My Beauty Best Teacher

Alex O. Awiti a fellow at the Earth Institute writes:

Entrepreneurs can catalyse sustainable economic growth by identifying market opportunities and business models that meet the needs of underserved communities in emerging economies. In essence, entrepreneurs can be true allies in poverty alleviation through market solutions, employment and wealth creation as opposed to aid and subsidies. Proponents of foreign aid often think of poverty as a technical problem they can solve using a universal blueprint or Big Plan and huge dollars in financing. If it were that simple poverty would be history. Efforts to alleviate poverty must recognise that poverty is a complex labyrinth of social, institutional, political, historical, geographical and technological factors.

CK Prahalad comments that China and India "...represent 900 million people in poverty, a larger number than the entire population of Africa. There are about 600 million in Africa who live on less than $3 per day. Why, then, do China and India evoke fear and anger, while Africa elicits pity and guilt?...Despite the magnitude of their respective poverty problems, China and India may have a chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals established by U.N. Their economies are following the lead of other countries that have raised their populations into a middle-class economic base. For example, between 1975 and 2004, GDP per capita in South Korea increased fourfold. Over the same period, Malaysian incomes rose threefold.
On the other hand, in those decades, per capita incomes in Nigeria declined by a tenth. Why? During the period 1955-2004, the West and multilateral institutions invested more than $1 trillion in aid and subsidies in emerging economies. But poverty persists. It would seem, therefore, that we need to challenge the role of aid and subsidies in promoting sustainable economic development. If poverty cannot be eradicated with humanitarian handouts alone, what is the alternative?...The G-8, led by Tony Blair and supported by Jeffery Sachs and Bono, believe that debt relief and a doubling of aid from rich countries to poor, especially in Africa, is the way to go. A less popular alternative focuses on the involvement of the private sector in poverty alleviation through the development of market-based ecosystems.
Irrespective of which route we take, we need to build an infrastructure to deal with poverty. There is an implicit aid overhead. According to Prof. Sachs, out of every dollar of aid given to Africa, an estimated 16% went to consultants from donor countries, 26% went into emergency aid and relief operations, and 14% went into debt servicing. How much of the remaining 40% escaped corrupt officials to benefit the intended recipients is not known..."
Via NextBillion

Worldwrite has produced a "...film that will challenge the belief that fair trade is a panacea for poverty in the developing world. It claims that western consumers have been duped into thinking that fair trade is an effective poverty-alleviation tool, when in fact it does nothing to address the root causes of poverty...",ThirdSector."...The Bitter Aftertaste casts huge doubts on the capacity of chocoholics and shopaholics to transform the lives of farmers in the developing world through their supermarket trolleys. Shot in Ghana and the UK this hard-hitting documentary is sure to stir more than coffee and leave a bitter taste in the mouths of those who espouse fair trade as a mechanism for development. The film asks the questions often thought but never asked, does fair trade really change anything or just make Western consumers feel good? A must-see for everyone who believes the developing world deserves better..."
Via Loneliest Jukebox

What An African Woman Thinks, writes:

Those who campaign for poverty alleviation tend to believe that the solution lies with the Other. Those who support wealth creation on the other hand insist for the most part that the solution is to be found in Africa although they do acknowledge, to varying degrees, that the Other has a important supporting role to play.

I’m gratified to see that Africa has more hope for herself than others have for her. And that Africans are contributing to the language of the debate. Whoever defines the language dictates the story, this much I know.

"African poverty is a poverty of the wealth creation intellect - a deficit of growth-generating instincts, knowledge and skills."

Alex Steffen reports on "leapfrogging through local wisdom"

what really captivates my imagination here is the way in which I see a marriage of approaches emerging here: a very sensible, community-based approach, which starts by finding and supporting the capacities of the poor, and focusing on the capital the community already has in its relationships, skills and local knowledge, and a redistribute-the-future approach, which recognizes that the tools poor people most need are the ones which help make them as independent as possible from the exploitative systems around them. It's a form of leapfrogging, certainly, but it transcends the technologies involved to look at the relationships and ways of thinking those technologies enable.

