If many traditional approaches to aid are failing, what is a promising alternative? William Easterly is author of White Man's Burden and a professor at New York University. Before that he had a long career as an economist at the World Bank. He makes a distinction between what he calls a "Planner" approach which is the way most aid projects are usually run and a "Searcher" approach which he recommends instead. Rather than dropping a theoretical plan into a situation, a better option is to search out what is already being done that works and build on that. He says the searcher approach has proven to work well in business and in democracies.

We affirm the concept. The searcher strategy is precisely what we have found delivers the best results with both ministry and humanitarian projects.