King & McGrath's Knowledge for Development: Comment 5

Still more thoughts occasioned on reading King and McGrath’s Knowledge for Development

The authors note the difference between knowledge and information, especially as that difference is construed by the interviewed members of the staff of DfID. I think of “information” as something that is conveyed through channels and stored in libraries and databases, versus “knowledge” which is something that is internalized. Explicit knowledge is something the holder can explain, while tacit knowledge is knowledge that the holder can’t explain. “Understanding,” involves the attribution of “meaning” to knowledge. We may understand that more than 10 million kids under the age of five die each year, but it is hard to understand what that means in human suffering and despair. “Skills” involve the ability to carry out functions – we may know in theory how to build a good development project, but the skills to do so well are harder to develop.

There is a further issue of “intelligence”, in the sense of the ability to acquire and make use of knowledge. (The idiot savant can be seen as someone who has the ability to acquire knowledge, but not that to use it well.) Perhaps donor agencies should focus more on intelligence than on knowledge?

At the individual level, there is certainly a great deal to be done to improve the ability to acquire knowledge and use knowledge well in developing nations. Too many kids are mentally as well as physically stunted by poor nutrition. Too many disabilities accumulate during the hard lives of the poor, and the deaf and blind are handicapped in acquiring and using knowledge, especially in poor nations. Intelligence improves with schooling and training, and there is too little schooling in poor nations.

But we can think of “intelligence” within institutions and societies. I suspect poverty itself reduces societal intelligence. Winnie the Pooh makes the observation somewhere, that there is probably a better way to go down the stairs than bumping down step by step on his head, but that his head hurts too much to think what that way might be. So too, the poor may recognize that there are better ways to live, but be too much in pain and too occupied with surviving poverty to find those ways.

Think also about corruption, war mongering, internecine violence, and crime. They all reduce the ability of affected institutions and nations to acquire and utilize knowledge well.

There is also a question of good will – the will to acquire and utilize knowledge to advance the general welfare. Without good will, K4D efforts seem futile. The Hitler’s of the world will seek knowledge for destructive rather than constructive purposes.