Safe Water in Communities
A Single Drop for Safe Water Executive Director Kevin Lee, a 2010 Tech Award winner, describes ASDSW's work in the Philippines and beyond.
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Poverty
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Developing Through Mobile Phones
Sara Chamberlain, the recipient of the 2010 Microsoft Tech Award, discusses BBC Janala, the project harnessing the power of mobile phones in Bangladesh to spread affordable language learning.
Attacking Poverty Through Jobs
I hope that as long as there is poverty in our country, there will be a Cincinnati Works’ model that can help families escape poverty.
Better Vision for the Poor
Several social enterprises are attempting to provide eyeglasses to the 500 million to 1 billion poor people who need them. Why haven’t any of the organizations succeeded on a large scale?
Mobile Money in Haiti: A New Support for Disaster Relief and Development Programs
New mobile-based payment systems may offer a more affordable, and faster alternative to distributing cash to countries such as Haiti.
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Design Thinking for Social Innovation
By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
The Problem With Fair Trade Coffee
Fair Trade-certified coffee is growing in sales, but strict certification requirements are resulting in uneven economic advantages for coffee growers and lower quality coffee for consumers.
Microfinance Misses Its Mark
Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn't cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries.
In Microfinance, Clients Must Come First
Few microfinance institutions articulate what, exactly, their ultimate goals are and how to achieve them. If the goal of microfinance is to alleviate poverty, the authors say, then MFIs should focus on helping their clients build successful enterprises, rather than on making more and bigger loans.
Romanticizing the Poor
Market solutions to poverty, which include services and products targeting consumers at the “bottom of the pyramid,” portray poor people as creative entrepreneurs and discerning consumers. Yet this rosy view of poverty-stricken people is not only wrong, but also harmful.