More on "Corporate Solution to Global Poverty"

Weak ending that proposes World Development Corporation that would be built on backs and bucks and skills of MNCs.

I like the proposal, and the description of the make-up attracts my attention as a good model for Sebastian Mallaby's International Reconstruction Fund that focuses on post-conflict situations (in my proposed A-to-Z rule set on processing politically-bankrupt states).

Focus would be on Collier's bottom billion (or my center of the Gap), but here is the problem: no discussion whatsoever on conflict as obstacle or potential role of this WDC in post-conflict situations.

As a result, it comes off as rather abstract, with no linkages to security, as if poverty is somehow rather calmly endured in these regions.

Still, overall, a very helpful, stimulating book for me right now.

Comments

[Christopher Thompson]

Saw this graph and wondered how it mapped on to the Gap? I don't know the year or source so I can't vouch for the graph's veracity.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/Health.png

[TEJ]

Saw this in the latest online Economist - more of an entrepeneurial solution (soon to be replicated by Western Union, etc?)

More broadly, technology increases the role of extended families, migrants and diasporas in dealing with disaster. To take a small example, members of Zimbabwe's diaspora living in Britain can go to a website called mukuru.com, order and pay for goods such as petrol online—and have them delivered to family members back home. The operation depends not only on the internet but also on mobile phones, because when an order is made the recipient gets a code texted to his mobile, which he must show to the petrol station when he collects the goods. Other websites enable members of the diaspora to provide loved ones with a range of goods and services from food to mobile-phone credits.