blogs: week 2

Caroline Kiriga: Blog Week 2 submission.

 

 

 

How to Kill Poverty: Social Entrepreneurship???

 

 

What to do about global poverty evokes passionate and polarized views: at one extreme we just need financial aid; at the other billions have been thrown down a sinkhole over the last 50 years and accomplished almost nothing. How many charitable and financial aid organizations exist at present? I mean don't get me wrong…I am so grateful for charity. Literally billions of people especially those in developing countries benefit immensely from such organizations. But is this a solution to the ongoing problems that impoverished countries are facing today? The UN Summit set Global targets (Millennium Development Goals) to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by the year 2015. To many, this agenda may seem too ambitious. Whatever means being used to achieve this, we have to realize that after half a century of failure, foreign aid "should" no longer be the preferred tool for lifting the masses of Africa out of their economic prostration. It is time for the developing world to pull itself up by its own bootstraps.

 

Is entrepreneurship the answer?

 

 Entrepreneurship as a source of economic growth and a weapon against poverty especially in developing countries is greatly underappreciated.

Having grown up in a third World country, I know that Innovative thinking and alertness to opportunity is present in most societies. I have seen entrepreneual activities uplift the lives of millions of people. Many started with small beginnings and are now one of the most successful businesses in the country. Good example being a chain of supermarkets in Kenya called Nakumatt that sells almost anything and everything and despite a disastrous economy and other setbacks, Nakumatt's success has flourished and led to a new class of farms growing fruit and vegetables in Kenya. Clearly, the world lacks for opportunity not ability.

It is unfortunate that roadblocks such as beurocratic corruption, pollution of currency, inefficiency in resources, excessive taxation and unnecessary regulation have found their ways and means to kill entrepreneurship in developing countries.

 

Today millions of people eke out a living in very creative ways despite stifling bearocracies, elitist systems or despotic governments indicating that entrepreneurship is part of the human spirit and not just the exclusive preserve of those countries that have generated astronomical wealth. Entrepreneurship is the catalyst for economic growth. What works in defeating poverty? Entrepreneurship, transparency in government, low taxations, and light regulation.

 

Link to this article: Lessons from the poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial activities.