The concept of international development probably has its early origins in colonial days.  The relatively developed imperial powers looked at less developed areas and saw opportunities.  Historical evidence suggests that the opportunities they saw were for personal or national economic gain, or both, or for increasing spheres of political, military or religious influence.  The most selfish examples seem to have been motivated by “What gain is in this for us?”  and the least selfish by “How can we make these people more like us?”

After World War II, much of what was considered the most developed areas were in physical ruins.  Efforts at reconstruction were started and the Marshall Plan, which is often viewed as a model of successful development assistance, achieved great things.  In the decades which followed when recovery from the war was completed, the need for development assistance to newly independent colonies became glaringly apparent, and new programs were started.

How successful these programs - which have cost many billions of dollars -  have been, may be judged from conditions in many ex-colonies.  Lack of political and economic stability is common, and great masses of people are living under conditions so deplorable as to be unimaginable to most residents of Europe or North America.  Poverty, malnutrition and early death is the unfortunate fate of many millions of our fellow human beings.

The DIR approach to international development is advised by and builds upon past events.  We are convinced that doing more of what has been done is not a rational strategy.  Lack of success of most development efforts to-date  has been seen to be the case because not enough funds were made available.  We disagree.  The already incredible expenditure clearly indicates that money is not the solution, and may make things worse.  The Marshall Plan and all its imitations where magnificent where  reconstruction is concerned but has been shown to be almost irrelevant where construction is involved.

A weakness we perceived in many well-meaning programs was the lack of a precisely defined end goal.  Most programs aim at “development” but few, if any, tell what they mean by development.  For a great number of people it entails industrialization and it is readily understandable how this thinking came about.  Since the most industrial nations are seen to be developed,  industrialization became viewed as a precursor to becoming developed”.

This kind of thinking, and the unconscious aim for many development people of “making them more like us” or “making their conditions more like ours” even with the very best of intentions, is demonstrable in error and usually harmful.

We were about to decide to avoid the use of the word development because of ill-conceived development schemes and the connotes they have been collecting in recent years, when its early etymology came to light.  One of its earliest meaning was “to unwrap” “to dis- envelope” and its relationship to “dis- cover” is obvious.  This sense of the word made perfect sense to us, and makes perfect sense for the less developed nations.

If we use the word to mean the process of uncovering, bringing forth whatever is within, we escape the dangers of trying to make Calcutta a replica of London, The Congo look like The Rhur, Bolivia look like Belgium.  Instead we become concerned with the emerging, the bringing forth of that which was there all along, concerned with groups, communities, nations, reaching their potential.

With such an aim, we readily recognized the possibility that if we were to promote the emergence of whatever was within, without ever being able to predict the future, that what might emerge might be harmful.  However, history indicates that there is reason to believe that there is inherent good in mankind and that while imperfections do emerge,  reason and goodwill inexorably prevail.  The growth and evolution of the major religions and their being widely embraced bears evidence to mankind’s  goodness.  While DIR does not support and receives no support from any religious group, we view the essence of all major religions to be broadly beneficial.