A couple of months ago, #StopChildMarriage was trending on my Twitter account, no doubt because I mostly follow NGOs, international agencies, etc. One tweet made me stop and think about what is really driving this trend, and to a greater extent, development work in general. The tweet read, “You could be 15 & married. Uncomfortable? Me too. This is unacceptable.” This sentiment made me wonder: are our good intentions for the developing world driven by discomfort with cultural differences?

I am certainly not advocating child marriage. Rather, I’m asking, is something unacceptable simply because it makes us uncomfortable? More importantly, is this discomfort with a culturally different “big picture issue” preventing us from understanding and addressing the culturally specific causes of said issue? It seems unlikely that anyone in the development sector will be able to stop child marriage. Rather, it seems more likely that child marriage will someday end once the development sector collaborates with each community affected by child marriage to address the causes of child marriage in that specific community. Maybe instead of #StopChildMarriage the hashtags could read #GirlChildrenDeserveEqualEducation.

A Washington, DC-based NGO and progressive implementer in the fuel-efficient stove sector, International Lifeline Fund (ILF), knows that more than any other factor, the success of a program depends on the community’s willingness to embrace the project. With this in mind, ILF designs a new stove for every community that it works with. ILF does this because in order to ensure that each stove that is distributed or sold is culturally appropriate and accepted. That way, more people will use the stoves and they will use them for longer periods of time. Then, someday, when enough people have integrated a fuel-efficient stove into their daily routine, ILF as an organization will have a substantial impact on curbing deforestation and indoor air pollution. ILF’s programs hinge on embracing cultural difference in order to address the “big picture issues” of deforestation, driving force of climate change, and indoor air pollution, killer of 1.9 million people every year.

If ILF was less focused on cultural adaptability, maybe its hashtags would read #StopGlobalWarming or #StopPrematureDeathInSubSaharanAfrica.  Sure, these are the issues that ILF is ultimately trying to address, but more acutely ILF is addressing the underlying issues that make these global crises local realities. ILF dedicates itself as an organization to #ReduceBiomassConsumption and #ReduceIndoorSmokeInhalation.  In order to do this ILF works with communities to develop culturally derived solutions to global problems. If we in the development sector could put aside our discomfort with culturally different “big picture issues,” then maybe we could follow ILF’s example and work with different cultures to more effectively address the root causes of these global “big picture issues.”

Rachael Reichenbach is a recent graduate of George Washington University and the program assistant at International Lifeline Fund.  She has spent extensive time in India and sub-Saharan Africa and is passionate about sustainable, community-driven social change and development.