only possible but it’s the right thing
to do to believe that we can eradicate
poverty within our lifetime I’m an
economic student when I say economics
you probably think of words like
inflation like money supply but
economics study of people study of human
behavior and its relationship with scare
resources and how they’re allocated when
I first came to academia as somebody
who’s done service in four countries I
came with a deep desire with a very very
important curiosity to look at the poor
and see what economics had to offer for
them
I came to academia looking for this mark
way to think about eradicating global
poverty what I found was that for many
years we had confused the economics of
the poor with poor economics maybe
because the poor have so little
purchasing power
there’s so little profits to be made off
of them we thought that it’s not
interesting to learn from them or maybe
because their contribution to the global
economy is small in terms of dollars we
thought that it’s not important to learn
from them so what we’ve done instead is
we’ve taken the poor and turn them into
a character the poor is somebody to be
admired to be motivated about to feel
bad about we see them in the news
biographies documentaries TV music in
sports to motivate us or simply to like
make us feel bad about what’s going on
in the world but we rarely certainly not
often enough we’ve come to look at them
as source
of knowledge as fellow human beings who
we can learn from as much as they can
learn from us the good economics the one
we’re doing we’ve been doing in recent
years turns to listen to them turns to
hear what they have to say and learns
from them take one example malaria
malaria is a tropical disease that
affects the world’s poorest because it
is eradicated in developed nations what
happens is that it’s a disease that’s
transferred by the bite of a mosquito to
the person and it’s this is that is
highly preventable to put in perspective
the lasting effects of malaria take this
example a person in Africa that has
never had malaria will earn 50% more
whether it’s income salary every year
according to studies throughout their
lifetime than his counterpart that had
malaria when they were a child these to
prove that it is a big deal that he does
have a long-term impact on the lives of
people and the lives of communities it
keeps him poor keeps among healthy it
keeps him desperate now for disease
that’s highly preventable with this tool
that we have that’s a bad net or
vaccines this is of course not
acceptable abet net what you see in the
picture is this tool that we have that
you put over your bed that prevents the
mosquito that carries the disease from
coming in and biting you or your
children so you may think well there’s
an answer for that we can help that
right so what we’ve done from our spread
perspective in the West is we’ve thought
we have the answer let’s get some bed
nets let’s go to Africa distribute them
take some picture for our website and
let’s go back while topping yourself in
the back saying how much good
we’ve done how much impact in terms of
dollar amount that’s a number of bed
nets given in terms of people who have
received it what we see in reality when
we look at the people in the economics
is that the town that we arrived with
first of all run one person out of
business the local supplier while
destroying the ten jobs that he was
probably offering to these employees so
10 families are now of course not
well-off by this but when we turn in to
see the help we see that some people who
were already using the bat nets they
just have a few extras or maybe an extra
one while the other ones were not using
it in the first place they’re still not
using it why is this happening we would
know this answer if we were a bother to
ask if it of bothered to see what it was
about them that was the source of the
problem when we turn into good economics
we put people first we see that maybe
these people didn’t know how to use it
maybe they had other reasons like
infrastructure it was hard to deliver
the bed nets maybe was information they
didn’t know that we’re giving away free
bed nets maybe it was that they didn’t
know the consequences of malaria they
didn’t know how good this bed net was so
these are local solutions that we’ve
tried to give to communities when we’ve
listened to them now the global picture
the global solution that we’ve gotten by
looking at each community is that it is
only possible by what we call a social
contract now communities have ties where
it’s religion where it is love where it
is whatever spirituality you have to use
this in order to eradicate malaria now
let me show you how this
works makes sense because when you sleep
under bettin then when you get vaccines
you’re not only helping yourself and
your family be healthy and richer in the
future but you’re helping others by not
having the disease you don’t transfer
the disease to others the same goes for
them if they sleep under a bed net
they’re gonna keep me healthy so it
doesn’t really work to think of lifting
an entire community and then the world
out of poverty if everyone in each
community is not using it now
communities have answers to this
questions they get together with social
ties to form social contracts there’s
many ways to do it as I’ve said religion
spirituality a shared struggle so the
