Jonathan Glennie, Global Nation (Colombia)

There’s only one thing people hate giving away more than money. Power. In fact, the power to give away money is something people with large amounts of it tend to greatly enjoy.  

But power is what it is all about. It’s the whole point of development. That's why you can't speak to a development professional for more than 30 seconds before the word "empowerment" pops out. The difference between humanitarian response and development is that development is not just about change; it is about sustained change.  

A great mentor, Charles Abugre, used to say that when a development project is completed the correct measure of success is not how many kids have gone to the youth club, or how many houses have been built, or arms injected, but how power relationships have changed.

As important, or even more important, than the material benefits of a development project are the less tangible changes in capacity and confidence that make a community more resilient in the face of difficult circumstances, and more able to demand and defend its rights. Better health, better education, better incomes are only the means to the real end of development work: community strength and resilience, ready to face new challenges that come its way, long after the "development project" has moved on. 

We hope that this will be one of the key topics for debate at the forthcoming #ShiftThePower Global Summit in Bogotá which Global Nation is proud to be co-hosting. (Read more from Jonathan here)