The U.S. is encountering serious problems in its efforts to rebuild Iraq, highlighting the weaknesses of critically important efforts to restore countries all around the world where conflict has crippled societies. The involvement of government and large aid agencies can bring resources to the table at the huge scale needed to rejuvenate countries with devastated economies.
But these top-down efforts are doomed to stumble when they encounter corruption, factionalism, violence, and heartfelt resistance to "outside and alien" forces. The lesson is clear: societies must rebuild from the bottom-up. Ultimately the citizen sector – the primary relationship-based organizations forming the glue of society – must be the driving force for reconstruction; government, bureaucracy and military organizations can't do it.
Here's the rub, though: to reach a credible and significant scale of operation, citizen groups must go beyond being highly ethical, grassroots organizations that empower those they serve with a bottom-up approach. They must also learn to match the fierce operational efficiencies of highly competitive enterprises.
This month Changemakers features a little-known and surprising example of how an enterprise can grow toward the scale needed to rebuild an entire society – in Afghanistan of all places. While a wide array of agencies tries to get traction in Afghanistan, and the U.S. is struggling next door in Iraq, BRAC, a remarkably successful citizen sector organization that started in Bangladesh, is creating an Afghanistan operation that is quietly helping the Afghani people organize to rebuild their lives and institutions.
Rebuilding Afghanistan