International Development, USAID, and Mapping for Resilience
What is international development?*
“The modern concept of ‘development’ is generally traced back to US President Harry Truman’s 1949 Inaugural Address, when he spoke of ‘underdeveloped areas’, a term still in common usage today.”
“In his speech, Truman suggested several criteria for measuring development: on the side of underdevelopment, he mentioned inadequate food, disease, primitive economic life, and poverty; on the side of development he placed scientific advancement as well as skill and technical knowledge.”
However, ‘development’ is a contested term and identifying where development is or is not is just as contentious. Many other labels for regions have been used internationally to compare the relative status of wealth, poverty, progress, and other modern values related to development, including: the ‘Third World,’ which has geopolitical roots in the history of colonialism and imperialism, ‘Newly Industrialized Countries,’ referring to emerging capitalist economies; and low-, middle-, and high income countries, which is the system of classification used by the World Bank; the ‘Global South,’ which attempts to privilege the simple geographic location of countries with lower socio-economic indicators or standards of living over less desirable terms such as ‘underdeveloped’.
Whatever the label, the focus of international development activities share certain underlying assumptions for practice and policies which need to be critically examined and reformed in tandem with the ways we evaluate the terms and language we use to refer to them. Many scholars of various disciplines have done so over the years, and Schafer, Hallam & Beadet (2012) present a concise history of these evolving approaches and theories of development.
Over the course of the years since Truman’s speech, these approaches have focused variously on growth, inequality, poverty, basic needs, freedom, human development, and more. Currently, some of the reigning concepts underlying much of today’s international development in practice and policy is multi-dimensional and centered on global indicators, such as the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.
No matter the approach, international development remains an important realm of activity on the global stage to examine the diversity and disparity of wealth and the uneven distribution of poverty across the planet, and seek to understand where, why, and how to redress it.
* This section above contains quoted material and an abstract from the following resource; for further OPTIONAL reading on these ideas, including a discussion of the ethics central to the international development landscape, consult: Jessica Schafer, Paul Alexander Haslam, and Pierre Beaded. 2012. Meaning, Measurement, and Morality in International Development. In Introduction to International Development: Approaches, Actors, and Issues, 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, pp.3-27.
Who is USAID?
The leading government entity in the United States that has an explicit mission to undertake activities to promote international development is the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID.
When USAID was created in 1961 under the leadership of President John F. Kennedy, several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs were brought together into one agency. “Kennedy recognized the need to unite development into a single agency responsible for administering aid to foreign countries to promote social and economic development. On November 3, 1961, USAID was born and with it a spirit of progress and innovation.”
Please READ all of the text on the linked pages that summarizes important background information about USAID (you do not need to click again on links contained inside these pages unless you wish to do so):
Where we work (Just for fun: View the Interactive Map of USAID Projects at the bottom of the page of this link)
What do we mean by resilience?
Much like with the various approaches to “development,” discrepancies abound in the use of the term “resilience” and the related concept of “vulnerability” across disciplines and between academic and practitioner sectors. This can often hamper the communication, collaboration and innovation needed for much development work, including in the realm of mapping. Literatures on vulnerability and resilience are vast, interdisciplinary, and expanding. In some fields, such as ecology and engineering, resilience is taken to indicate the ability of a system to absorb changes, recover and still perform as a system, or the ability to persist and adapt. In other fields, such as geography, resilience is theorized as both process and product of coupled human-environmental shock and stress, whether slow onset or abrupt. Some scholars critique the term resilience altogether, in that it may tend to obfuscate the underlying negative consequences, underestimate the role of power and conflict or reflect a normative agenda.
Remember the central mission of USAID? “We partner to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity.”
USAID defines resilience as “the ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.”
Please go to this online presentation now to listen and follow:
Section 1: Impetus and rationale for resilience
Section 2: Resilience definition and key concepts
(If you are interested it is OPTIONAL to follow the rest of their online course).
How do we measure resilience and vulnerability?
In order to know whether progress towards achieving resilience is being made, it is important to measure it. USAID has identified some ways for practitioners to do so. Read this two page explanation (you do not need to read all of the appendices, just take a look through them.)
How do we map chronic vulnerability?
The USAID GeoCenter, in collaboration with researchers at West Virginia University that are part of our mapping consortium, have developed a methodology that helps to visualize chronic vulnerability across places.
Read about this kind of analysis here.
About the USAID GeoCenter
The USAID GeoCenter applies geographic analysis to improve the strategic planning, design, monitoring, evaluation, and communication of USAID programs. USAID GeoCenter’s signature program, Mapping for Resilience involves innovative partners across government (USAID, State Department, Peace Corps, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency), the humanitarian community, the hacker community, and academia. It is part of the US Global Development Lab whose goals are to apply science, technology, innovation, and partnerships (STIP) to development challenges.
About the YouthMappers Program
Our vision is to cultivate a generation of young people to become leaders in creating resilient communities and empowering them to define their world by mapping it.
Students at Universities in the developing world and in the US are encouraged to create mapping chapters and affiliate them with the YouthMappers network. Student-led chapters will organize mapping activities in response to real development needs and take advantage of the program’s leadership opportunities to create spatial data for USAID projects in parts of the world where such information can contribute to development goals.
The program offers leadership and fellowship opportunities, activities for female mappers and support for students and their faculty mentors to work in local communities to create and use spatial data to solve real world development needs, then share that data publicly in an open online platform.
Of the world's population, more than 1.8 billion are youth between the ages of 10 and 24. More than 85% of the world's youth live in developing regions.
Take a look around at this website: YouthMappers unites universities to directly support the USAID GeoCenter’s Mapping for Resilience efforts and includes research, education, and outreach activities. Texas Tech University, George Washington University, and West Virginia University are founding members. There are currently (as of January 2017) a total of 48 universities participating in 16 countries. The USAID GeoCenter has co-created the effort and provided nearly $1M in funding for programming, the majority of which goes to students in the countries served to support their participation.
RELFECTION QUESTIONS FOR YOUR ESSAY
Q: Why do you think the concept of ‘development’ is a subject of debate?
Q: How might where you come from matter to which approach to development you prefer?
Q: Might there be circumstances where the two linked goals within USAID may not be complementary: ending extreme poverty and promoting the development of resilient, democratic societies?
Q: Which of the core values of USAID most strongly resonate with your own values? Which might you feel in conflict with?
Q: What are some additional ways to measure resilience as defined by USAID?
Q: How does mapping chronic vulnerability help us better understand the resilience of particular places?
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages to focus development efforts on global youth?
USE THE "Add files" icon below to upload your essay as a word doc or pdf. The filename should be your last name and the word "Development." For example, SOLISdevelopment.pdf.
