It's hard to be good

The ever busy Chris Blattman complains about Development Tourists, people who go on short trips to developing countries to do things like build houses with Habitat for Humanity, or run inane research projects or work in NGOs for less than a year at a time. Who are these fools, and who do they think they are helping?

It's a classic complaint among development workers, but I really don't get it. We complain that rich country Governments don't pay enough attention to International Development, that they don't meet their international commitments, that most Americans couldn't find Kenya or Darfur on a map. But it's when a person gets themselves organized enough to find out about Habitat for Humanity and go on a home building trip, that's when all the cranky and experienced development types really get their knives out.

Why are we development workers so quick to attack people who are trying to do the same thing as us, if perhaps a little bit less informed and less cynical about it? My suspicion is that it is an expression of deep anxiety about our own ability to make a difference. By attacking the Development Tourists, we can feel better about ourselves, because we're the real thing, not like those boneheads over there.

Blattman's blog is generally focused on positive undercurrents in development. If he is going to turn on the criticism, I can think of a lot of things worse than Development Tourists. How about the jaded development types who have spent years in Africa and know exactly how to abuse the system to reap huge consulting fees for work they know is useless? How about the preachers and con men selling false cures for AIDS? The promoters of abstinence-only HIV education? Or the majority of Americans who can't tear themselves away from their reality television shows for long enough to go on a short term Habitat trip and see something outside their own country?

Why would you attack the one group of people who are trying to learn more about how they can make a difference?