La Cultura Institucional, un Tema Inherente a las Instituciones Educativas

Christians, the church and slums themselves are part of much bigger social systems. The study of international development—like the church growth movement—is a relatively new discipline, but one that can help us to identify more strategic challenges for Christians in regard to the social conditions they find in slum and squatter neighbourhoods. While definitions,

approaches and focuses are hotly debated, the most basic aim of international development is to apply strategies that can end, or at least alleviate, poverty.241 Beginning after World War II, numbers of both government and non-government agencies taking up the cause have rapidly grown, especially over the last two decades. In the United States alone the numbers of registered NGO international aid groups grew from 6,000 to 26,000 in the 1990s.242 The international aid and development industry is now worth about US$70 billion a year, and the West has spent more than US$2.3 trillion over the last five decades.243 With such significant investments being made by so many, it is understandable that serious research, theories and evaluations of effectiveness have emerged around the field of development. Stake-holders such as donors, governments, organizations and practitioners need to know if their efforts are working or wasted.

There is no shortage of voices to consider here. These include those writing from a Christian development perspective such as WV‘s Robert Linthicum,244

Bryant Myers245 and Jayakumar Christian.246 We will focus, however, on the work of one particular researcher to highlight some specific theories on strategic development challenges as they apply to slums like Klong Toey: Thomas W Dichter. Dichter is not the only voice to seriously critique international development strategies,247, but as someone with more than thirty-five years experience in planning, managing and evaluating projects in various Two-thirds World settings for numerous NGOs as well as for the US Peace Corps, USAID, UNDP and the World Bank, he provides insights that should not be ignored in a study like this. With a PhD in anthropology, Dichter‘s varied insights come together in his book, Despite Good Intentions: Why development assistance to the third world has failed. The book is comprised of case-studies paired with

241 _{See, Sachs, The End of Poverty.}

242 _{David Bornstein, How to Change the World: Social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas (Oxford, UK:}

Oxford University Press, 2004), 4.

243 _{William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so}

little good (London: Penguin, 2006), 4.

244

Robert Linthicum, Empowering the Poor: Community organizing among the city’s rag, tag and bobtail (Monrovia: MARC, 1999).

245 _{Bryant Myers, Walking with the Poor: Principles and practices of transformational development (Maryknoll:}

Orbis, 1999).

246

Jayakumar Christian, God of the Empty-Handed: Poverty, power and the Kingdom of God (Monrovia: MARC, 1999).

247 _{See, Easterly, The White Man’s Burden; Graham Handcock, Lords of Poverty (London: Macmillan, 1989); and}

Leonard Frank, ‗The Development Game‘, The Post-Development Reader (London: Zed Books, 1997). A whole edition of New Internationalist was dedicated to the critique of BINGOs (Big International Non-Government Organizations) in 2005, with the feature article being: David Ransom, ‗The Big Charity Bonanza‘, New

analysis.248 Dichter‘s theoretical and practical insights are particularly helpful when applied to developing world slums like Klong Toey, as they help us to understand why strategy in development terms are such a serious challenge for Christians who want to respond positively to the rise of slums.

Real optimism about alleviating poverty has emerged in recent times. The rise of various NGOs, governments, the UN, church leaders, economists such as Jeffery Sachs and celebrities has created almost utopian expectations.249 The overall picture of the international development industry‘s effectiveness in alleviating poverty has not been encouraging, however. For example the West spent US$2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades, but has not managed to enable basic help such as getting 12 cent medicines to children to prevent half of the million malaria deaths a year, or enabling poor families to purchase $4 bed nets to prevent most malaria deaths.250 Despite the many plans, technologies and more than two trillion dollars, there are more people living on less than $1 per day this year than last year.251 Ditcher writes bluntly,

No other large scale publicly funded effort for such duration could have got away with such poor performance, certainly not the private sector or even ranks of government. Yet, all the players in development assistance are still in business.252

Of particular importance to this study is that although such enormous sums of money have been spent since the 1950s in strategies to alleviate poverty, the rapid rise of urban slum and squatter neighbourhoods has actually accelerated. In 1900 there were only twenty million slum residents, by 1970 there were 260 million, and now there are over one billion with 88,000 new slum residents still arriving each day.253 In the face of such rapid slum growth it is fair to say that development strategies have overall been impotent.

That someone like Dichter claims that most development strategies are failing the Two- thirds World—and slums in particular—is important for Christians to consider. He highlights

248

Thomas W. Dichter, Despite Good Intentions: Why development assistance to the third world has failed

(Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).

249 _{See, the Live Eight concert in 2005 and Michael Cress, ‗Can Rockers and Religious Leaders End Poverty?‘,}

Belief Net, http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2005/07/Can-Rockers-And-Religious-Leaders-End-Poverty.aspx (accessed January 13, 2011).

250 _{Easterly, The White Man’s Burden, 3-4.} 251 _{Easterly, The White Man’s Burden, 4.} 252

Dichter, Despite Good Intentions, 2.

253 _{David Barrett, Peter Crossing and Todd Johnson, ‗Status of Global Mission, 2010, in Context of 20th and 21st}

Centuries‘, International Bulletin of Missionary Research (2010): 29-36,

the very real strategic challenges that those in development have discovered over the last fifty years. These conditions are briefly noted below in regard to Klong Toey.