The Business Solution to Poverty

Chapter 3

WHAT CAN GOVERNMENT AND PHILANTHROPY DO?

For more than half a century, millions of people have been engaged in well-meaning efforts to eradicate poverty from the human experience. Here’s how they’ve fallen short of their goal — and what they have done and still can do to make a real difference.

Consider all the players who’ve gotten into the antipoverty business. The United Nations and its numerous agencies. National governments throughout the Global South. Purveyors of foreign aid from every rich country on the planet. Regional and other intergovernmental organizations such as the European Community. Countless thousands of individual nonprofit organizations working across borders, within individual countries, and in specific communities. ...