The development dilemma: give a man a fish or teach him to fish? | Global Development Professionals Network | Guardian Professional

The development dilemma: give a man a fish or teach him to fish? | Global Development Professionals Network | Guardian Professional:

On a recent trip to Washington DC, I delivered a presentation (pdf) on mapping the informal settlements of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana. I was asked a question: "By uniformly mapping and addressing properties in these slums, are you endorsing illegal homes and other buildings?" My response was: "In Sekondi-Takoradi, only about 24% of property development conforms to the city's layout or plan. We either map the city in its fullness or we produce something useless. If we only map the 24% legal buildings the map is of no value."

Although the answer I gave was very straightforward, the question cut to the core of one of the quandaries we face in development today. I am currently overseeing a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which involves mapping the whole of Sekondi-Takoradi, a Ghanaian city the size of Edinburgh, as well as subsequent street naming and property addressing. We have named 3,440 streets and alleys, from Galaxy Street to Jerk Close, numbered all of the properties, and mapped them using GIS technology. This is a tremendous advance for the city. But we address properties to get somewhere, not as an end in itself.

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