Harvard Center for International Development 87d ago

“I don’t think the question is simply how do we make people care. It’s about what kind of understanding are we creating when we make them care?” — Michael Rain, TED Speaker, Harvard Senior Fellow & Founder of ENODI At CID’s Road to GEM Speaker Series, Rain argued that dominant development narratives—often centered on poverty and crisis—are not false, but incomplete. While effective at mobilizing empathy, he said, they can flatten people and places into symbols of need, shaping how communities are perceived and how capital and opportunity flow. Drawing on his experience as a media entrepreneur and researcher, Rain described how these patterns create “perception gaps” that limit what audiences believe is possible. When stories of hardship are not balanced by visible examples of competence, creativity, and everyday life, those distortions can become structural barriers in their own right. Rather than calling for more “positive” storytelling, Rain emphasized the need for more complete and complex narratives—ones that reflect both challenge and agency. The goal, he suggested, is not just to generate empathy, but to build a more accurate understanding of the people and places development seeks to support. Visit our website: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid Please follow us @HarvardCID on: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/harvardcid Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/harvardcid/ Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/harvard-cid Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/harvardcid.bsky.social Stay up to date with CID Events and jobs/opportunities by signing up for our newsletter: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/subscribe #InternationalDevelopment #Storytelling #GlobalDevelopment #NarrativesMatter #PublicPolicy #SocialImpact #CIDHarvard #MichaelRain