发展项目失败原因:并非放之四海皆准

    This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
    这里是美国之音慢速英语发展报道。

    Last week we told you about FAILFaire, an event where people talk about international development projects that failed.
    上周我们讨论了FAILFaire,在这个活动上人们讨论失败的国际发展项目。

    Many of these projects started as good ideas. Others had some level of success, but not enough to have a measurable effect on the lives of people in developing countries.
    这些项目中有很多出发点是不错的,一些已经达到了一定程度的成功,但是还不足以对发展中国家人们的生活产生可衡量的影响。

    A nonprofit group in New York called MobileActive held the first FAILFaire earlier this year. MobileActive is made up of people and organizations that use technology to try to improve the lives of the poor.
    今年早些时候,纽约一个名为MobileActive的非盈利组织举办了第一届FAILFaire。MobileActive由一些试图依靠技术改变穷人生活的个人和机构组成。

    Katrin Verclas came up with the idea for FAILFaire as a way to help nonprofit groups improve by learning from the mistakes of others.
    凯特琳·韦克莱斯(Katrin Verclas)提出了一个想法,把FAILFaire作为学习别人失误的途径来帮助非盈利组织得到提高。

    Katrin Verclas: "The primary goal is to learn from failure and not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. And for a community of practitioners to benefit from the lessons learned from other people so that we can do better the next time around, collectively as a field, and individually as organizations and practitioners."
    韦克莱斯:“FAILFaire的主要目的是从失败中学习经验,不再重蹈覆辙。对于从业群体而言,是从学习他人中受益,以便下次能做的更好,这个从业群体统称为一个领域,包括独立从业机构和个人。”

    Katrin Verclas says there are many reasons why projects fail, but one reason tops all others. She says development projects are not "one size fits all," yet many people try to import ideas as if they were.
    韦克莱斯称项目失败的原因很多,但有一个原因最重要。她表示,发展项目并非放之四海皆准,然而很多人却试图简单套用。

    What they fail to consider, she says, is the desires of the local people or their cultural, economic and political differences. She says the problem for many nongovernmental organizations and other groups is simply not knowing their audience.
    她称,他们在当地人的需求,以及他们文化、经济和政治差异方面欠于考虑。她表示,很多非政府机构和其他组织的问题只是不了解他们的目标群体。

    Katrin Verclas: "Western organizations, or NGOs, or donors in particular have particular ideas about what might be alleviating a particular problem in a developing country, without a really good understanding of the end users or the beneficiaries."
    韦克莱斯:“西方组织,非政府机构,尤其是捐助者只是对能够缓解某个发展中国家的某个特定问题有独特的想法,而对终端用户或受益者没有真正的了解。”

    The creator of FAILFaire says this is true not only with technology but other projects as well. Ms. Verclas hopes nonprofits in other industries and fields will create their own versions of FAILFaire.
    FAILFaire的发起者称不仅技术项目如此,其他项目也是如此。韦克莱斯希望其他行业和领域的非盈利组织创建他们自己的FAILFaire。

    A second FAILFaire took place in July in Washington. The World Bank Institute co-sponsored the event. To Katrin Verclas, it was a good sign to have the World Bank support such open discussions about failure.
    第二届FAILFaire7月份在华盛顿举行,世界银行承办了这次活动。对于韦克莱斯而言,有世界银行支持这种对失败的公开讨论是个好迹象。

    Katrin Verclas: "We have a lot riding on this, after all. It’s not just products; it’s people’s lives and well-being and livelihoods in many developing countries that we’re talking about. So it’s incumbent upon us to be very, very honest about what projects aren’t performing according to expectations."
    韦克莱斯:“毕竟这里面有很多因素,我们讨论的不仅仅是产品,而是发展中国家人们的生活,利益以及生计问题。所以我们对这些不能产生预期效果的项目就有义不容辞的责任。”

    An award for the best worst failure story went to Michael Trucano from the World Bank Institute. What he presented was in fact a list. It was a list of what he considers the worst practices in the use of information and communication technologies in education.
    “最佳”糟糕经历奖颁给了来自世界银行研究所的迈克·(Michael Trucano)。他展示的其实就是一个清单,在这个清单上,他列出了他认为信息与与通信技术在教育使用中最差的例子。