Lawrence G Boakye

"I don’t have to. I get to."

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving”. These words of wisdom by Albert Einstein epitomise the process of evolution of individuals, societies, institutions, professions, etc. They underpin the need to not only keep improving but to strive to evolve to stay relevant in changing times. They are my soul’s charge…...to, through passionate curiosity, continually alter my aspect to the changing tide in our world of constant change where fast is now faster, forward is now shorter, and safe thinking and routines ultimately let us down. Through curiosity, I learn but by being passionately curious, I continue to learn, unlearn, and relearn to become even more curious to rejuvenate myself. That way, I try to make sense of what I see and wonder why things are the way they are or happen the way they do, and I get to live my dream of being a candle and a mirror that reflects love, hope and light to humanity. Why? Because I see my life as a gifted part of God’s bigger plan, given to me to touch and affect other lives. I thus do not have to do it; I rather get to do it. Whilst both “having to” and “getting to” do it are true in reality, the switch in perspective makes me see tasks not as burdens but opportunities to make a difference in other lives, one that I’m honoured, humbled and feel privileged of, and a responsibility I take seriously.

Working after my undergraduate studies on an African Development Bank Group project in Ghana, I distinctly remember my preoccupation with understanding something I experienced first-hand growing up: why some communities in Ghana have all the amenities that enable individuals to live their lives with dignity and respect, and grow to their potential, yet others do not? Why even some peri-urban communities are among the poorest, least educated communities lacking basic socioeconomic opportunities whilst being scarcely a few miles away from cities like Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi that abound in unlimited growth and development opportunities. Inasmuch as I don’t have the words to describe the inequalities I witnessed, seeing the results of my work, I quickly realised that “it is [indeed] in our hands to make a better world for all who live in it”. I further realised that to be able to make large-scale impact, I needed to reskill. Consequently, inspired by the relevance and impact of development assistance projects on underprivileged populations and grassroots development, I enrolled into a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) programme designed for postgraduates who seek a competitive edge and/or are passionate to make a tangible difference at University of Sydney, Australia after winning a meritorious but competitive Australia Awards scholarship when the project ended.

If there’s one thing I learnt working for the common good then, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people are those who devote themselves to working for something more profound and bigger than themselves and their own self-interests. Consequently, with a profound sentiment that today’s inequalities could be addressed, which has remained a constant in my life; and exposure to the rudiments of using the “project concept” to foster sustainable inclusive development, I have found myself enraptured by working across the spectrum of international development (ID) cooperation in Ghana to gravitate into a resourceful and versatile ID scholar-practitioner with an unselfish committed to service whose approach to work is grounded in and driven by the core values of passion, leadership, service, insight, respect, resilience, impact and scholarship, which I exemplify to demonstrate true leadership through action. I thus have a knack for making lasting impressions long after my work.

There’s great power of human ingenuity to meeting and solving contemporary entrenched problems. Consequently, I believe the ID community can triumph over the menace that continually consumes its development efforts, project failure. Therefore, with a deeply ingrained mission to generate and use rigorous evidence; and an eye towards spurring evidence-driven policy decisions that can advance large-scale transformative impact in developing economies, I go above and beyond traditional practice to contribute mostly to the ID project management discourse to help create a distinguished high-profile outlet for policy- and practice-relevant reflection by the academic and practitioner alike, and anyone with broad interest in same. My aim here is not to teach the method that everyone ought to follow for proper conduct but to, drawing useful lessons from the frontline, share insights and perspectives needful to lead, serve and govern ID praxis better in this present age of disruption. I also serve as a referee for Cogent Food & Agriculture and Development in Practice journals and have refereed for international conferences such as the 2018 European Academy of Management annual conference.