Years ago, my UNDP supervisor greeted me with an astute observation, which I'll paraphrase. She essentially said, "I don't care what your motives are coming here, but it's really what you achieve on-ground that matters." Another saying has been, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Those who've applied systems theory analysis to the real-world know how often this saying applies to Northern countries' efforts in Southern countries' affairs. The complexity of the world and the so-called "law of unintended consequences" may confuse any number of good intentions. Also, while there are positive endeavors here and there, these are often too few and far between to make lasting change - in the face of many other moves towards entropy.

These ideas came to mind recently with a spate of emails between a former supervisor of mine who is working in a war-torn country that still seems like a war zone. It appears in the news often for various bombings and attacks against foreigners and its citizens by militants. I had contacted her after many years of non-interaction because of a potential new consortial endeavor to provide distance learning to support the building of the country's educational infrastructure. Essentially, I want to know the on-ground realities. How much electricity do the locals have? How solid is the electronic mass media infrastructure? How are online courses created, and who provides the regulatory oversight / accreditation? What are the cultural factors affecting the creation of curriculum? What are climatological and other factors that may affect how well computers labs and servers and computers function? Who are the learners, and what are their levels of skills? How safe was the environment? How easy was it to work with the political bureaucracy?

The real question was how not to move a model or approach that is Westernized and grounded in modernity into a situation where it doesn't graft onto a country's pre-existing structure. In nature, non-endemic species that are transferred to other environments may cause deep harm there. In societies, non-endemic programs may fail utterly and prove to be black holes in terms of expenditures. In volatile situations, one misstep may mean years of distrust - so the moves have to be transparent and slow and deliberate and well informed. These endeavors should not create new dependencies (although with technologies, new dependencies come with the territory). There should be actual skills and knowledge transfer for in-house capacity, theoretically and practically.

Some of the greatest ways to see what is going on in South countries are to talk to people on ground, but failing that, reading about their endeavors may be very eye-opening.

Sometimes, in our drive to be first here in a Northern country, we forget that distance learning may involve using a hanging bedsheet and a bullhorn. We forget that the Net, which some of advertised as an equalizer technology, requires a deep technological infrastructure and attitudes that make its use more efficacious or possible.