Winning the fight against poverty
The most urgent and critical need of a poor person ranges from jobs, education, access to health facility and care, affordable decent housing, renewable energy, clean water and food. Global poverty index claimed that about 2.7 billion people are in dire need of these life saving products and services. In theory, these can not be affordable by a poor person whose earning is below $2 (N700) a day.
Development economists are pushing an unorthodox approach to ending global poverty. Traditionally, governments are at the core of providing for these services. However, the costs kept expanding and poverty is consistently escalating, especially in third world countries.
Paul Polak and his co-travellers advocated for "market-based solutions to poverty and advocates for big business to target the poor" at the bottom of the pyramid.
Paul Polak, who five years ago published the book Out of Poverty: What works when traditional approaches fail, has written a second book with Mal Warwick. In this book, they have advocated that "the Business Solution to Poverty will spell out exactly how big global businesses launched either by independent entrepreneurs or by existing multinational corporations can earn profits large enough to attract substantial amounts of capital by satisfying these needs — and lifting millions into the middle class in the process. Each of these businesses, we believe, must set a 10-year goal of building a customer base of at least 100 million, achieving revenues of $10 billion or more per year, and realizing sufficient profitability to attract both indigenous and international commercial investors while minimizing its environmental impact to the greatest extent possible."
Third world countries, who mostly need this solution, are known for their parvasive corruption, mismanagement and undue policy changes. For instance, in 2004 billionaire Richard Branson entered into a joint venture with Nigeria and Virgin Nigeria was born. But barely five years into it, the venture collapsed. "This followed a dispute which arose after Virgin Nigeria's domestic operations were moved against its will by the Ministry of Transportation to Terminal 2. Virgin Nigeria had twice refused the directive to relocate its domestic operations from the international terminal, citing the Memorandum of Mutual Understanding it had signed with the previous (Olusegun Obasanjo) administration". These are some of the fault lines global business get scared of. African countries like 'shifting the goal post', cried Benjamin Khan, a global investor in mass housing projects.
How then can global business solution to poverty benefit Nigeria? A myriad of issues needs to be handled; strong and sustainable policies, corruption, insecurity and committed leadership to ending poverty. Muhammadu Buhari's government is seen to be doing all that, as evidenced in the increased foreign direct investment (FDI), to about 909.54 USD million in the second quarter of 2019, compared to 314.44 USD million in the 4thQ of 2018.
The recent government border closure is an added incentive for indigenous businesses. It also attracts multi national corporations, as Paul polak and Mal Warwick advocated, to expand job offers in manufacturing, building, infrastructure, agriculture, textile and renewable energy. While government extends more in the provision of affordable health care facilities and housing.
Development economists are pushing an unorthodox approach to ending global poverty. Traditionally, governments are at the core of providing for these services. However, the costs kept expanding and poverty is consistently escalating, especially in third world countries.
Paul Polak and his co-travellers advocated for "market-based solutions to poverty and advocates for big business to target the poor" at the bottom of the pyramid.
Paul Polak, who five years ago published the book Out of Poverty: What works when traditional approaches fail, has written a second book with Mal Warwick. In this book, they have advocated that "the Business Solution to Poverty will spell out exactly how big global businesses launched either by independent entrepreneurs or by existing multinational corporations can earn profits large enough to attract substantial amounts of capital by satisfying these needs — and lifting millions into the middle class in the process. Each of these businesses, we believe, must set a 10-year goal of building a customer base of at least 100 million, achieving revenues of $10 billion or more per year, and realizing sufficient profitability to attract both indigenous and international commercial investors while minimizing its environmental impact to the greatest extent possible."
Third world countries, who mostly need this solution, are known for their parvasive corruption, mismanagement and undue policy changes. For instance, in 2004 billionaire Richard Branson entered into a joint venture with Nigeria and Virgin Nigeria was born. But barely five years into it, the venture collapsed. "This followed a dispute which arose after Virgin Nigeria's domestic operations were moved against its will by the Ministry of Transportation to Terminal 2. Virgin Nigeria had twice refused the directive to relocate its domestic operations from the international terminal, citing the Memorandum of Mutual Understanding it had signed with the previous (Olusegun Obasanjo) administration". These are some of the fault lines global business get scared of. African countries like 'shifting the goal post', cried Benjamin Khan, a global investor in mass housing projects.
How then can global business solution to poverty benefit Nigeria? A myriad of issues needs to be handled; strong and sustainable policies, corruption, insecurity and committed leadership to ending poverty. Muhammadu Buhari's government is seen to be doing all that, as evidenced in the increased foreign direct investment (FDI), to about 909.54 USD million in the second quarter of 2019, compared to 314.44 USD million in the 4thQ of 2018.
The recent government border closure is an added incentive for indigenous businesses. It also attracts multi national corporations, as Paul polak and Mal Warwick advocated, to expand job offers in manufacturing, building, infrastructure, agriculture, textile and renewable energy. While government extends more in the provision of affordable health care facilities and housing.
Comments
Post a Comment