What I'm Reading: When Helping Hurts

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself

By: Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert

When Helping Hurts is a book that any person who wants to fight poverty should read.  I think it is safe to say that the average person thinks that every bit of giving they do is helpful.  Americans on short term mission trips bring tons of donated clothing, assuming they are helping the poor, but not realizing they’ve just put the local shirt producer out of business.  Development organizations enter poor communities, decide what is needed and carry out their projects; creating dependency, and leading the poor to assume that if they need something all they need to do is sit and wait for a Development agency to do it.  This type of relationship leads to poor communities bringing a laundry list of needs to organizations that work in their country and expecting them to be done through no effort of their own. 

The authors of When Helping Hurts point out the many potential dangers in what we always think of as helpful aid.  Corbett and Fikkert wrote specifically on two important themes: determining the type of aid needed, and asset based community development.  They wrote of three different types of aid; relief – urgent and temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering from a natural or man-made crisis; rehabilitation – restoring people and their communities to the positive elements of their precrisis conditions; development – process of ongoing change that moves all people involved closer to being in right relationship with God and the rest of creation.   A key distinction is that relief aid is immediate giving to people in crisis, and rehabilitation can often be giving to people as they recover from crisis.  Development however is not giving to people, but working with people to improve their livelihood. This is what Opportunity does.  We work with our clients, empowering them to pull themselves out of poverty.

The books other main theme is Asset Based Community Development (ABCD).  ABCD focuses not on what a community lacks, but what assets it has, and how to make the most of those assets.  Focusing on assets rather than needs helps build confidence in a community, while encouraging them to maximize returns on their assets.  Again there is a connection with Opportunity.  Most of our clients already have micro-enterprises going; we help empower them to grow and develop these enterprises, taking what they are good at and helping them use it to make a difference in their community. 

For anyone who wants to fight poverty and wants to ensure that their efforts promote effective development, When Helping Hurts is a must read.