Why imposed foreign ideas don’t work
When you force a square peg into an object with a round hole you won’t succeed.
You damage both objects or one gets more damaged than the other. Similarly, when foreign projects or ideas, however altruistic or technically sound, are imposed especially quickly on different cultures, chances are they will not succeed and people in the receiving cultures might get hurt in the process. Foreign ideas such as indirect rule, modern birth control and structural adjustment programs that have been imposed on recipient populations have generally run into difficulties and caused suffering.
More often than not people hesitate to accept new ideas for rational reasons. For example, subsistence farmers are generally hesitant to replace old with new seeds for fear that if something goes wrong they might starve. Peasant farmers hesitate to sell their land and start business in towns for fear that business failure might spell disaster for the entrepreneur and his/her family. Poorly educated workers generally hesitate to look for another job especially during economic hard times because should they fail in the new job, they may not get another one or do so quickly. So they stick with what they have regardless of low pay and/or unsatisfactory working conditions.