The Social Impact on a Global Scale event featuring Mari Tiikanen and Mack Ramachandran on their respective UN experience had an excellent turn out! What was intended as a 20 min talk followed by 10 min of Q&A event, manifested itself as a two-and-a-half hour long, meandering, candid, and deep discussion on the state of large scale aid/development projects around the world. The majority of the audience overstayed the scheduled duration and was eager to know more, often narrating their own experiences with development, asking pertinent questions, or expounding on their own areas of expertise.
The speakers were not representing their employer and/or clients but came under their own capacity (Mack being on holiday and Mari on maternity leave). Their talks were evidently unofficial and that is probably the reason why the discussions were so candid. As a consequence, the editing of the film transcript of the event was quite of a difficult task. Keeping the essence of the talks, the energy, the fun, the pertinence while having to edit quite some bits, does do give justice to the nature of the event. Watch this space for videos!
Overall, the room entertained a frank and vibrant discussion spanning diverse themes such as the economics of food aid projects, logistics and budget management, inherent inefficiencies in UN-like bureaucracy, the aid policies of various nations, trade vs. aid, social media campaigns to raise awareness and engage civil society, the need for greater transparency and accountability, private vs. public sector initiatives for development, the ethics of selling empathy for different causes, the ethics of staying apolitical, and the state of education on matters of development in classrooms.
David Huisjen, a teacher wrote a piece about the event and much besides. Thanks David for putting some of your thoughts in perspective.
Videos from the event.
