assistance" and
> when they come marketing their wares send them packing. After all you are
> in a good position to get along without them - you have the local knowledge
> foreign consultants don't have, and the expertise every bit as good as
> theirs to know what are viable projects. Viable projects will always find
> financing and if they are not viable don't do them. However getting the
> financing has a price. When I seek a mortgage my lender wants me to provide
> at my cost using his approved suppliers, proof of title, property insurance
> with the mortgagor as prior beneficiary, and he also wants me to pay service
> fees to have his lawyer draw up the mortgage. Increasingly with the
> concentration of financial institutions taking place I find myself subjected
> to 'tied selling' i.e., if you want the mortgage you really should have your
> insurance and other financial products with us as well. When I seek venture
> capital for my business I pay commitment fees to cover the due diligence
> costs by people who probably know less about my business than I do. Does it
> work? Well there are lots of horror stories out there, even corrupt and
> fraudulent practices. But on balance I think it works in spite of the
> levels of debt, restraint, austerity, downsizing, restructuring, social
> inequities, etc.
>