The post-Second World War simple system of social democracy and organized labour has fragmented massively, but just because people aren't organized in workplace trade unions doesn't mean they aren't in associations with other people - work-based, place-based, culture-based, sport-based, faith-based - there's a bit of an old rainbow coalition argument.

Until you have looked in depth at the system and found out where women in Egypt are not being cut through female genital mutilation, or where kids in Vietnam are not malnourished, or where hospitals in America are getting rid of the superbugs anyway - unless you have that level of curiosity about what's going on without you, you will always come in with your great new recipe and just ignore what's going on, and that will make you much less effective at what you're trying to achieve.

When you get talking to people in positions of power, you find that often their worldview is framed either in terms of their disciplinary studies at university and/or the country where they first got interest in development.

The question, "When did you last listen to a poor person properly and try to understand what's going on inside their own experience?" enables you to connect.

There are always pressures on decision-makers other than just what is right or what is wrong.

The magic formula is there is no magic formula.

I keep coming back to the phrase "Dance with the system" - not just march onwards no matter what happens.