Dr P and Professor N are working on a microfinance project with women’s groups in a remote district of a South Asian country. Because these researchers are keen to build local capacity as part of their project outcomes, they have made contact with the IT department of a university based in the regional capital. They have been in contact with one of the faculty, Dr J, who has considerable experience of working with IT for development projects. They are hoping that they can recruit some students within the university who can work under Dr J’s supervision, to contribute to the technology design and development as part of their degree studies.
When Dr P & Professor N visit the faculty, however, they are informed that Dr J is about to start a sabbatical where he will be out of the country for 12 months, and they realise that the rest of the faculty of the university do not have experience of this kind of work, and they are concerned that if they involve students from this university, the students will not have sufficiently strong supervision to ensure that they behave sensitively and appropriately within the project. There is a risk that involving the students could make the project aims more difficult to deliver.
- What should Dr P & Professor N do?
- How should they view the balance of ‘capacity building’ and ‘change delivery’ aspects of their project?
- What are the ethics, roles & relationships relevant to this situation?
- What other questions do we need to ask about this scenario?
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