Freitag, 30. Oktober 2015

Using social attitudes and behaviors to support the design and implementing of development interventions



ITIL ®V3 (IT Service Management)
PRINCE2 ® (Projects in Controlled Environments)
Agile Management Innovations
Wirtschaftsinformatik - Diplom-Ingenieur
Informatikmanagement - Mag. rer. soc. oec
Wirtschaftsinformatik - Bakk.rer. soc. oec
Social Science - DEUG



A number of development experts have dedicated their careers to fight against poverty. To date, interventions tackling poverty have been informed by disciplines including, actions, climate change, public health, employment, migration, ICT, human rights, social justice just to name a few.

These approaches have generated a number of more or less effective interventions. Notwithstanding the progress made so far, poverty remains a psychological and chronic social problem in certain regions of the planet. Further progress, particularly in the area of extreme poverty eradication, will require more than simply reapplying successful interventions.

This might, in part reflect the fact that many interventions in the area of development are built on and informed by the same set of approaches. Bringing a multi- approached lenses that would incorporate insights from currently under-utilized approaches in the development interventions, could therefore facilitate the process of designing original and effective solutions. For example, applying hybrid tools derived from social behaviors and attitudes, could improve the effectiveness of poverty reduction programs.

Enriching extreme poverty eradication strategies with findings from social, cultural and economic researches would enable development stakeholders to address multiple barriers in extreme poverty eradication. Understanding the social behaviors and attitudes in communities with high extreme poverty could enhance community-level interventions. Bringing insights from fields not commonly seen in the development arena may enable unexpected approaches which, paired with vigorous evaluation, could help reduce and eradicate poverty.

The traditional (modernistic) considerations of solutions to poverty consisted of the rooting out of the causes of poverty. Bringing about development through introducing technology and proper education would gradually cause poverty to disappear. By taking the correct measures poverty will be eradicated. The results of these measures were however not considered. Hershock (n.d.:34) is convinced that when development does not alleviate poverty, it will definitely create an environment conducive to poverty and lead to the institutionalisation of poverty. Poverty will persist as the inability to meet one’s own needs (Hershock n.d:36)”.[Source]

By providing relevant information and knowledge (rooting out poverty causes), and by using modern ICT technologies and collaborative learning approach, we will help the most vulnerable ones to develop their skills to cope with their own development challenges, to make healthier decisions and to manage their daily social challenges in more effective ways.

Approach
We aim to create long-term impacts on communities’ empowerment to tackle down development challenges. We are seeking to take advantage on an innovative hybrid approach based on Pivotal Response Training processes and cloud technology to design and implement our development interventions in copying with the SDGs.

Schema 1. Development Aid Support Mechanism rationale

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The poor or the marginalized societies who are living under extreme poverty appear marginalized by the social system and poorly motivated to respond to development challenges they are facing , and to engage in the social development activities around them.

The schema above describes the interaction between the StayConneD4Dev cloud platform and the Field development support as following: Our users are motivated and educated on development matters through our community Learning Centre (StayConnecteD4Dev)  a cloud based learning platform. They become active volunteers. Under the guidance and mentoring of our regional or local volunteer manager, active volunteers reach their respective local communities, particularly, the most vulnerable (people in rural villages, in peri-urban settings, youth groups, illiterate and semi-illiterate communities) to educate them on the local problems (the root causes) they are facing to know or understand which human development challenges they are facing, and on how they can try to resolve firstly these challenges locally.

Active volunteers help communities to collect data or information about their problems, challenges, frustrations, etc. they live with. We are implementing  development cases studies  from the collected data and information which can help donors to identify local, global common issues, and in their early diagnostics for intervention.

The Pivotal Response Training contends that behaviour hinges on behavioural skills—motivation and the ability to respond to multiple cues—and that development of these skills will result in collateral behavioural improvements. In 2005, Richard Simpson of the University of Kansas identified Pivotal Response Treatment as one of the four scientifically based treatments for “autism”.

Motivation to respond to social and environmental cues is fundamental to development and a critical area of intervention (R. L. Koegel, Dyer, & Bell, 1987). The approach is a comprehensive service delivery model which will explore the interests of the most vulnerable as a natural motivator to engage them in the end goal of decreasing the frequency and prevalence of daily extreme poverty causes.

The name pivotal response emphasizes the importance of targeting area of development that will lead to collateral changes in other areas of functioning or responding. The poor or the marginalized societies who are living under extreme poverty appear marginalized by the social system and poorly motivated to respond to and engage in the social development activities around them.

Working with people who are marginalized by the social system presents Development & Aid Workers with a number of challenges that extend beyond fundamental principles such as prevention, empowerment, and participation.

The pivotal response interventions that emphasize associations between social communicative responses and direct positive consequences lead to increased motivation, enhanced learning, more rapid acquisition of target behaviors, and less avoidance behavior (L. K. Koegel & Koegel, 1995; R. L. Koegel, Carter, & Koegel, 1998).

- See more at: http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/aid-support/minisite/using-social-attitudes-and-behaviors-support-design-and-implementing-development-interventi