I am partial to Italians. It's my "other" heritage. I love their passion and feeling. Here's an Italian speaker talking about how he helps people in developing countries. Respect. Serve. Listen.
And he is funny! Great speaker.
http://on.ted.com/Sirolli
It works. See what you think.
He is focused on entrepreneurship - which is key to real economic development.
His story about NYC is just great!
I think this could be modified a bit. The sitting and talking is always a great start.
The organizing and putting people in touch with each other is the next step for community organizing.
We can do this.
Remember, we're all in this together, and I'm pulling for you.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
The $20 phone, mobile money and development
If you have been following along here, and I am sure you have, you know that I am fascinated by things "economic" and the development disparities among nations. If you share these interests, especially about Africa, you should read this piece: http://qz.com/218988
The article is titled:
How to manage all your financial affairs from a $20 mobile phone.
One of Jeffrey Sachs measures for the success of his anti poverty effort called Millennium Villages, is the use of cell phones. Turns out, cell phone usage is going up everywhere, with or without the Millennium Village investment. My good friend out on the Serengeti has a smart phone - an iPhone! His neighbors generally use a much cheaper variety. You can buy one at Walgreens for $20 - it is my only cell phone!
And yet this same approach is NOT working in India, a much more developed part of the world. See this piece: Why Mobile Money has failed to take off in India. Turns out it is the regulators and banks that are inhibiting things. It seems the banks are focused on making money, not encouraging development. If it hurts them, they are agin it. Imagine that!
Darn that big government. Another key factor for development is a governmental structure that actually supports it. That does not mean NO government, it means one positive to development. A simplistic approach to NO government gives you Somalia. Not a place economic development is flourishing.
The article is titled:
How to manage all your financial affairs from a $20 mobile phone.
One of Jeffrey Sachs measures for the success of his anti poverty effort called Millennium Villages, is the use of cell phones. Turns out, cell phone usage is going up everywhere, with or without the Millennium Village investment. My good friend out on the Serengeti has a smart phone - an iPhone! His neighbors generally use a much cheaper variety. You can buy one at Walgreens for $20 - it is my only cell phone!
You need to know that there is NO electrical service yet on the Serengeti! The cell phone companies have towers and generators out there. The customers use solar chargers - either one they own, or one a neighbor lets them use for a price! Why the push for cell phones in such a poor area? Well, think about it. You are a Masai herdsman, and you want to make a deal for some cattle, or some corn. The nearest market is, say, a day's walk away. One day you discover that you can use a cell phone to talk to the seller, or buyer, and actually close the deal, in less than a minute. You can negotiate the price, and actually MOVE the money. Using a very simple cell phone with some text capability.
As the article points out, Tanzania has some of the most sophisticated systems in the world for moving money via cell phone. In the US, just try moving money from one bank to another person's account in a different bank with your cell phone. Or try moving it across a national border. I can't do it using the WWW without major problems and fees. And I know how to use PayPal! See this piece: NY Times - Hard To Send Money to Friends
And yet this same approach is NOT working in India, a much more developed part of the world. See this piece: Why Mobile Money has failed to take off in India. Turns out it is the regulators and banks that are inhibiting things. It seems the banks are focused on making money, not encouraging development. If it hurts them, they are agin it. Imagine that!
Darn that big government. Another key factor for development is a governmental structure that actually supports it. That does not mean NO government, it means one positive to development. A simplistic approach to NO government gives you Somalia. Not a place economic development is flourishing.
One of the key ingredients for development is a stable, trustworthy business system. Carrying $100 from here to there in Tanzania is not without some risks. Carrying $10,000 has a LOT of risks.
Two other key ingredients for development are credit and savings. If your only means for saving money is to hide it under your bed - you are at considerable risk. If you have to PAY the bank to open a savings account, and the bank is 2 hours away - guess what happens to savings.
In most developing countries, there is also no such thing as a credit bureau, or a credit rating. If you want to make a major purchase on time in Esteli, Nicaragua, the local merchants have a cooperative reporting scheme. They check with each other as to whether or not you have an outstanding payment with any one else, and how you made those payments. A credit system at a very local level.
Banks do not lend money to people who have NO money. That is not how the system works. That's why micro credit works. It is a type of forced savings account, that provides some form of credit. The average micro credit loan rate around the world is 27%. It's true. (http://www.cgap.org/) I can walk down to my local bank here and get a line of credit for 3.99%. That 23% is a considerable drag on economic development and risk taking.
