September 15, 2005 | Read Time: 1 minute
Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works
by Stephen C. Smith
“Although an end to global poverty is not inevitable, with redoubled commitment, we can end extreme poverty in one generation,” writes Stephen C. Smith in his upbeat introduction. In the pages that follow, the George Washington University economics professor discusses what that redoubled commitment would entail and what nonprofit groups, businesses, and ordinary individuals can do to help.
Mr. Smith offers background on the “traps” that keep people impoverished for generations, and then discusses the primary exit strategies—including providing access to markets and technology, improving health and nutrition, ensuring environmental protection, and empowering individuals and communities.
His book shares lessons from nonprofit organizations that are finding innovative ways to tackle these problems. His examples include Brac, a Bangladeshi organization that pioneered “microcredit-plus” programs that integrate health and business training for villagers with loans for small businesses, and TechnoServe, a Connecticut volunteer group that helps Tanzanian subsistence farmers earn money from their crops. He shows how successful nonprofit groups are giving poor people more say in shaping their programs, finding ways to meet multiple needs at once, and identifying niche products that poor people can market abroad.
In addition, he helps people answer questions like whether to take part in a child-sponsorship program, or whether protesting international-financial institutions makes sense. He also discusses how businesses can build ties with community groups and best use their assets to help poor people.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010; http://www.palgrave-usa.com/; 259 pages; $26.95; ISBN 1-4039-6534-x.
