Post by danielm on Feb 10, 2017 15:22:25 GMT
I'd like to share some thoughts and questions about some of the more difficult aspects of aligning customer/recipient motivations with those of other stakeholders/implementers, especially in regards to those at the "bottom of the pyramid."
How important is it to consider one's hierarchy of needs, the idea that some needs are more important than others and that the principal/base needs must be met before one seeks to satisfy higher level needs? For instance, a mother may not care about cooking with an unimproved stove in her home if her family struggles to get food on the table. Or, a family might not care about drinking safe water when they can obtain water that's much cheaper and looks clean. Yet at the same time, we know that inhaling high levels of particulate matter and drinking unsafe water inevitably leads to shorter, poorer quality of life and reduced productivity. Some of the interventions we think of (clean cookstoves, safe drinking water, etc.) often do not contain benefits that satisfy one's base needs, the needs that many at the "bottom of the pyramid" worry about meeting on a daily basis. If we assume altruism on the side of the implementer, their motivation is to find a solution to a higher level need, whereas the recipient's motivation is to meet his or her more fundamental need.
For people who are thinking about or trying to implement such interventions, how ought we think about this juxtaposition of motivations? Is it simply unethical - to try to impose a solution to a need (perhaps a legitimate need) when the recipient does not assign the same value to that need, and rightly so, because they have more immediate, pressing needs? Is it, for the moment, pointless - it would be practically difficult to achieve success without the recipients having their immediately perceived needs met first? Should we try to find creative solutions that can satisfy both the recipient's needs as well as our perceived needs simultaneously (this could come in many forms: working within the social & cultural context to first understand and second work with the community to determine a path forward, implementation model, technical innovation to make a technology better or cheaper or both)? Or is this pure hubris - should we only try to implement solutions to these higher level needs when a person or community has both (1) the desire and (2) the means to meet that need?
On that note, when thinking about development, it is both interesting and important to remember how countries like the US developed - slowly over a period of ~150 years in a piecemeal fashion - finding economic and acceptable solutions to needs one level at a time.
How important is it to consider one's hierarchy of needs, the idea that some needs are more important than others and that the principal/base needs must be met before one seeks to satisfy higher level needs? For instance, a mother may not care about cooking with an unimproved stove in her home if her family struggles to get food on the table. Or, a family might not care about drinking safe water when they can obtain water that's much cheaper and looks clean. Yet at the same time, we know that inhaling high levels of particulate matter and drinking unsafe water inevitably leads to shorter, poorer quality of life and reduced productivity. Some of the interventions we think of (clean cookstoves, safe drinking water, etc.) often do not contain benefits that satisfy one's base needs, the needs that many at the "bottom of the pyramid" worry about meeting on a daily basis. If we assume altruism on the side of the implementer, their motivation is to find a solution to a higher level need, whereas the recipient's motivation is to meet his or her more fundamental need.
For people who are thinking about or trying to implement such interventions, how ought we think about this juxtaposition of motivations? Is it simply unethical - to try to impose a solution to a need (perhaps a legitimate need) when the recipient does not assign the same value to that need, and rightly so, because they have more immediate, pressing needs? Is it, for the moment, pointless - it would be practically difficult to achieve success without the recipients having their immediately perceived needs met first? Should we try to find creative solutions that can satisfy both the recipient's needs as well as our perceived needs simultaneously (this could come in many forms: working within the social & cultural context to first understand and second work with the community to determine a path forward, implementation model, technical innovation to make a technology better or cheaper or both)? Or is this pure hubris - should we only try to implement solutions to these higher level needs when a person or community has both (1) the desire and (2) the means to meet that need?
On that note, when thinking about development, it is both interesting and important to remember how countries like the US developed - slowly over a period of ~150 years in a piecemeal fashion - finding economic and acceptable solutions to needs one level at a time.