This BBC article about DR Congo as a failed state contains a great deal to suggest that a merely technical approach to socioeconomic development can backfire dramatically:
In the absence of a functioning state or similar, even the best-intended projects can have perverse side effects if they are carried out without comprehensive feasibility studies or efforts to understand local culture and practices.
An international medical NGO provided mosquito nets to a poor village in the Upemba region of Katanga. Many lakeside villages in the mineral-rich province suffer from a high rate of malaria-induced child mortality. Sleeping inside these nets is the best way to avoid mosquito bites and malaria. But this laudable action created a human and ecological catastrophe.
As the mosquito nets were free and abundant, fisherman used them as fishing nets. Given their extremely fine mesh, not only were fish removed from the lake but all other forms of micro-fauna and micro-flora too. The lake gradually became covered with a black scum. Villagers lost their sources of livelihood and food supply.
It took a Belgian priest two years to get the villagers, who believed they had been cursed, to realise what had happened and before the lake was able to regenerate.