Michael J. Isimbabi of the The African Leadership and Progress Network writes about Leadership and Governance. "...While the international community can provide much needed assistance, it is unrealistic to count on it to free African countries from bad leaderships and poor governance, given the hard realities of global geopolitics and economics. Whatever the underlying causes of slow progress in Africa may be, Africans themselves have to take responsibility for their own progress. In this regard, the development of indigenous capacity and homegrown policies informed by local knowledge and perspectives provides the best hope for poverty alleviation in poor countries...The onus therefore falls squarely on well-off and accomplished Africans to proactively take charge of fostering good governance and the evolution of visionary and transformational leaderships in their countries. The financial, intellectual, and other resources of accomplished Africans, especially those outside the continent ("Overseas" or "Diaspora" Africans), are yet to be fully tapped and effectively utilized toward fostering African progress, particularly leadership/governance capacity building with a strong private sector orientation."

Robert Barro question's the aims and methodologies of the Gates Foundation:

The key question for poverty alleviation is how to get Africa to grow like China and India. An important clue is that the triumphs in China and India derive mainly from improvements in governance, notably in the opening up to markets and capitalism. Similarly, the African tragedy derives primarily from government failure. Another clue is that foreign aid had nothing to do with the successes and did not prevent the African tragedy.
One reason for this is that foreign aid is typically run through governments and, thereby, tends to promote public sectors that are large, corrupt and unresponsive to market forces. Perhaps the Gates Foundation will run more efficient aid programs than we've seen in the past, but I wonder...

Moeletsi Mbeki recently stated that "...The best way to keep Africans poor is to continue handing money to political elites who suppress development...the Marshall Plan pulled Europe and Japan out of the doldrums that followed WWII because it was driven by the principles of strengthening democratic institutions and free markets. Most African aid, however, has been provided under the erroneous assumption that strengthening the state will lead to development...Concerts and conferences help focus attention on Africa’s extraordinary economic and health-related problems. Even Bono’s group, DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) demanded that rich nations open their markets, quota and duty free, to African exports, remove agricultural subsidies that hurt African farmers, and allow African nations to harness the power of trade in their own way to maximize poverty alleviation and economic growth...",CFACT.

Claessens, Stijn and Feijen, Erik H.B make a case for developing the financial sector in developing countries:

Financial sector development can contribute substantially to attaining the most important Millennium Development Goal: alleviation of extreme poverty. Policies which could foster financial sector development with wide access are multiple and include: ensuring a stable macroeconomic environment, enhancing financial sector regulation and enforcement, creating a proper credit information institutional infrastructure, and enforcing property rights. The importance of these policies for financial sector development has been well-documented in other research, but our findings give more impetus to furthering financial sector development,especially when it gives access to financial services for a broad class of people.

Daniel Etounga-Manguelle writes:

Thierry Verhelst is right in reminding us that social change cannot be imposed from outside, but, on the contrary, must constitute an endogenous cultural transformation. Moreover he is right in speaking of culture as a tool. To meet the challenges of our natural and social environment, we must constantly adapt our arsenal of technical, socio-economic and mystical resources. It is this adaptation which I call "Cultural Adjustment". It is the conditio sine qua non of any progress.
The impact of culture on politics, economics and social life is far from negligible. The present multifaceted crisis which has struck our countries full force, is at once a moral, political and economic crisis. It compels us to open our eyes to certain of our practices and attitudes which undoubtedly hold us back and prevent us from marching towards modernity...I believe that Africa must accept the need for cultural adjustment and hitch the African wagon to the world's train. This is the pre-condition for the emergence of an Africa which can face the world with respect.It will do this by demonstrating that we too can achieve levels of institutional efficiency, rates of economic growth, and alleviation of poverty that have been achieved elsewhere. I further believe that Africans are ready to transform their wagons into sleek carriages or even the new world-class locomotives of tomorrow...[continue reading]