global poverty for me growing up in the
70s and 80s it was images of the famine
in Ethiopia that were seared into my
memory more than 30 years later a lot
has changed so what if we could end
global poverty altogether with the
trends we’re seeing I believe it’s
possible let’s take a look at what’s
happened since 1990 around the world
poverty has been cut in half
most those gains have come from China
which has lifted over 500 million people
out of poverty
at the same time poverty has slightly
increased in sub-saharan Africa more and
more the global poor are moving into
cities where as it used to be that
developing countries were predominantly
rural today almost half live in urban
areas poverty has declined significantly
in more stable countries what remains is
more and more concentrated in fragile
states education has improved with twice
as many boys and three times as many
girls now going to college people are
gaining access to clean water
electricity and sanitation at a slow but
steady pace in the mean time adoption of
mobile phones has skyrocketed today more
people have access to a mobile phone
than a toilet in many ways things have
gotten better and yet there are still
almost a billion people living on under
$2 a day that means they’re grasping to
meet even their most basic needs whether
they be struggling to survive in an
overcrowded slum or grappling with the
ravages of climate change or fleeing
conflict in Syria the way that we fund
our efforts to end global poverty has
changed to where as it used to be that
govern
in charities in rich countries provided
most of the funding to build schools
improve health and increased livelihoods
in poor countries today private
investment has blossomed and represents
10 times as much on top of that
low-income countries are increasingly
investing in their own growth with their
local tax revenues increasing Eightfold
since 1990 when you add all this up
this means that aid in charity represent
only about 2% of spending in developing
countries 2% aid is still important but
it’s no longer dominant so what does all
this mean lifting a billion people out
of poverty can seem so daunting it’d be
easy just to throw up our hands and give
up but I believe given these trends
we’re seeing in demographics and funding
we have a huge opportunity to reach more
people faster something that was
impossible 30 years ago that’s how I
ended up joining the global development
lab at USAID where we’re looking to do
just that five years ago I was an
engineering director at Google after
leaving the mobile team to build popular
products like Google Maps Gmail and
search for mobile phones I was looking
to do something more meaningful I ended
up switching jobs to lead a new group
focused on emerging markets as a result
I got the opportunity to join a State
Department delegation to Liberia and
Sierra Leone two of the poorest
countries in the world there I saw
firsthand how difficult life was with
few doctors poor schools and no internet
access to speak of I also saw a lot of
aid in charity programs each doing
crucial work but most of them only
reaching a fraction of those in need in
global development we tend to think of
our programs in terms of tens or
hundreds of thousands of people reached
while my experience in Silicon Valley my
success was defined in terms of reaching
tens or hundreds of millions we need
that kind of scale if we’re gonna end
global poverty to do so we need to play
by a new set of rules let me suggest
three be catalytic go local and keep
innovating let’s start with being
catalytic traditionally Aid meant
directly delivering the food health care
or training that people needed but at
two percent of funding we’re never gonna
be able to reach everyone the big money
is in private and local government
investment we need to figure out how to
engage them if we’re gonna reach massive
scale let me give you an example of what
that might look like
Erica Mackey was an American student
living in Tanzania she grew to love the
country and wanted to find a way to
improve people’s lives eighty-five
percent of people in Tanzania live
without electricity and she realized the
solution was right in front of her the
power of the Sun and so she started a
new business called off-grid electric to
install home solar systems there was one
problem how is she gonna pay for all
these with grant funding she might be to
buy a few hundred maybe a few thousand
but that wasn’t nearly enough and then
she remembered three quarters of
Tanzanians have a mobile phone and a
system of mobile money there means that
with even the most basic feature phone
anyone can transfer money electronically
in small amounts so off-grid came up
with a new business model using mobile
money to enable families to pay off
their home solar systems at just a few
cents a day I was in Tanzania earlier
this year and what’s happening is
remarkable off-grid is now providing
electricity to over a hundred thousand
homes and they’re aiming to reach a
million by
the end of next year so how did they do
this they started out with a small
hundred thousand dollar grant from USAID
to test out this new business model
based on their success they received two
more rounds of funding for a total of
six million dollars since then because
they were able to come up with a
financially self-sustainable business
model they’ve been able to bring in
almost a hundred million dollars in debt
and equity they’ve been able to reach
exponentially more people by tapping
into private funding rather than relying
on grants this this is the difference
between reaching thousands and reaching
millions now let’s talk about going
local in the past rich countries would
decide what we thought poor countries
needed and try to give it to them but as
we saw people in low-income countries
are becoming increasingly educated tech
savvy and urban they’re coming up with
practical solutions to solve their own
community’s problems they understand the
challenges what might work and what
doesn’t work much better than we can
take Sangha Moses Sangha was an
accountant working at a bank in Kampala
one day he came home to visit his family
and he found his sister walking by the
side of the road carry a huge bundle of
firewood she should have been in school
when she saw her brother she started to
cry she had been walking for six miles
and she wanted to be back in school
Sangha thought there’s got to be a
better way and there was Sangha invented
a new machine to take agricultural waste
and turn it into fuel briquettes these
briquettes burn longer cleaner and are
cheaper than wood his company eco fuel
leases these machines to women and men
in slums and villages they may
money build up their business skills and
provide cleaner cheaper fuel to their
communities and Sangha sister gets to go
back to school now Sangha didn’t stop
there with a grant from USAID he’s
expanded his business and today Eco fuel
is serving over 20,000 customers and
some is just getting started
now imagine what might be possible if we
were to invest in the thousand more
local entrepreneurs like Sangha third
keep innovating traditional development
programs seem safe they come with a
fixed budget plan and time frame often
plan for five years at a time and they
deliver predictable results for a fixed
number of people but we need to do more
and we need to do it faster remember
this graph of mobile phone adoption
that’s the kind of trajectory we should
be shooting for to do so we should take
a lesson out of Silicon Valley’s book
their venture capitalists invest for a
long-term growth potential and seek
outsized returns at the lab our model
looks a lot like VCS we place lots of
small bets and promising new ideas like
off-grid and eco fuel and when they
prove that their solution is much better
than what’s out there we double down we
don’t assume we can pick one right
answer and just stick with it for years
instead we continually seek to improve
existing solutions and find new ones
that are even better
off-grid in eco fuel both started out
small but now they have the potential to
reach millions the face of global
poverty has changed and it’s our
responsibility to keep up look we are
not going to end global poverty with our
limited funding sitting back and our
comfortable homes and offices here in
the US the paradigm is shifted
we need to stop thinking about poor
people and poor countries as
beneficiaries and start thinking about
them as innovators and partners who are
stepping up to solve their own problems
aid is not going to end global poverty
but global poverty is not going to end
without aid rather than delivering aid
we need to drive innovation to find
better solutions and bring in private
and local government investments so that
those solutions last beyond a grant and
scale to the size of the need we’ve
reached a tipping point where ending
global poverty is possible now there’s
no excuse we need to do it thank you [Applause]
Be First to Comment