Last month I was in Sri Lanka helping document a social entrepreneur project in the rural southeast of that country. While being driven around the rural roads at almost every village we saw signs of an international Christian charity (who I'll leave nameless here) which had built schools, community centers, and some infrastructure such as water tanks. Most of the projects seemed about five to ten years old, so they'd been there for a while. For the most part this area was still very poor. What people most need now is electricity, since many are off the grid with little hope of seeing it move closer any time soon. Electricity would help their children read at night and possibly provide power during the day for small business enterprises.

Now things like building schools seem pretty straightforward and beneficial since if the government there is not going to provide them, there's hardly any way they would be built, especially not by social entrepreneurs. Community centers, much the same. But one thing that was strange to me was that the charity put a big STAMP of their name on every project in the area. This international Christian charity's name was even plastered on road and street signs they had donated. So basically they had branded just about every large project in the area, except for the goverment projects of building roads and expanding the electricity grid.

The reason I mention this charity is to look at how international development has gone wrong and has corrupted the bottom of the pyramid in how they see their own entrepreneurship. One village that I went to watch a presentation by a Sri Lankan social entrepreneur who has a plan to deliver electricity to some of the villages off the grid, without government support. Instead this would be though low level tariffs to the villagers offset by non-profit contributions and microfinance until that village can eventually pay the full tariff, which would be about the same amount most people spend buying kerosene every month. Not a huge sum, but not a free lunch either.

So here's the social entrepreneur trying to explain the benefits of his project to this village: electricity 12 hours a day, controlled by the village society, would be a stop-gap until the grid comes (they'd been waiting about five years for the grid, which is only a couple kilometers away). Behind the SE while he's giving the presentation is a huge water tank and on that tank is stamped the band of this international Christian charity. Not only did that name loom large over the conversation physically, but mentally as well. As we found out, the villagers didn't want to accept the SE's proposal largely because all they had been given by this charity in the past had been for free (with a little sweat equity by themselves to build the projects). Even the minimal tariff of 100 rupees (about $1) a month for each home was going to be too much. Plus, we found out, that charity had promised that if the grid came close enough to that village, the village would be hooked up for free by that charity.

This is just one aspect of how 'free' charity in international development corrupts people at the bottom of the pyramid in how they see entrepreneurship. My other beef with organizations like this Christian charity is that their services are not really 'free' ... this charity only goes into villages where the village has agreed to allow themselves on a minimal level to be proselytized to, meaning that they have to accept a certain level of missionary activity in their village and to have that village branded with their name on any project they help with. That branding, in turn, helps that Christian charity raise more money back in their home country since they can show off pictures of their projects with their name on it and the smiling faces of the villagers next to them, essentially a form of marketing to keep money flowing to that charity. In the end though, the villagers have only been given handouts in exchange for sermons, which leads them in the future to expect more of the same when foreigners come to town. Instead of proselytizing false hope to these people it would be much more beneficial to give them the means to lift themselves up, to get them off the international development Dole and give them hope that they have a stake in their own future. From some of things I've been seeing, these large charities do exactly the opposite, possibly keeping these people in a state of poverty and dependence.

More next time ... but until then, check out this discussion at Open Democracy about 'The Darker Side of Global Civil Society' ...