thinking about foreign aid

"In short, it’s complicated. Scharpf is engaged in a noble experiment — but entrepreneurs fail sometimes. And anybody wrestling with poverty at home or abroad learns that good intentions and hard work aren’t enough. Helping people is hard."

While reading this article in the NY Times, these sentences really summed up what many of us (or at least me) learned in the Peace Corps. When you arrive, you're all doe-eyed and ready to make wonderful changes in the lives of some of the poorest but amazingly hospitable people you've ever met. Then you realize just how agonizingly slow change can be in a country where you are just beginning to understand the ins and outs of the system. In short, it's complicated!

Please read the article, it is long, but worth it!