OUT OF POVERTY: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail. Dr. Paul Polak, author of 'Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail' and co-author of 'The Business Solution to Poverty'. According to Polak, the problem with most antipoverty programs is that administrators don’t take the time to talk to the people most affected by the program’s design. Housing—having more money means that families are no longer restricted to living in damp, leaking houses. In 2004, Paul received Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in the social responsibility category. (Watch video of Paul on his 12 steps to Practical Problem Solving). Polak believes that we do need growth to end poverty, but that it must happen in the remote areas where these farmers live and work. Reference Librarian/Technology Specialist. Livestock can be obtained and used for cash as well. Most of Out of Poverty consists of practical how-to advice regarding the use of microfinance funds to help third-world farmers work smarter, not harder, by creating new markets for off-season, high-profit crops and providing affordable equipment and methods suited to the prevailing realities of small plots, little water, and plentiful labor. Because poverty plays such a critical role in the incidence and prevalence of all forms of illness, I have always believed that learning about poverty and what can be done to end it should be a basic science in every medical school and psychiatric-training curriculum.”. “Taken over seven years, the net return to dollar-a-day small-acreage farmer is more than $2 billion on a total investment by both IDE and its small farmers to increase steadily both their investments in high-value farming and the net income they earn from it over time.”. 5 (Summer 2007). To better understand the environments influencing his patients, Paul would visit their homes and workplaces. However, these foods are more readily available to families as they begin to make enough profit from their land to enable them to move out of poverty. Otherwise even the most sincere efforts will not become efficient poverty-eradication tools. Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail has 5,596 members. By Gilbert Patten - this item out of poverty what works when traditional approaches fail by paul polak paperback 2195 only 6 left in stock order soon ships from and sold by amazoncom out of poverty what works when traditional approaches fail by paul polak 386 rating details 569 ratings 66 reviews based Polak goes on to say that Prahalad lumps many different income levels together as well. Agriculture—the land itself benefits from the increased income because farmers are no longer so dependent on maximizing its output. The extra money can buy more land so that the land isn’t overworked. Understandably, businesses around the world operate to make money, but this model does not necessarily transfer into a poverty-eradication solution. They can sleep in dry beds in nontoxic surroundings where mold is less of a problem. Stanford Social Innovation Reviewvol. "The single most important step [poor people] can take is to learn how to make more money.". Polak devotes plenty of ink to the past failures of international development aid — especially by larger, high-profile organizations. Programming languages & software engineering. Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. Dietary concerns—in poverty, most farmers and their families do not regularly eat enough protein or other foods that contain vital vitamins and minerals for a healthy diet. After becoming acquainted with this farmer, he asked him why he was poor and what Bahadur thought was needed for him to move out of poverty. Whether you're a seasoned international development pro or just curious about the rapidly growing field of microfinance, Out of Poverty is a stimulating account by one of the industry's true pioneers. Employing the same tactics he pioneered as a psychiatrist, Paul spent time “walking with farmers through their one-acre farms and enjoying a cup of tea with their families, sitting on a stool in front of their thatched-roof mud–and–wattle homes.”Paul’s ability to respond with innovative solutions–such as the 25 treadle pump and small farm drip–irrigation systems starting at 3—helped IDE increase poor farmers’ net income by 288 million annually.IDE received a 14 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation in 2006. The same trends can be seen in India and China. Polak says that this is a mistake because the economic differences between the farmers are significant. Not surprisingly, the book emphasizes rural and agricultural enterprise, IDE's specialty. Since many of those that fall under this definition of poverty—approximately 800 million—are farmers, Paul Polak has proposed that the way out of poverty is very simple: increase the amount of money that a farmer can make on his own land. Karnani, Aneel. How does Polak arrive at these and others of his conclusions about poverty interventions? While these perceptions are valid, it might be surprising for some to learn that many of the world’s poor are farmers subsisting on the equivalent of a dollar per day. 2009. All rights reserved. Indeed, Polak has received financial and philosophical support as well as validation from none other than Bill Gates, elements of whose 2007 commencement speechat Harvard echo Polak's prescription for ending poverty: Cut through the complexity to find a solution and persuade the world's greatest minds to pitch in. Smith, Phil; Eric Thurman. He treats one-, two-, three- and up to six-dollar-a-day farmers in the same way. Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity. While it's a pleasure to read about IDE's successes, a reference or two to other groups' achievements in the war against poverty (there must have been some) would have provided welcome balance to his narrative. Drawing on his 25 years of experience, Polak explodes what he calls the “Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths”: that donations alone will end poverty, that national economic growth will end poverty, and that big business, operating as it does now, will end poverty. Using this approach in his own programs has enabled Polak to focus on realistic solutions that work. The third myth of poverty eradication is that big business will end poverty. At first glance his may seem a Pollyannaish approach; however, Polak makes his point very clearly. out of poverty what works when traditional approaches fail By Dr. Seuss FILE ID 505862 Freemium Media Library of poverty npr coverage of out of poverty what works when traditional approaches fail by … Thus, the reader is left to wonder: Is Polak suggesting that illegal enterprise is the most direct path out of poverty for urban slum dwellers? Polak has listened to, talked with, and worked among more than three thousand poor families around the world who survive on less than a dollar a day, and his prescription with respect to what they need to escape poverty is "so obvious that people tell me...it is a perfect example of circular logic." A Billion Bootstraps: Microcredit, Barefoot Banking, and the Business Solution for Ending Poverty. 256 pages, They cannot be broad-based industrial programs lacking a defined purpose. Indeed, the greatest shortcoming of Out of Poverty is the almost complete absence of any mention of failures by Polak and his IDE colleagues. Unfortunately, the track record for corporations in poverty eradication is not good, and Polak cites the current project that Indian entrepreneur C.K. J-PAL receives $25 million to address climate change, poverty, Poverty Rate Could Reach Levels Not Seen Since 1967, Study Finds, Poverty Rates Rose in One in Three U.S. Entrepreneur, inventor and self-identified “troublemaker” Paul Polak tells why mainstream poverty eradication programs have fallen so sadly short and how he and his organization developed an alternative approach that has already succeeded in lifting 17 million people out of poverty. Recovery programs must be well defined and aimed at specific targets. Paul Polak. The main mistake they make, he writes, is to try to lift farmers in developing countries out of poverty with methods and equipment ill-suited for their small plots. The transition to the next stage of his quest gives Polak a good opportunity to reflect on his twenty-five years with IDE. Absent child-labor laws or job-safety regulations, "these unlicensed grassroots enterprises often survive because they operate below the regulatory line, not in spite of doing so.". Not only does this “listen-more, talk-less” approach work in Nepal and in other poverty-stricken areas, but it is a principle that can work for good in the lives of most people, whether living in poverty or not. He grew up in the country, eager to make a living off the land. “Their investments generated $288 million per year in permanent net income,” says Polak. A Billion Bootstraps: Microcredit, Barefoot Banking, and the Business Solution for Ending Poverty.McGraw-Hill, 2007. Yunus, Muhammad; Karl Weber. For instance, 250 years ago many Americans found themselves in the same financial circumstances as today’s dollar-per-day farmers. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail July 17, 2008 Paul Polak (San Francisco, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2008) Among the examples Polak gives is that of Krishna Bahadur Thapa, a dollar-per-day farmer living in Nepal. please try again later. Polak left IDE in 2007 to start a second nonprofit, D-Rev: Design for the Other 90%, to pursue a related mission: Launch a design revolution in which multinational corporations and the world's best designers "develop products and ideas that will benefit the 90 percent of the people on earth who are poor, in order to help them earn their way out of poverty." The first is that we can donate people out of poverty. Although Polak congratulates Prahalad for his enthusiasm, he sadly points out that many of the organizations that Prahalad has enlisted to help him in his poverty-eradication program do not have the tools to accomplish his dream. In fact, developers often have preconceived definitions of the problem before designing remedies for its eradication. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Drawing on his […] Still, because of his roots in rural America and his study of psychiatry, two questions always came to mind for Polak: “What makes poor people poor?” And “what can they do about their poverty?”.