“How can we do good, better?”  That question is motivating young, talented people all over the globe.  It is destroying traditional barriers between the private and public sectors and driving the search for new, innovative approaches to development.  Empowerment has replaced aid as the strategy driving “Development 2.0.”  Fresh intellectual talent is being applied to age-old problems, traditional institutions are trying to adapt, and young, upstart organizations are doing what they do best: testing new ideas in the real world and innovating as they go.

With such tectonic shifts occurring in real time it can be a challenge to sift through the buzzwords and theoretical discussions to get a handle on what all this actually looks like at the ground level.  To better understand the nuts and bolts of implementing new development strategies I spoke with someone who does it every day.

Mark Hand founded and directs a community development site in Ecuador for Manna Project International, one of a rapidly growing number of youth-driven international development organizations.  Working outside the capital city of Quito, Mark manages long- and short-term college age volunteers as they implement two promising community development strategies: Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and Positive Deviance.  Just what exactly does that mean?  Glad you asked, so did I:

ADB: What are the quick cocktail party definitions of ABCD and Positive Deviance?

Mark: Asset Based Community Development is an approach to local development that ignores the question of what a community “needs” and asks what is good about a community, what it has that it can build on. Positive Deviance is a more microscopic, but similar, approach – it identifies a community need, such as malnutrition, but then shifts gears to ask, “who in this community is already addressing this problem using existing local resources, and how can we learn from them?”

ADB:    How is Manna Project International using these strategies in Ecuador?

Mark: Positive Deviance we are looking to apply specifically to malnutrition and to English teaching in Ecuador’s Chillos valley. We know English teaching is generally bad, sure; but which teachers have already figured out how to do it right? Yes, malnutrition is a problem – but which families have figured out how to feed their children well on scant resources?

ABCD actually forms the basis of what we do in Ecuador – we look for local institutions, networks and individuals to build up and support. Our teen center, for example, is designed to create local leaders that can become the leaders in their communities. Rather than starting our own microfinance program, to use another example, we’ve been working hard to find training and financing for a local cooperative.

ADB: What advantages or disadvantages have you seen compared to more traditional approaches to development?

Mark: ABCD and Positive Deviance are both excruciatingly slow processes when you do them right, and humbling. You have to be able to leave to one side ideas that seem good to you but that don’t “catch” in a community, and you also have to resist the temptation to meet needs when you see them. Why don’t we just give this fancy vitamin to these malnourished kids, for example? Because that vitamin can’t be found locally, and your “nice guy” response will be temporary at best, and disempowering at worst.

ADB: Do you have a particular heartwarming story from the work you’re doing?

Mark: Shouldn’t that be “particularly,” Zak?

ADB: What potential do ABCD and/or Positive Deviance have for scaling development efforts?

Mark: That’s an interesting question, the answer to which is embedded into ABCD and Positive Deviance. Both approaches reject outright that there is a “Big Answer” to development – there are lots of small answers to lots of local problems. In that way, there is an immediate limitation to the “scalability” – all solutions are local, and are at best adaptable to other localities. The approaches themselves are the scaleable bits – they don’t require tons of donor money, can be implemented by anybody with a little bit of training, and have the capacity to harness local resources in a way that National Development Plans never have.

ADB: Besides ABCD and Positive Deviance what is the most encouraging/inspiring trend you see in the development, social entrepreneurship space?

Mark: Generally, I think traditional development methods and organizations to be pretty bankrupt of ideas. In that gap is stepping a slew of organizations and people who, like Manna Project, are giving young people the opportunity to really dig into development issues at the ground level. I think that out of that movement will come, and have come, some impressive new thought on development that will shake up the Big Boys of development.

ADB: Is it true you can’t flush TP in Ecuador?

Mark: Ha – yeah, it’s true. Apparently there are places in the richer Northern half of Quito that have the right pipes for flushing, but the rest of us have to use little trash cans.

ABCD and Positive Deviance are only two of a large (and growing) number of new development models.  If you’ve seen something similar and think people should know about it, leave a comment below and share it with the world!

For more information on ABCD take a look at Northwestern University’s Asset Based Community Development Initiative at http://www.abcdinstitute.org/.  To learn more about Positive Deviance, check out the Positive Deviance Initiative at http://www.positivedeviance.org/.

Disclaimer: I used to work for Manna Project International and am completely biased towards all the good-looking people they employ and the wonderful work they do.