Joia Mukherjee on sustainability

"One criticism often lobbed at PIH is that its projects are not 'sustainable,' said Mukherjee, as the traditional view of a successful development projects is to have it be self-sustaining after the development organization leaves. '[But] we’re global citizens and we’re not leaving. We’re in this together. You don’t exit from humanity,' countered Dr. Mukherjee. 'You don’t have an exit strategy.' The only thing that is truly self-sustaining is entropy, she added.

'If you teach people to fish, then they can fish for a lifetime,' she said, quoting a common sentiment of sustainable development. 'But in fact, if the rivers are dry, and there are no fish, and you have no fishing pole, you can’t learn to fish,' she said."

(PIH E-Bulletin, October 2007)