iii. Different actors
Whilst different contexts and different ideas are important, it is the differences between the people involved that are of over-riding significance in any development process. We can specify these difference in various ways. One of the most important ways is to say that people from the public sector (the state, local and central), from the private sector, and from civil society (voluntary organisations, non-governmental organisations (or NGOs), trades unions, faith bodies, community groups, and so on), are all likely to contribute to an intervention. And their different ways of doing things, their different norms and values and meanings (their different cultures), will give rise to complex and unpredictable interactions that result in outcomes – ‘developments’ – that are often unintended and unanticipated.
We can identify the differences between the people involved in different ways. But whatever the specifics of the differences, it is out of the process of their interactions that development emerges. And it is that process development managers have to grapple with.
Reflection
Can you identify contexts characterised by differences in the ways suggested above? How do you manage in such contexts?