As I have stated here before, the real root of our economic disparities lies in our world view. But there are many mechanisms we can use to help change that world view. Putting someone in charge of their own finances, giving them easy access to real credit, enabling financial transactions all help do that.
I am persuaded there is no magic bullet to solve the wealth disparity, and we just have to keep doing the hundred little things that work. When Tanzanians can get a bit more efficient and effective, we all benefit. I have more hope for sub Saharan Africa than all of the middle east. They are so buried in their religious oligarchy and sectarianism that they are just going to keep killing each other for the foreseeable. It actually works better if there are so many different tribes or groups that no one group can dominate. They have to work together - or NOT!
Remember, we're all in the together, and I'm pulling for you.
As I have stated here before, the real root of our economic disparities lies in our world view. But there are many mechanisms we can use to help change that world view. Putting someone in charge of their own finances, giving them easy access to real credit, enabling financial transactions all help do that.
I am persuaded there is no magic bullet to solve the wealth disparity, and we just have to keep doing the hundred little things that work. When Tanzanians can get a bit more efficient and effective, we all benefit. I have more hope for sub Saharan Africa than all of the middle east. They are so buried in their religious oligarchy and sectarianism that they are just going to keep killing each other for the foreseeable. It actually works better if there are so many different tribes or groups that no one group can dominate. They have to work together - or NOT!
Remember, we're all in the together, and I'm pulling for you.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
The Mismeasure of Technology
This is a decent little piece from "Big Think".
http://bigthink.com/project-syndicate/the-mismeasure-of-technology
It is just amazing to me how much WE, the human species, actually know - and how little ONE individual can actually put this stuff to use. If I go research something to death, and get it published - a tiny fraction of human kind will actually learn about it. As a species, we "know" it, but it has almost zero impact on anything.
This piece is a nice example. I use its full title here in the hope that the author might actually be interested in what people say about his work, and will search on the links to it. Because I might know something that he does not, and it would help clarify things a bit.
The article states that economists struggle with just why we have this enormous gap between rich and poor nations. Lots of people are trying to understand this, and a few are working to "fix" it, if that's possible. I have thought for some time that it would be nice if we could get professional economists to agree on anything. He thinks they do agree on the cause of this wealth disparity.
IMHO, if he were to simply adopt the understanding that this "knowhow" is really a "worldview", our perception of how reality works, and what we can do about it, this would entirely solve his problem. As I have argued here, drawn from the research of Hoffstede and Harrison, our "culture" or how we think about reality, drives a great deal of our thinking, risk taking, ownership for problems, initiative, etc. The northern cultures, primarily because of their climate and some history of the spread of religion, have a view of the world that it is under our control. Some few even believe that we are all in this together! They have a much more cohesive view of our interdependency. Other nations, with a longer history of religious domination and political hierarchy, have a different view of how things work.
The next little piece in this blog is a decent summary of all of that, if you are interested in reading more. Would that we could somehow get all of this stuff together!
http://bigthink.com/project-syndicate/the-mismeasure-of-technology
It is just amazing to me how much WE, the human species, actually know - and how little ONE individual can actually put this stuff to use. If I go research something to death, and get it published - a tiny fraction of human kind will actually learn about it. As a species, we "know" it, but it has almost zero impact on anything.
This piece is a nice example. I use its full title here in the hope that the author might actually be interested in what people say about his work, and will search on the links to it. Because I might know something that he does not, and it would help clarify things a bit.
The article states that economists struggle with just why we have this enormous gap between rich and poor nations. Lots of people are trying to understand this, and a few are working to "fix" it, if that's possible. I have thought for some time that it would be nice if we could get professional economists to agree on anything. He thinks they do agree on the cause of this wealth disparity.
-
"One idea about which economists agree almost unanimously is that, beyond
mineral wealth, the bulk of the huge income difference between rich and
poor countries is attributable to neither capital nor education, but rather to
'technology.' So what is technology?"
IMHO, if he were to simply adopt the understanding that this "knowhow" is really a "worldview", our perception of how reality works, and what we can do about it, this would entirely solve his problem. As I have argued here, drawn from the research of Hoffstede and Harrison, our "culture" or how we think about reality, drives a great deal of our thinking, risk taking, ownership for problems, initiative, etc. The northern cultures, primarily because of their climate and some history of the spread of religion, have a view of the world that it is under our control. Some few even believe that we are all in this together! They have a much more cohesive view of our interdependency. Other nations, with a longer history of religious domination and political hierarchy, have a different view of how things work.
The next little piece in this blog is a decent summary of all of that, if you are interested in reading more. Would that we could somehow get all of this stuff together!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)