40 years of DAI

Sharing Knowledge
In 2010, DAI launched the Center for Development Excellence
(CDE), a new venture dedicated to building the capacity of
local development practitioners and organizations. Building
local capacity has always been central to DAI’s vision of sustainable
development and is integral to all of its projects. The
CDE upholds that commitment in a business model independent
of any particular project, and puts it on a commercial,
self-sustaining footing. Above: Instructor John McElwaine
(top) shares a light moment with course participants at the
CDE’s inaugural seminar in Islamabad, Pakistan.
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comes without consequences, whether they be the effects on
travel schedules or the kinds of people who are attracted to
the firm. The trick is finding a balance in line with the values
and aspirations of the enterprise. In the case of growth in
Afghanistan, the undoubted boost to the company’s technical
and financial backlog must be balanced against the unprecedented
threat to its people.
However this dilemma is resolved, it is on those people that
DAI’s future ultimately depends. And the firm appears to be
in good hands. Operations and technical functions alike have
been reinvigorated by the energy and dedication of a cadre of
young professionals, many of them cutting their teeth in the
most demanding field conditions imaginable. Where it had
once been home to a small group steeped in the crucible of
Peace Corps work, today DAI itself is a training ground for
young people emerging from the academy and more experienced
practitioners looking for a sharper edge. Veterans take
the responsibility to pass on knowledge seriously but apply it
lightly. “Mentorship at DAI,” remarked one recent recruit, “is
not necessarily much hand-holding, but rather challenging
you to see what you can come up with.” DAI has taken on a
markedly youthful face in recent years and also a much more
international one. Today, team leaders themselves are highly
likely to be citizens of the host country. This is possible, as
Boomgard puts it, because “there’s more talent globally distributed
to do this work than there was 20 years ago.” But it is
desirable because DAI has learned that a diverse staff is more
likely to succeed.
Perhaps the surest sign that DAI is on the right track is that
some of the old arguments are at last over. Old debates
about the virtues and vices of operating as a business have
been subsumed in a widespread embrace of DAI’s mission
as a social enterprise. “It is decidedly a business that is in
the business of doing development work,” says Jim Pack-