Solving
the world’s problems – serious poverty, hunger, war, disease, etc. – is
a complicated business, to say the least. To make even a tiny, lasting
dent in a single one of these problems typically requires vast amounts
of careful thinking, planning, research, money and time. Even then,
there’s always the risk that a seemingly “brilliant” plan will go
tragically awry when it comes face-to-face with the unforeseen
complexities of the concrete world, or that an approach that works well
in one locale will fail catastrophically when applied somewhere else.
It’s
no wonder then, that even well-intentioned philanthropists often fall
prey to the temptation of the “short-cut” – the cookie-cutter, one-size
fits all, blanket “solution” to some enormously complex problem.
Unfortunately, the consequences of giving in to this temptation are
often disastrous…or worse.
Nothing demonstrates this reality more bleakly than...
