VOA慢速英语2010年-Development Report - Why Development P

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Last week we told you about FAILFaire, an event where people talk about international development projects that failed.

Many of these projects started as good ideas. Others had some level of success, but not enough to have a measurable effect on the lives of people in developing countries.

A nonprofit group in New York called MobileActive held the first FAILFaire earlier this year. MobileActive is made up of people and organizations that use technology to try to improve the lives of the poor.

Katrin Verclas came up with the idea for FAILFaire as a way to help nonprofit groups improve by learning from the mistakes of others.

Katrin Verclas: "The primary goal is to learn from failure and not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. And for a community of practitioners¹ to benefit from the lessons learned from other people so that we can do better the next time around, collectively as a field, and individually as organizations and practitioners."

Katrin Verclas says there are many reasons why projects fail, but one reason tops all others. She says development projects are not "one size fits all," yet many people try to import ideas as if they were.

Members of the charity Oxfam demonstrate outside a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Brussels earlier this month. "Bankers," left, and "nongovernmental organizations," right, fight over a giant euro note.

What they fail to consider, she says, is the desires of the local people or their cultural, economic and political differences. She says the problem for many nongovernmental organizations and other groups is simply not knowing their audience.

Katrin Verclas: "Western organizations, or NGOs, or donors² in particular have particular ideas about what might be alleviating³ a particular problem in a developing country, without a really good understanding of the end users or the beneficiaries."

The creator of FAILFaire says this is true not only with technology but other projects as well. Ms. Verclas hopes nonprofits in other industries and fields will create their own versions of FAILFaire.

A second FAILFaire took place in July in Washington. The World Bank Institute co-sponsored the event. To Katrin Verclas, it was a good sign to have the World Bank support such open discussions about failure.

A Somali policeman helps a displaced Somali woman to carry food aid provided by a local NGO and the World Food Program in Mogadishu in May

Katrin Verclas: "We have a lot riding on this, after all. It's not just products; it's people's lives and well-being⁴ and livelihoods⁵ in many developing countries that we're talking about. So it's incumbent⁶ upon us to be very, very honest about what projects aren't performing according to expectations."

An award for the best worst failure story went to Michael Trucano from the World Bank Institute. What he presented was in fact a list. It was a list of what he considers the worst practices in the use of information and communication technologies in education.

Mr. Trucano gets to keep the award until the next FAILFaire, which is expected to be held on the West Coast this fall. You can find a link to his list of the top ten worst practices at voaspecialenglish.com.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.
 

1 practitioners   

n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师）

参考例句：

• one of the greatest practitioners of science fiction 最了不起的科幻小说家之一
• The technique is experimental, but the list of its practitioners is growing. 这种技术是试验性的，但是采用它的人正在增加。 来自辞典例句

2 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 alleviating   

减轻，缓解，缓和( alleviate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• If it's alleviating pain,who knows what else it's doing? 如果它减轻了疼痛，天知道还影响什么？
• Measuring poverty is not the same as alleviating it, of course. 当然，衡量贫困和减轻贫困是截然不同的。

4 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

5 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。

6 incumbent   

adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的

参考例句：

• He defeated the incumbent governor by a large plurality.他以压倒多数票击败了现任州长。
• It is incumbent upon you to warn them.你有责任警告他们。