realisedevelopment.net

Just another WordPress site

Paul Seabright on the Supply of Shirts…

by

If there were any single person in overall charge of the task of supplying shirts to the world’s population, the complexity of the challenge facing them would call to mind the predicament of a general fighting a war. One can imagine an incoming president of the United States being presented with a report entitled The World’s Need for Shirts, trembling at its contents, and immediately setting up a Presidential Task Force. The United Nations would hold conferences on ways to enhance international cooperation in shirt-making, and there would be arguments over whether the United Nations or the United States should take the lead. The pope and the archbishop of Canterbury would issue calls for everyone to pull together to ensure that the world’s needs were met, and committees of bishops and pop stars would periodically remind us that a shirt on one’s back is a human right. The humanitarian organization Couturiers sans Frontières would airlift supplies to sartorially challenged regions of the world. Experts would be commissioned to examine the wisdom of making collars in Brazil for shirts made in Malaysia for re-export to Brazil. More experts would suggest that by cutting back on the wasteful variety of frivolous styles it would be possible to make dramatic improvements in the total number of shirts produced. Factories which had achieved the most spectacular increases in their output would be given awards, and their directors would be interviewed respectfully on television. Activist groups would protest that “shirts” is a sexist and racist category and propose gender- and culture-neutral terms covering blouses, tunics, cholis, kurtas, barongs, and the myriad other items that the world’s citizens wear above the waist. The columns of newspapers would resound with arguments over priorities and needs. In the cacophony I wonder whether I would still have been able to buy my shirt.

Taken from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Company-Strangers-Natural-History-Economic/dp/0691146462

 

BSE – Before Social Enterprise

by

Mike in the days before social enterpriseHard to imagine I know, but I was remembering with some old friends the time ‘BSE’, Before Social Enterprise.

I used to work in what was called a ‘Community Home with Education’, similar to an ‘Approved School’.  A residential home for young men with emotional and behavioural ‘difficulties’.  When they reached 16 they would have to leave the home and make their own way in the world.  For many, the next step, after a short spell in the community, would be prison.

However we worked hard to give them the best chance that we could, and this often meant trying to find them work, trying to find employers who would give them a chance.  And, surprisingly it wasn’t as hard as you might think.  Despite their dubious CVs and frequently a complete lack of qualifications, we could usually find an employer who would give them a chance.  These were not ‘social enterprises’ set up specifically to provide vocational training and development for the needy.  They were good old ‘for profit’ businesses who were more than willing to do their bit.  This was the time BSE.

And I don’t think things are that much different now.

While we have a small number of social enterprises specifically setting out to help particular groups with a step on the employment ladder, I reckon that for every one of these there are probably a hundred or so for profits that work with the same client group.  Restaurants and kitchens that employ people struggling with addictions or to stay out of prison.  Building companies employing ex-offenders.   Football clubs giving players with drink driving convictions, anger management problems and occasional inclinations to racist abuse a second chance.

I wonder what impact the rise of the specialist social enterprise might have on the willingness of mainstream for profits to ‘do their bit’. They don’t get the rate rebates, soft loans, grants, PR or additional support of their social enterprise counterparts, so why should they push the boat out.

Or will they all become ‘social enterprises’ and reap the same rewards?

 

Leeds as a twin track city…

by

This was at the heart of the debate of the Inner South Leeds Area Committee meeting recently.

In short, our residents die too early, our streets are full of fast food take-aways, our air is polluted by the motorway and we need a new sports centre.

What should we do about it?

We will put health at the heart of local government and tackle it…

This is classic Visions of the Anointed Stuff!

I can be pretty sure that if I knocked on 1000 doors in south Leeds and asked ‘what keeps you awake at night’, or ‘what is it that really stops you from living the way you would want?’, not many would say,’Well, if only I could live as long as those folk in leafy north Leeds, or even those exotic southerners in Kensington and Chelsea!’ (K&C has the highest life expectancy of any local authority in the UK I believe).

These are the concerns of the health professionals and the public health statisticians. They are not the everyday concerns of local residents. And, if we want to do meaningful development work we have to start with these everyday concerns. Of course if we wish to build service empires around the ‘healthy living’ agenda…

We also know that the real determinants of longevity are, at root, not based in health, but poverty. Raise disposable incomes, raise educational attainment, help people build lives of meaning and dignity and they will live longer. This hints at the need for a more systemic understanding of quality of life in the city and more person centred approaches to development rather than just getting funding for some more smoking cessation and cancer screening services.  We need to work with potentials and aspirations not just problems.

One councillor got close to the mark when he said we must put more effort into the education of children and young families. But this must be education of a very particular kind. An education that is not led by a curriculum but by the very real concerns of local people.  An education that is not driven through the traditional mechanisms of schooling and assessment but on the streets.  And what about the rest? How do we offer them real opportunities for change – IF that is what they want?

The outrage at the number of fast food shops in South Leeds is understandable. Lots of fast food, bookmakers, pawn shops and off-licences no doubt, because these are the legal, affordable ‘pleasures’ of the poor. No doubt there are plenty of illegal ones too. These are not the causes of poverty and early mortality – but the symptoms. These are the industries that have learned to profit from the poor. Danone and Grameen are learning how to do the same but supplying yogurt rather than alcohol. Perhaps they offer us some clues? Closing down the bookies, off-licences and credit shops would be like excising chicken pox with a knife. Its just going to leave nasty scars and not deter the pox. The fast food outlets and the bookies did not make people poor and susceptible to an early death. They are there because people are poor and unhealthy!  Planning restrictions on peoples pleasures are not the way forward.

Nor will building sports centres or ventilating the motorway help. The challenge of regeneration is primarily one of psychology rather than physiology and infrastructure. Until individuals and communities change the way they see themselves, as full of potential and possibility rather than full of problems (obesity, cancer, addiction, unwanted pregnancies etc) then we can build all the facilities we like and they will not be used by the people we most want to help.

Instead of using twin track Leeds statistics to argue for further investment in infrastructure, sports centres, swimming pools, clinics and whatever other ‘solutions’ our respective empires can offer, we should use this opportunity to shut up, listen carefully and respond with all our might to local residents who want to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of those who they love.

Get that ball rolling and things might just start to change.

Leadership – mass participation or elite sport?

by

Leadership in Leeds

How does a community get the leadership that it needs to thrive?

Is it a question of finding an elite cadre of movers and shakers, networking them, hot-housing them and amplifying their power?

Or is it about offering the opportunity for anyone to ‘lead’ on whatever matters most to them, their loved ones and their neighbours?

Can we design leadership development processes that:

  • support and reward mass participation?
  • are inclusive rather than exclusive?
  • respect local starting conditions (values, cultures and issues)?

Certainly this kind of leadership development is possible.

By giving people space to talk about what matters to them and encouraging them to think through what they can do about it and whether they want to move from words to actions we can find ‘leaders’.  But they rarely see themselves as such.  They don’t see their agenda as being ‘leadership’.  They may see it as developing a ‘local community website’, or ‘starting an urban gardening project’ or ‘finding opportunities for young people to learn and earn in our community’.  There are plenty of people looking to do plenty of good things and the truth is that what we usually describe as ‘Leadership Development’  is unlikely to help them in their work…