From its origins in microcredit programs in the 1980s and 1990s, the financial inclusion movement has consistently identified women as a key target segment. The focus on women has been driven by three main factors. First, women are usually responsible for managing day-to-day household finances in most countries where financial inclusion is still a challenge….
The tenth post in this blog series singled out microfinance, and financial inclusion in general, as the “money pump” that powers market-based poverty reduction programs. Whether the specifics of the program involves generating additional income, improving skills, adopting new technologies for mitigating and adapting to climate change, strengthening homes against natural disasters, or building resilience,…
This blog series has traced the history of the idea that promoting entrepreneurship and innovation is the key to unlocking economic growth and reducing poverty. As we have seen, it is distinctly American in its conceptualisation: forged in an economic context of the first advanced economy to experience de-industrialisation, in a social context in which…
The prioritization of innovation, productivity, and growth over income and wealth distribution; technology as savior; government as a partner rather than a regulator of the private sector; market-based solutions to social and economic problems; and the overall emphasis on the individual initiative over collective action––this economic vision did not come from the political right as…
Left-leaning neo-liberals rose to power just as new ideas about economic development and poverty reduction emerged. Old-style New Deal democrats lost to Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. New-left politicians were first elected in the 1974 Democratic wave after the Watergate scandal. Their main base was the white suburban middle class, and they won with…
This blog began last year by marking the 50th anniversary of a new approach to economic development and poverty reduction. The previous model had sought to copy the pathways of advanced economies, placing emphasis on infrastructure and industrial development. However, this approach failed to kick-start self-generating economic growth. Most people remained outside the formal sector,…
As discussed in the fifth post in this series, right-leaning neo-liberalism is a political project dressed up as economic policy. Free market fundamentalism is not the raison d’etre of right-leaning neo-liberalism but a means to the further end of protecting the owners of property and extending their influence. The ultimate goal, as Ludwig von Mises’s…
As discussed in the fourth post in this series, right-leaning neo-liberalism’s focus on protecting property rights is an exercise in raw power. Its underlying logic is the other Golden Rule: he who has the gold rules. Seen in this light, free market fundamentalism is not the raison d’etre of right-leaning neo-liberalism. It is simply a…
The third post in this blog series discussed how right-leaning neo-liberalism, as opposed to classical liberalism, places property rights above all other rights. This means that property holders are a protected class, overriding the political and civil rights of everyone else. It is highly anti-democratic. Right-leaning neo-liberalism’s obsession with property rights over all others appears…
The first post in this blog series noted that the ILO, USAID, and Word Bank began implementing programs that targeted the poor directly a half-century ago as part of a broader effort to redistribute wealth downward in order to overcome the monopoly on economic gains from market transactions by the politically powerful. The second blog…
