Is the Google Foundation asking the right questions?

Google has recently made the committment to spend $2 billion on good causes through it's Foundation. Given the success of Google it is good to see them using some of their huge resources on social and economic development for poor people. 

Larry Brilliant, the new head of the Google Foundation, gave a very interesting interview about his aspirations for the Foundation and how they plan to spend the money. A strong focus will be on sub-saharan Africa which I welcome.

Being an innovative and successful technology company, it is little surprise that Google hope to deploy their expertise to try to solve some of the world's intractable problems - poverty, disease and environmental issues. They want to use their software tools and data analysis to predict and change the way development problems emerge. An example would be using software to understand and predict disease epidemics. Presumably once Google has the ability to predict these things it will be easier to intervene and prevent.

But is the Google Foundation asking the right questions? Does the world work in this way and can deeper analysis of data reveal new ways of making change happen?

Certainly it is appealing. But does it risk being too simplistic? The history of failed development approaches over the last 60 years has been littered with technocratic approaches to problems that just have not worked. Silver bullets offer the promise of a quick fix but they rarely work in the real world.

Robert Chamber's great 1997 book Putting the First Last provides an in-depth look at how technology has failed to deliver it's promises for poor people. Part of his analysis is that those who design and invest in technology are remote and removed from the poor and the real world and real lives that they lead.

There are many other factors than just technology to consider - power relations and dynamics; corruption and lack of transparency; trust; relationships; local knowledge and expertise. If technology is going to offer something then it needs to be used in a wider framework of grassroots development. 

I admire several things about the Google Foundation - their passion, their enthusiasm, their self-belief and their money! I just hope they ask the right questions (and ask the right people - those who live in the areas where they are trying to have an impact) before they spend.