Creating frameworks through which government, non-profits, and for-profit businesses can help the poor seems like a good idea, but I keep coming back to the question of how relevant could a top-down distribution of investment, brain power and other such capital be to a target that has so many different variables in its poverty problem. Many social innovation projects are well thought out and deliver excellent results. They encourage self-empowerment and teach techniques for overcoming particular poverty sinks. To what degree their services are accessed and the scope of their ability to help is the bottleneck that I think could be better addressed.
The article on innovating the White House provides some logical, if vague, starting points for fast-tracking the growth of social innovation enterprises. For example: “provide seed capital to create a pipeline of innovation” seems logical, but how long will that take to make its way through the political trenches, and what kind of oversight and control would come attached to the money? Federal regulation is notorious for being cumbersome and bureaucratic. Furthermore, do social innovators have the resources and expertise to deal with the lengthy, expensive and involved process of funding applications? Certainly large social innovators like Teach for America would, but what about something that has come out of our IdeaLab?
In thinking of social innovation and all these vehicles to fund and implement them, I keep coming back to the idea of cash transfers both unconditional and conditional. This is the kind of bottom-up approach that empowers people to prioritize the way that they address their needs. I think the distinction between whether or not the transfers should be conditional must depend on whether or not those receiving aid have the ability to address the stipulations. For example, Bolsa Familia was successful because there was the infrastructure and personnel available to stipulate mandatory schooling. But in cases such as crisis prone or extremely poor regions in Africa? That’s where a group like GiveDirectly comes in. Giving cash without reservation shouldn’t be a radical idea. Really, it is a way to help people help themselves by giving them the direct means to address their most urgent problems. Not only that, but they are able to address them within the context of their culture and environment instead of addressing needs according to a foreign perception of them. Despite many observer reservations, the amount of good they do per dollar seems to be high compared to other organizations.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.