(+++) THE ROAD TO PURPOSE

Let’s Change the World: How to Work within International Development Organizations to Make a Difference. By Emiliana Vegas, Ed.D. Rowman & Littlefield. $28.

     The drive to make things better, to improve the planet we all share, may be no more urgent today than in the past – but in our technology-driven world, it certainly seems more urgent, as we are exposed to so much more detail about everything that is bad or wrong, everything that falls short of some sort of ideal (with the various ideals often being culturally determined – an issue in itself). In the past, the urge to improve things tended to be locally focused, if only because knowledge of distant places was less and speed of communication much less than is the case today. Now, though, young people have instant access to just about anywhere, and to information regarding just about anything, and they can and do focus on events everywhere in the world – with greater understanding than young people had in the past of just how interconnected disparate countries, cultures and concerns really are.

     How to navigate this? Harvard professor Emiliana Vegas, whose own improve-the-world credentials come from her work at the World Bank, Inter-American Bank and Brookings Institution, gives her personal answer in Let’s Change the World, a book aimed at “talented individuals who want to improve the lives of the most vulnerable populations in the poorest parts of the world.” The formulation says nothing about being an “influencer,” nothing about TikTok and Snapchat videos, and, tellingly, nothing about insisting on an ideal of work-life balance – although Vegas does have something to say on that topic: “As a rule of thumb, when a specific job brings me a sense of purpose and excitement (and thus satisfaction) for at least 70 percent of the time, I stay. Once that share falls, it is time to move on.” Young readers can take this to heart – but as an ideal, not an automatic occurrence or must-have.

     The field of international development organizations – however defined – is, after all, vast. Vegas’ book opens, even before the Introduction, with four single-spaced pages of acronyms and abbreviations, a veritable alphabet soup of assistance. Readers looking for another point of entry to the topic can simply visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_agencies to get an idea of how big this field is, how many component parts it has, and how complex it can be to navigate one’s way through it.

     First, though, one must navigate one’s way into it, and that is actually where Vegas’ book is most helpful. After listing what she regards as the five types of international development organizations (IDOs), Vegas explains what would-be world changers will need in order to become a member. Education, education, education is the basis, she says, including, in college, taking “as many social science courses as you are able, for example, economics, public policy analysis, and sociology.” Then add math, statistics, data analysis and econometrics “so that you may qualify for entry-level research assistant positions or consulting jobs within IDOs.” And be sure to become fluent in a second or third language.

     If this sounds like a daunting prospect, IDO-based world changing may not be a good fit: even graduate students, she writes, must take “courses that are challenging” as they focus on “investing in a professional network that you can later tap into during the course of your career.” Indeed, networking is an absolutely crucial requirement: Vegas says she “can’t emphasize this latter point enough.” Furthermore, if you are not of college age and just starting on the road to IDOs but are mid-career and hoping to switch to a field you believe will be more satisfying, you must “be prepared to accept a lower position to begin with.” None of this is easy, or intended to be. A few social-media postings here and there will not get you from here to there.

     How did Vegas herself manage her own career progress? She explains some of the basics in chapters called “Standing Out from the Crowd” and “The Paths Worth Taking,” emphasizing (indeed, italicizing) the necessities of technical skills and the ability to work effectively with diverse people and the capacity to deliver quality products that comply with the allocated budgets and timelines. Yet again: anyone without sufficient drive, determination and intensity need not pursue this approach to world-changing.

     Having set the scene for readers who want to work within IDOs, Vegas moves on to book sections called “How You Thrive” and “How to Make a Real Difference,” using herself as an example and getting significantly more deeply into everyday operational issues involving IDOs. This means the book becomes increasingly acronym-heavy: a single, typical two-page spread includes IDO, IDB, ESW, LMICs, WB, SIEF, CN, and RCT. It also means that many of the recommendations and suggestions would apply to ongoing career work in any business environment: “Moving Up the Corporate Ladder” (one chapter title) is scarcely an IDO-only topic. And the illustrative material Vegas offers may be more than a little overwhelming, as when she creates a full-page table called “How Various Technical and Managerial Positions (Using HD and Education as Examples) Fit within the WB’s Matrix.” Similarly, her commentaries on toxic supervisors and “The Power of a People Person” (another chapter title) are applicable to many, many workplaces.

     Vegas is scarcely naïve about the field of IDOs, saying that she knows there are people in IDOs who really care about their organizations’ missions and the people that the IDOs are supposed to help, even though “these institutions can be riddled with limitations and inefficiencies” and “sometimes their staff are more interested in pursuing individual agendas than the institutional mission.” So her enthusiasm about her chosen career is tempered by a sense of reality. And although Vegas is in her 50s, she clearly believes that Let’s Change the World will reach out effectively to readers 30+ years younger: “I hope this book will encourage those interested in pursuing careers in development to really go for it,” she writes with emphasis. What she does not do, likely because she is too close to her field to have the sort of overview that young readers will bring to it, is to explain in detail exactly how her personal work – and, by implication, theirs – would “make a difference.” Vegas’ contributions to what she considers world-changing are in the form of books such as Incentives to Improve Teaching: Lessons from Latin America and articles such as School choice, stratification, and information on school performance: Lessons from Chile, and When education expenditure matters: An empirical analysis of recent international data. Will fired-up college students see the creation of material such as this as sufficiently world-changing to make them willing to dedicate the time and effort required to break into IDOs and rise through the groups’ ranks? Will those who want things to be improved immediately, if not sooner, find Vegas’ recommendations a satisfactory road map for their personal and professional lives? Perhaps – or perhaps Vegas’ book will serve to show even the most-well-meaning readers that when one talks about changing the world, one is really talking about changing a very small piece of it over a very long time period while working one’s way through a very large number of difficulties and obstacles. Those unwilling to accept that reality, those hoping instantly to Photoshop wide-ranging, lasting improvements while proclaiming themselves “influencers,” will take scarcely any useful lessons, much less world-changing ones, from Let’s Change the World.