Archive for October 19th, 2011
Out of Poverty
‘Out of Poverty’ is a book about how the author, Paul Polak and his company, IDE, have been trying to solve poverty in many countries, and what has been the key to their success.
Roughly summarizing the discussion in the book, we cannot deliver that many people out of poverty by donations, and neither can national economic growth nor big enterprises achieve that; creating a system with which the dollar-a-day poor can earn more through their own efforts is the answer.
Polak and IDE have been introducing products like treadle pumps that can help these poor people multiply their productivity, and creating business opportunities for some other local people. The argument is very convincing, and for me it sounds like it’s also applicable to many issues other than poverty in the developing countries. I’m thinking specifically about the people living in the old district in Tokyo. The people who want to preserve the classic cityscape and small businesses.
I do understand where they’re coming from, even though, at the same time, I love contemporary architectures – yes, including the foolish-looking ones from the postmodern era.
But just claiming that things are important because they are traditional, old, culturally significant, or whatever doesn’t really help unless we find a good ecosystem that will be self-organized to drive people into protecting these values.
