Critics of modern science often, and rightly, level their guns on the reductionism embodied in its methods of inquiry. Breaking nature down Into its atoms might well lead to new insights, but what is the use of such insights if they take us further and further away from the realities of everyday life? Digging ever deeper into the mines of analysis does not by itself guarantee a path to the synthesis we need to understand the intricate and often inviolable links that connect nature, people and machines. If the reductionism of science appears to be taking scientists down a dead end, the reductionism of development theory and practice is even worse. It seems to be leading us directly into a black hole. Vast amounts of money and other valuable resources are daily sucked into unproductive investments to satisfy the whims of self-appointed experts and decision-makers who believe they have found “thekey” that will solve the problems of poverty – or of the environment, or of whatever they have identified as worthy of their attention. The key is usually stated in terms of the form “If only there was a light bulb [or a toilet or a solar cooker or whatever is the specialty of the pontificator] in every home.....” or “I have always maintained that solution to the country's poverty is literacy [or whatever]......” The parliament votes thousands of cores in guilt money to be thrown (unfortunately not with very good aim) at “poverty alleviation” by legislating schemes on housing, water, creation of work (not long term employment opportunities), etc. NGOs and think-tanks are often no better, bringing their preconceptions to the design of the single intervention they feel, usually because it is the only one they know, that will make a lasting difference. It is the community based organization who work with real life people, whether in the village or in the city slums, that are often better placed to know the complexity of the lives of the poor, and futility of the misplaced trust in mono-dimensional solutions. And from such experiences we must learn quickly. The main key, if there is one, is to build the capacity of communities to identify, formulate and solve their own problems. For this, they must have institutional mechanisms that allow solid participation by every citizen in the local decision making. And, to make such participation meaningful, they must have access to information on a variety of things, including their rights, their resources and the technologies and institutions they can use to set up their livelihoods on the sustainable basis. Given the scale of the problem to the tackled, any solution must be replicable, at least in communities with similar conditions. Outside intervention is meaningful if it serves not only to create a living example of how the processes of sustainable development can be set in motion in a particular case, but also to catalyze local initiatives to adopt these processes on a larger scale. Programmes to “adopt a village” are usually of greater benefit to the adopter than to the adoptee. Unless the processes of development are appropriated by the community where they are demonstrated and by neighboring communities who in time incorporate them as their own, the development approaches being promoted cannot be very sustainable. TARA Gram in Orchha is the flagship of a programme of Development Alternatives to establish a nationwide network of living technology villages. These TARA Grams will provide a wide array of opportunities to local people for sustainable livelihoods within the campus plus the training, information, technology, financial and marketing support facilities for other communities in the area to enable them to generate their own livelihood options for themselves. |
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