True, Eliza. As an 'outsider' looking in, I recall when CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) was sending maps to schools all over Canada trying to present the problems of non-developed or developing countries in map form to give a clearer picture of the difficulties faced by people in places where even access to safe potable water was a luxury--what we seem to take as a matter of course.

Then there was the 'let us all hand out condoms' crew, and the 'let us all chip in to buy wheat' group. All well meaning, but basically unworkable for sociological reasons within the receiving countries.

A fire department I was on sent trainers to an African country to teach good practices to willing and brave but untrained firefighters. Sometimes the simple act of getting an engine (truck that hauls a bit of water and can pump it out through hoses to fight fires, sometimes called a pumper) to the fire ground was a nightmare of logistics because roads were not well maintained and traffic patterns were 'set' in what to us might seem like some sort of nightmare roll of the dice in design. In certain seasons, the fairly simple act of sucking water from a slough or water hole was near impossible because getting close enough involved slogging through mud which in itself was a dangerous endeavour, to say nothing of getting the truck itself stuck and thus rendered unavailable to do what it's meant to do: pump water.

Parachuted-in solutions don't work as well in reality as they do on paper.