Clay, Efosa, and Karen did an excellent job making the case for careful charity when it comes to developing nations.
Here’s a brief synopsis.
- The most prevalent methods of poverty alleviation are often useless and sometimes harmful
- There are several types of innovation, the innovations that lift nations out of poverty are Market Creating Innovations
- These types of innovations are often about making a Job to be Done accessible at a lower price point I.E. Non-Consumption. (Ford didn’t invent cars, he made them accessible to the masses)
- Firms engaged in Market Creating Innovation pull infrastructure into the larger market such as railroads to transport their product, education to train medical personnel and anti-corruption practices to ensure the protection of business.
- The new markets dependence on the new infrastructure ensures that it is maintained and paves the way for additional firms to capitalize on the infrastructure. This leads to prosperity.
Generally, the book is excelent; however, I’m dubious about point 4. I think the ability to pull in anti-corruption is limited by the charchter of the people; the book misses an opportunity to discuss socio political questions here as charchterized by DeToquville originally and recently by Sasse.