Full Description
Based on his 25 years of experience, Polak explodes what he calls the "Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths": that we can donate people out of poverty, that national economic growth will end poverty, and that Big Business, operating as it does now, will end poverty. Polak shows that programs based on these ideas have utterly failed in fact, in sub-Saharan Africa poverty rates have actually gone up.These failed top-down efforts contrast sharply with the grassroots approach Polak and IDE have championed: helping the dollar-a-day poor earn more money through their own efforts. Amazingly enough, unexploited market opportunities do exist for the desperately poor. Polak describes how he and others have identified these opportunities and have developed innovative, low-cost tools that have helped in lifting 17 million people out of poverty.
Contents
I. Poverty's Myths & RealitiesChapter 1: The Three Great Poverty Eradication MythsChapter 2: It All Starts With Making More MoneyChapter 3: Grassroots Enterprises: The Vehicle for New IncomeII. Creating New Wealth From Grassroots EnterprisesChapter 4: From Subsistence to Cash Income for Small Farm EnterprisesChapter 5: A New Agriculture for One Acre Farms Chapter 6: Affordable Irrigation Breakthroughs for Small FarmsChapter 7: Creating Vibrant New Rural MarketsChapter 8: Design for the Other Ninety PercentChapter 9: Stimulating Jobs and Grassroots Enterprises in Urban SlumsChapter 10: Grassroots Enterprise and Second Order Interventions: Education, Health, Energy, Water and Sanitation, Housing and Transport.III. The Way ForwardChapter 11: Creating New Wealth from Grassroots Enterprises: Twelve StepsChapter 12: Taking Action to End Poverty
