Empowering Poor Countries

Roughly 20 percent of the developing world’s population lives on less than $1 a day. What are the most effective ways to make poverty history? There are two broad ways of empowering the world’s poor countries, one involves aid and the other self-help.

Development aid has been approached through the “Big Push” method, which holds that large amounts of foreign aid are needed in order to push the poorest countries over the development threshold, and the “Big Scrutiny” method, which considers a stricter targeting of aid, a better evaluation and result-based financing of aid projects, and focusing aid on reliable and honest governments. Self-help involves initiatives by governments of poor countries and private-sector initiatives.

What combination of development strategies is required to make a decisive step in reducing global poverty? What is the appropriate turf for self-help and for development aid? How can self-help and development aid be used to leverage one another strengths? How can private enterprises contribute most effectively to this process?