From First- to Third-Order Social Change in Development Engineering: A Case Study

Drawing inspiration from the psychological literature on social change [e.g., 1, 2], we classify approaches to development engineering into three categories based on the depth, sustainability, and scalability of the resultant change within a community. In this context, we define "first-order change" as charity or direct service, in which a donor meets the immediate needs of a beneficiary; we define "second-order change" as empowerment of individuals to meet their own needs; and we define "third-order change" as empowerment of a community to tackle the underlying causes of their needs. These three levels of change are explored through a case study of a multi-year project to address the lack of reliable and affordable lighting in a rural village in the Philippines. The project has been undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of undergraduates and faculty at the University of California, San Diego, in partnership with Gawad Kalinga, a Philippines-based poverty-reduction NGO. The project has evolved through three phases corresponding to the three orders of change. The first phase consisted of designing and deploying a single, large solar street lamp, which only provided light to a small portion of the village. In the second phase, the team taught several villagers how to fabricate portable and affordable solar "tiki torch" lamps using local materials and skills. Building on the success of phase two, the team is now assisting the village in establishing a community owned social enterprise to manufacture the solar "tiki torch" lamps and market them to surrounding communities. Based on results from this case study, the following generalized guidelines are offered to aid development engineers in achieving more sustainable outcomes, shared prosperity, and self-determination among target beneficiaries through third-order change: 1) adopt a "searcher" mindset, 2) think big, build small, 3) build capacities, not things, 4) move beyond basic needs, and 5) reflect and iterate.