Experience unkindly teaches that there was nearly always a better way of doing things.
The trick, of course, is to turn hindsight to foresight when planning future projects. This is what lies behind the new approach to development aid policy towards poor people in rural areas that is being developed by the Natural Resources Policy and Advisory Department of the UK Government's Department for International Development. The temptation in the past has been to assume that poor, plus rural, equals poor farmers, and that the best way to help farmers climb out of poverty is to jump in with both feet firmly planted in agricultural projects. But the poorest in a farming region probably have no land nor are they able to get labouring work on the land. They may make their living by petty trading and the most useful way to help them could be to strengthen organizations which could then better represent their interests.