Very astute comment, but I would caveat slightly. Data collection from the top can be very useful, provided it's not construed to polish a turd or hide embarrassment under a carpet, but the second step should be to encourage a ground-up entrepreneurial approach problem-solving.
The West spent $2.4 trillion on foreign aid, much of it wasted. A prime example comes from the use of mosquito nets- where the top down approach resulted in people either throwing them away, using them for fishing or even as materials for wedding dresses. What did work was making them a prestige retail item for wealthier people, and giving nurses in clinics a small commission for successfully promoting them to their patients. The market in action.
As your example points out, there is an infinite chasm between lofty universal theory and the combinatorially explosive complexity of human society and individual choices.
I am indeed indebted to the social scientists and thinkers in their ivory towers... and perhaps deal too harshly with their presumably good intentions... but we all know what the "road to hell" is paved with.
These issues are complex and as in all things hubris is the enemy...
Very astute comment, but I would caveat slightly. Data collection from the top can be very useful, provided it's not construed to polish a turd or hide embarrassment under a carpet, but the second step should be to encourage a ground-up entrepreneurial approach problem-solving.
The West spent $2.4 trillion on foreign aid, much of it wasted. A prime example comes from the use of mosquito nets- where the top down approach resulted in people either throwing them away, using them for fishing or even as materials for wedding dresses. What did work was making them a prestige retail item for wealthier people, and giving nurses in clinics a small commission for successfully promoting them to their patients. The market in action.
As your example points out, there is an infinite chasm between lofty universal theory and the combinatorially explosive complexity of human society and individual choices.
I am indeed indebted to the social scientists and thinkers in their ivory towers... and perhaps deal too harshly with their presumably good intentions... but we all know what the "road to hell" is paved with.
These issues are complex and as in all things hubris is the enemy...