When Failure Looks Like Success
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The global effort to bring clean water to Bangladesh appeared to be a huge success—twice. But each time, the success contained the seeds of epic failure. The overarching message? Success requires ongoing vigilance. Don’t assume the mission is accomplished.
by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy; visualization by Open.
THE PROBLEM
Lack of Potable Water
In the early 1970s most of the rural population uses contaminated groundwater for drinking, bathing, washing clothes and dishes, and irrigation. Waterborne diseases are rampant.
1972
The Fix
MASSIVE SUCCESS
In 1972 UNICEF initiates a project to install tube wells that pull pure underground water to the surface. More and more wells are put in during the next two decades, and three years ahead of the target date most people are getting their water from them. The wells become status symbols, included by many families in their daughters' dowries.
1983
A Disturbing Discovery
EPIC FAILURE
In 1983 a doctor notices "black raindrops" on patients' skin—a sign of arsenic poisoning (lesions are another).Arsenicosis has a latency period as long as 20 years, and over the next decade, even as more wells are installed, more cases are diagnosed. They are linked to well water contaminated with arsenic, which occurs naturally in the country's rocks and soil. In 2000 the World Health Organization cites the crisis as "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history."
1999
Fixing the Fix
MASSIVE SUCCESS
In 1999 a multimillion-dollar program of well screening, education, public relations, and social marketing begins. By 2004 it is deemed a success: Wells are painted green (safe) or red (contaminated), and offcials report that most residents understand the danger and have stopped using water from the red wells.
2000s
Unforeseen Consequences
NEW FAILURES
Few follow-up measures are taken after the testing, labeling, and education process. New problems emerge. Villagers who live close to red wells are stigmatized. Those afflicted with arsenic poisoning are discriminated against in employment and social activities and, in the case of young women, face diminished marriage prospects. Some women turn to prostitution to survive.
Lessons Learned
People say that success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan. Not in this case, however. Many factors caused the Bangladesh well intervention to become a protracted struggle. Here are two of the most important:
Designing “for” instead of “with”
The organizations behind the initial intervention were international bureaucracies with an incomplete understanding of the local population, particularly of rural women. The consequences of their mistakes compounded over time. They should have embraced the community as a codesigner, not merely a recipient, of the solution.
A lack of “whole measurements”
The organizations did not fully assess their projects' impacts. Because they measured success only by the number of wells built and the decline of waterborne illnesses, they missed early signs of the arsenicosis crisis. And they were slow to spot the social problems the painted wells created. They should have developed broader measures of community health and continually monitored them over time, in partnership with the communities.
SOURCES
UNICEF; UN FOUNDATION; WORLD BANK;ANDREW MEHARG, UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
Andrew Zolli is the curator of Pop!Tech and the founder of Z+ Partners. He is the author, with Ann Marie Healy, of the forthcoming book Resilience: The Science of Why Things Bounce Back (Random House). Open is a design studio in New York.
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