This post is a follow-up on my recent post 'Journalists, come out, come out, wherever you are!.' Time to delve a little deeper into the development coverage, albeit limited, that we do see - I thought.

The problem

And so, for a moment or two, I'd like to put journalists' deadlines, agendas, and finances to one side. While we're at it, let's put the journalists themselves to one side too. Let's instead look at the images we are confronted with on a daily basis. War, poverty, famine, slums, you name it, if it's negative, we see it. Once again I find myself asking, where is the other side?

After all, we are talking here about developing countries, so where is the coverage of the development?

Jodi's just written about Sunday's marathon, said to be the biggest fundraising event in the world. Where is the money going? Is it really helping people? And if so, how? So many questions, rarely though do we get any answers. Never mind the fact that people deserve to see where their money is going, surely one (rather good) way of enticing new donors and sustaining the interest of future ones is to show the difference donated money has made. But then, that rarely happens either.

A possible solution?

A recent email from an international development charity I'm part of invited me to participate in a webinar today. Not only could funders could see exactly where there money had gone, and the impact it had had, but they could ask the decision-makers questions too. So simple, yet so effective. Why aren't we seeing more of these?

Image courtesy of http://www.farm4.static

Doing some leg-work ourselves

Watching a tv programme the other day opened my eyes to another problem: our own laziness, as passive observers. We look at something, and most of the time, most of us take it at face value. Take Lagos, Nigeria for example. Scenes of a dumpsite must spell major problems, the overpopulation must equate to an intolerably low standard of living and so on. I have to admit, I have got more than a little fed up of such negative, inactive, and almost pointless coverage. That was until I realised that I was an observer would have to make a bit more an effort.

I learned that in actual fact, the dumpsite is home to thousands of hard-working locals who sell what they find on to recyclers. They have built a community on and around the dump site and many move on from there to other jobs. Then there's the high density population, which pushes people to work very hard, it has created a competitive edge, which in turn has resulted in some very entrepeneurial start-ups. Take Gabriel, an agricultural graduate who one day spotted a gap in the market and went on to set up his own, very successful business. Blood from the slaughter of animals was left to drain away. That was until Gabriel found a use for it as fertilizer and now boils it, dries it in the sun, bags it up and sells it to farmers.

A fresh take

More coverage like this means we stop seeing those in developing countries as needy, helpless, weak and inactive victims. Instead, we start, little by little to see them, listen to them and understand them as people. More than that, we learn about their ambitions, their unique skills and even more unique hopes and dreams.

A picture paints a thousand words

How incredible it would be if even a fraction of the images we see were powerful, touching and emotive ones. For all the right reasons...