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Global challenges in practice: designing a development intervention
Global challenges in practice: designing a development intervention

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2 How do people living on low incomes see life?

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Video 1 Rajen Makhijani Ted Talk
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In this Ted Talk from 2016, Rajen Makhijani discusses the reality of living on a low income, the complexity of decision-making and how reality can look very different to someone living in poverty than to a development manager.

He encourages us to embrace the complexity and actively learn how the world looks to others. Far from being ‘stupid’, he argues that people in poverty are uneducated but make rational choices based on the options open to them. The better these options are understood, and how people living in poverty choose between them, the better the interventions will be.

The following activity invites you to think more about the Ted Talk.

Activity 1

Timing: Allow around 25 minutes

Take a moment to reflect on the video and answer the following questions:

  • What did you find most interesting?
  • What did you find most challenging?
  • What are the implications for the design of development interventions?

Note your thoughts in the box below.

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Discussion

The most interesting part of the talk was that it demonstrated how people on low incomes make the best of their circumstances. The choices they are forced to make in circumstances not of their own choosing and beyond their control are considered and rational.

There are many challenges to designing effective interventions. There are practical constraints such as human resources, financial resources and time. And there are the challenges resulting from the complex and dynamic environments that interventions take place within and interact with. These bring significant elements of the unknown, high levels of ambiguity, and multiple perspectives.