We Do Not Dictate – We Facilitate.

Mar 11

Why Sustainable Education and Community Cohesion Demand a Radical Shift in How We Do Development

By Dr. Andrew Kerr, Founding Member, The Meridian Guild

For more than three decades, I have worked in education and community development across the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, Australia, and North America. I have seen extraordinary successes and far too many systemic failures. The pattern is clear:

Development fails when it dictates. Development succeeds when it facilitates.

Yet too often, the global development system still behaves as if communities are empty vessels waiting to be filled with outside expertise. This mindset produces schools that collapse once the grant cycle ends, technology that widens inequity, and programs that meet donor metrics while ignoring local reality.

If we are serious about building sustainable education and strengthening the cohesion and resilience communities need to thrive, we must dismantle the delivery model that has dominated the development sector for decades.

Education is Not a Building. It Is a System Rooted in Culture

Education in low-resource settings is frequently treated as a stand-alone sector, measured in inputs like schools built, textbooks delivered, and teachers trained. But education is not something delivered from above. It is a cultural system shaped by identity, environment, and community priorities.

For the Indigenous communities I have worked with, success in education rarely resembles the metrics used in Washington, Canberra, or Geneva. Success may mean preserving ancestral navigation skills, sustaining traditional aquaculture, or ensuring local talent can compete in modern industries. All are legitimate and culturally grounded outcomes.

Standardized models, even when well intentioned, are detached from context. They fail not because they lack rigor but because they ignore identity and overlook what communities value. Education can be measured and strengthened, but only against the standards and aspirations of the people it is meant to serve. This is what I call educational imperialism, defining success for a community instead of asking what success means to them.

The High Cost of Dictation

Across dozens of countries, I have visited well-built schools that struggled to operate, model classrooms left to deteriorate, and projects abandoned once the funding stopped, because there was no long-term plan grounded in community involvement.

The causes are depressingly predictable:

Communities informed, not consulted
Systems designed for donors, not learners
Resources delivered without supporting infrastructure
Technology introduced without safeguards
Teachers left to implement policies they had no role in shaping

The result is wasted investment and broken trust. No community can sustain what it does not own.

A Case Study in Community-Led Sustainable Education

On one island I supported, tourism was the backbone of the economy. Instead of imposing a standard curriculum, the community co-designed an education system focused on aquaculture, agriculture, and hospitality.

Students raised fish and vegetables and sold their produce to local businesses. These businesses purchased the products at market price, allowing both the students and their schools to generate income that supported administration and programs.

The impact was profound. Students gained real trade skills and business literacy that continued long after they left school. Many secured jobs at local hotels eager to hire homegrown talent, while others used these skills to start their own businesses.

The project also introduced a closed-loop ecological system that turned fish wastewater into nutrient-rich fertilizer for greenhouse crops. This hands-on approach created both economic opportunity and essential life skills that opened new pathways for their futures.

This system was culturally grounded, economically viable, environmentally sound, and entirely community-owned. It succeeded not because it followed best practice, but because it followed local practice.

Localization Is Not a Buzzword. It Is a Prerequisite

Localization has become a fashionable term in development discourse. But in practice it is still resisted by systems built to maintain control. True localization requires donors and implementers to rethink their role entirely:

We are not project owners.

We are facilitators.

It means:

Communities define the problem and the measure of success
Solutions are co-designed, not imported
Systems develop through iterative cycles of testing, learning, and refining
Cultural knowledge is treated as an asset, not an obstacle
Funding aligns with local priorities, not donor preferences

If the community is not at the table from day one, the system will fail by year five (the typical year a funding cycle ends).

Responsible Technology: Closing Gaps Without Widening Divides

Technology can close knowledge and opportunity gaps. Undersea cables and satellite systems now allow remote communities to connect to the world. But technology can also create new inequalities and expose people to digital risks if introduced without clear guidance.

New online access can bring opportunity, yet it can also surface inappropriate content and divisive algorithms that strain relationships and weaken social cohesion. Many communities want age-appropriate protections and the ability to guide how young people engage online, but the digital governance systems needed to support them are still developing.

The lesson is that technology should be adopted with care, not handed over wholesale. Communities should decide what content is acceptable, which platforms best support learning, how to protect young people, and how digital tools can complement rather than replace human relationships. Without community standards in place, technology becomes a source of fragmentation instead of empowerment.

Community Cohesion Begins With Shared Goals

In fragile or low-resource settings, communities are often portrayed as divided. But cohesion is much easier to build than outsiders assume, if we start with a shared aspiration.

“We want a strong education for our children.”

From that foundation, villages that disagree on politics, culture, or ideology can still build systems together. But cohesion is impossible when external actors impose goals the community never asked for.

In one Micronesian community, I arrived ready to discuss building a new school. The desire for education was unanimous, yet as we listened and asked questions, the real barrier emerged: the village did not have a reliable water source to support a school. It took time, patience, and listening, but eventually we arrived together at the core insight: without water, a school could not last.

So we spent the day identifying springs and designing a water system. Once basic needs were addressed, attention could shift back to education. Sustainable systems thrive only when they respond to the realities people face each day.

The Meridian Guild: A New Model for Development Partnerships

This is why I joined The Meridian Guild. It is one of the few communities of practice I’ve encountered that refuses to work on projects that contradict its values. The Guild’s greatest strength is its network of professionals who are not driven by profit or prestige, but by a genuine belief that communities should define their own futures.

Our role is not to direct or control. Our role is to support, strengthen, and facilitate.

The Meridian Guild offers a model where outside support strengthens local leadership, so communities gain the capacity to take the lead and sustain progress on their own terms.

What Must Change in the Global Development System

If I could change one thing about the development sector, it would be this:

Start with communities, not solutions.

Before designing projects, writing proposals, or drafting theories of change:

Ask what people want
Ask what they value
Ask what success looks like to them

Then design systems that respond to their realities, not ours.

Education must also evolve through the same locally grounded lens. We need learning pathways that are responsive to each student’s strengths and community needs, leveraging technology responsibly to help every child reach their potential. We can no longer push children through standardized models designed for a world that no longer exists.

Facilitation Is the Future

Sustainable development requires humility. It requires the courage to step back so communities can step forward. It requires us to replace the arrogance of dictation with the discipline of facilitation.

When communities lead, education thrives, systems sustain themselves, and cohesion grows organically.