When it comes to improving development policy and practice, individual learning and change is as important as organizational learning and change, and the organization depends upon the individual. At both of these levels, an understanding of internal perspectives is required in order to explain external perspectives and vice versa. Using the concept of responsible well-being is one way of achieving this balance of internal and external awareness and of individual and organizational levels of learning and change. This chapter introduces this concept and then uses an individual story to describe how a failure of self-awareness and self-responsibility led to contradictory relationships and less than perfect progress in combating poverty. It goes on to argue that understanding one’s own worldview, and that of development organizations, is a crucial step towards improving relationships and effectiveness in development. Action research is one way of approaching this understanding; but there are many more.
Traditionally, development policy has focused on the organization as the primary entity for delivering solutions to poverty and has viewed the individual staff member as a component of the organization. As a result, the focus of attention on change has been at an organizational level, and personal or individual change
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