Development Entrepreneurs

  I nternational development practitioners are saying that development programs and projects are more effective when they are adaptive, politically smart, and locally led.   There’s much online literature on this, written by researchers, donors, and implementors (international NGOs or INGOs) - for each other.   In these articles, as Duncan Green’s students have pointed out, the thinking has been “relentlessly Northern”.   In looking at these practices as approaches to international development, one important point has been overlooked: that being adaptive and politically smart are effective strategies for local leaders and organizations, regardless of whether they are supported by international donors or not. Many local social actors have always been adaptive and politically smart.   That’s how they’ve survived until now, through changes in political administration, economic conditions, and other changing environmental factors.   In the Philippines, the con...