Diversity and respect for difference is of utmost importance in understanding gender relations and cultural strengths. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization found this to be the case when it reviewed many of its failed agricultural initiatives in Africa some two decades ago. The UN had also tried to foster successful individualistic models in cultures in which persons did not pride themselves on their personal success more than on their communities. FAO procedures and practices were transformed by listening to and working with women. In many countries, development personnel realized that most women were interested in change only if the entire community of which they were a part would benefit.
Development aid can often serve merely to reinforce existent power structures.
Working through local leadership is a positive and important concept or value in planning, but it requires that the local leadership in question is interested in its own people. There are, however, limits to the postmodernist and social constructionist perspectives. To say that cultures are different and that they are undergoing continuing fragmentation is not necessarily to conclude that the members of humankind cannot have anything in common. We share a dependence on earth, air, fire, and water. We have relatively similar bodies.