I am often torn between advocating what I think is right and the prudence of conducting a needs assessment. I wonder sometimes if Nicholas Negroponte ever suffers from the same inner conflict. He must be reading stuff like this post: "I think what you are espousing here is precisely what is wrong with development. There are far too many programs out there in which organizations spend megabucks to spread what they think the world needs, without a proper, comprehensive, earnest needs assessment, and without a tailored-program to ensure both that the resource of the program will be used appropriately (if at all), that the resource will be used for any real period of time, or that there will be lasting results. You are espousing this model." Quite so - and the author is right - but what do you say when you think the needs assessment is going to get it wrong? That the people completing the needs assessment have a greater stake in keeping things the way they are - no matter how bad that may be - that in improving the situation for people?
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