"What makes you think you are developed?"

Unpopular opinion.?

I was speaking to an Ethiopian who lives in the United States. He recalled a time that he met with a leader from the World Bank who wanted help with their development project in Addis Ababa.?

"What makes you think you are developed?" is what he wanted to ask the World Bank.?

But he didn't. He knew that was not what they wanted to hear.?

It does bring up a good point though.?

The emphasis of so much of our aid and development work is backed by the intention that we as the West, feel like we know better... that we are better.?

But what if that is wrong??

What if our idea of success is measured by the wrong thing?

What I do know for sure is that the way the West views the African continent is wrong. And that if we stopped trying to make such a big impact in the traditional sense, we would actually make a bigger impact.?

For example, if we stopped viewing African countries as mission trips and instead saw them as top tourist destinations, over 3.8 million jobs (including 2.4 million indirect jobs) could be created over the next 10 years.?

If we stopped sourcing raw agricultural products from Africa and instead bought value-added products like roasted coffee, chocolate bars, and?packaged tea, we would create 5x+ bigger impact.?

And if everyone who donated to build schools in Africa also hired a graduate from the schools they built, Africans would gain equal access to the global talent economy and millions would have jobs (plus our own teams would be more diverse, skilled, and also cost-efficient).

Perhaps our first step is un-doing what we think we know and experience the continent in a new and better way. Whether that is booking a trip to the continent to experience it firsthand or adding a Virtual Assistant based out of Uganda, Rwanda, or Ethiopia to our team.?

The first step is getting outside our comfort zone, doing something different, and seeing where it leads us.?