To be honest, I'm just kinda annoyed that he ended on the story about his mate Aaron who went on surfing trips to indonesia and gave money to his new poor village friends. The author says aaron is "accountable" to the village, but that's not true, because Aaron is a comparatively rich first world academic that can go home at any time. Is Aaron "shifting power" to the village? No, because they if they don't treat him well, he'll stop coming to the village and stop funding their water supply upgrades. And he personally benefits with praise and friendship from his purchases.
I'm sure Aaron is a fine guy, and I'm not saying he shouldn't give money to his village mates, but this is not a good model for philanthropy! I would argue that a software developer who just donates a bunch of money unconditionally to the village (via givedirectly or something) is arguably more noble than Aaron here, donating without any personal benefit or feel good surfer energy.