role of the West of developed nations of
us wants to want to help is not to throw
bed nets to them it’s not to throw money
to them it is to empower them when you
give them the resources and let their
communities do what they know how to do
to live themselves out of poverty that’s
when you start making an impact that’s
where you start empowering that’s where
you start eradicating poverty you remove
them from this poverty trap
that’s called malaria now talking about
empowering the best way to think of it
is with micro loans in microfinance
we’ve developed this thing that’s small
loan given to poor people in cash by
somebody that knows them that knows what
they’re gonna use the money for this has
two purposes
first it’s a safety thing so turning to
good economics we put ourselves in the
shoes of the poor and we see that they
have usually no fixed income no
insurance
no health care no relatives or friends
with money that can help them in times
of emergencies what happens when
their house falls down somebody becomes
ill or their crops fail is that they
have only one resource the local money
lender now the local money lender is
somebody that deals with desperate
people desperate uneducated poor people
and in reality we see that these people
become trapped in the local moneylenders
loan because the interest is as high as
a local money lender wants it to be and
the payments are just how he wants them
to be there’s no bargaining here because
people are so desperate
this turns again into violence because
that’s the only way the moneylender has
to enforce the payment so when you’re
there giving loans to poor people first
of all you’re helping them keep their
focus and their energy on what matters
if your son is sick you need to care for
their health now for what’s gonna be in
your play tonight if your crops fail you
to find out what went wrong
you need to get back to fixing it you
don’t need to be looking out for cash to
solve your daily needs of food and
shelter so when we provide these micro
loans we’re not only helping each person
but we’re helping the entire community
get together by removing for the most
part violence now this is very important
because we provide him with a safety net
and the safety that involves knowing
that you’re gonna have somewhere to
sleep and something to eat but there’s a
better part of micro loans it’s a more
inspiring part it’s part where you see
women like this one where you see people
with huge potentials to do great things
for their economy their communities in
their world this story I like a lot
it comes from micro loan website Kiva
it’s from this woman that she was in a
community and she wanted to make orange
juice since there was no employment she
decided to sell the orange juice she
made
now this is not a great thing as it
sounds right now because orange juice
anybody in her community could make her
in juice what’s about this woman that is
so special
not her education it’s not her training
maybe not her talent in sports she was
very good at bookkeeping she was very
organized she liked to do math she was
the ones that were very very focused on
getting all their accounts right she was
also and this is the reason for her
success in my opinion she was very good
at packaging them and making them look
good make them look healthy making them
look sanitary and as you can see in this
amazing picture she’s a woman that had
the power to influence others to lead
others so before she was stuck in the
tribe that she could only produce 20
liters a week now with the loan plus
training that she requested Kiva and
another agency provided her with the
ability to expand now she produces 200
liters a week this is one story of a
woman that whose life changed but she
employed about 10 to 12 other people
whose life changed too and it’s not only
their community but across other
communities because she has now
empowered by inspiration other women
other poor people to believe that their
dreams can come true no matter your
education your background or any other
limitation cultural racial you may have
the world is getting better the world
getting better child mortality has been
cut in half since the 1990s life
expectancy has nearly doubled and more
and more people more children have
access to education health care
technology investment and ever before as
Bill Gates used to say I’m an optimist
but I’m an impatient optimist
things are getting better but they’re
not getting better fast enough and for
the right kind of people and that’s why
we need to need to believe that we can
eradicate poverty within your lifetime I
think it’s amazing when I came to
academia after only a couple of years of
studying I didn’t understand what it was
about the poor that is not only the
right thing to do to see other human
beings as equals it’s not only the right
thing to do to see them as people who we
share this world with but how amazing is
it that economics science has proven
that this is what works with lift in the
world out of poverty I think the message
is that it’s entirely humanistic and
it’s also what works to see others our
sources of knowledge esteem mates in
this plan of getting the world out of
poverty this is how we’re gonna
radically poverty within our lifetime
this is how economics is helping this is
how economics shaping tomorrow thank you [Applause]