We have witnessed, in the last fifteen years, a significant change in the needs and nature of development aid given to and needed by the developing world. Since the turn of the century we have witnessed the very fast pace at which some emerging economies have caught up to and surpassed many OECD economies, especially in terms of magnitude. This is not surprising, as in many cases these countries and regions boast vastly larger populations than their OECD counterparts, but this growth rate has created new needs for these rapidly developing countries that emphasized the gap between the “haves and the have-nots” in both regional and individual cases.
It is clear that the role of development aid has changed from a handout to an investment in many cases. It is no longer good enough to simply provide developing countries with development programs that fail to include the local population and also the private sector in both the developing world and the developed world. Development is just that, development, the evolution and progression of local regulators; institutions and the provision of a nurturing environment within which societies and their economies can grow.
As developing markets mature many of their successful entrepreneurs are in a position to turn their attention to philanthropy and development and thus we frequently hear from citizens of the developing world that it is up to the local citizens to pull their countries out of poverty and indeed a number of them have put up substantial amounts of money to build incubators, advance learning and provide succour for the local poor.
However in spite of all these efforts we still have an overwhelming number of people living below the breadline in numerous and diverse countries around the world. We have a massive number of unemployed youth, some with good educations, who cannot find jobs and it is this cadre of youth that provides the greatest threat of security around the world and we still have a vast number of women being held back by an institutionalized lack of education. These challenges surely point to a shortcoming in the efforts of the traditional development infrastructure.
The new paradigm must continue to include local and international interests and a combination of both public and private sectors working with philanthropic organizations. A typical project might for example involve a philanthropic enterprise that funds a better mousetrap to be used in the developing world. It will utilize the private sector to develop and distribute the item and the public sector will monitor its use to ensure that this better mousetrap is used as intended.
When one looks at the developing world from the top down there are many commonalities that one can find.
The challenges for the development community start with these eight commonalities indicating that there are some obvious areas that require massive levels of development before they will be overcome. These challenges must all be tackled simultaneously as we do not have time to sequence the projects.
Let us look at four industries whose development would do provide a platform on which developing countries can grow their economy and address these needs.
The first sector is Healthcare and Sanitation. This area starts with education, giving the population an understanding of the need for proper sanitary conditions. The availability of modern medications have largely kerbed the outbreaks of plague and other diseases that afflicted Europe in the middle ages but poor sanitation is none-the-less a major determinant of poor health in the developing world. This is a space for development and philanthropic agencies to partner with the local public sector in finding a solution. The provision of actual healthcare, as in the development of hospitals and clinics and their staffing is a space in which the private sector can play a major role. There are healthy profits to be made in healthcare and developing countries should create an enabling environment for a strong healthcare sector as those in the industry are innovative and will cut their cloth according to their clientele.
One is always concerned that medical treatment in exchange for cash will leave the very poor without any care whatsoever but if the vast majority of the population is cared for in the private sector it makes the task of looking after the needy far more manageable for the public sector and philanthropists. In addition the development of modern hospitals and medical facilities for the affluent will have a trickledown effect on the rest of the population as the employees of these organizations will inevitably pass on some of their knowledge to the general population.
The next sector is Agriculture. Food security is of the utmost concern to all countries and many developing countries spend vast amounts of scarce foreign reserves in purchasing food that they could grow domestically as many have allowed their agriculture industry to wither and die rather than develop an environment in which farmers can thrive and thus keep young men and women on the farm. It is very important that agriculture be brought out of its cottage industry and subsistence phase and scaled up to a profitable industry. The key to building any entity in the agricultural business is to ensure that the whole value chain of agriculture is in place. That is that there must be a processing plant within easy reach of the farm or plantation and that once the goods have been processed there is a suitable distribution infrastructure and network to get the finished goods to market. If any one of these three components fails all three will fail. However there is another key value chain that is required for an agricultural industry to be successful and that is a financing value chain. The most difficult funds to raise are inevitably the seed funding required to expand a small acreage into a sustainable agri-business, even if it is done by a co-operative. Established plantations are reasonably easy finance as are processing facilities on condition the public sector has ensured that sufficient infrastructure exists. The conundrum of financing mid-size farms is one that one would expect the philanthropic organizations or even to private sector to embrace as the results in terms of good and secure jobs and solid profits are very appealing. However this is not the case and many a potentially good agri-project flounders due to lack of finance. Banks are loathe to lend to the sector and many farmers do not have strong title to their land or sufficient equity to carry bank loans. Like Healthcare this is an industry that requires partnerships between public and private sectors and can use a good dose of philanthropy.
Housing is an industry that needs government to create an enabling environment for home ownership. There are numerous viable models to provide home ownership to the disadvantaged. The key ingredient to enabling new home buyers is to provide them with a mechanism for raising the down-payment and then a system that will provide mortgage finance at reasonable rates. Few developing markets have robust fixed income markets to create sufficient mortgage finance so this part of the equation needs to be facilitated through national home loan banks, often guaranteed by the government. For a mortgage market to thrive and be leveraged it is necessary for ownership to be easily and cheaply established and for courts to be able to foreclose on failed mortgages both quickly and fairly. In addition the government regulators must ensure that minimum building standards are adhered to.
We now turn to educating our burgeoning society and this is a major challenge as in many developing countries. Teachers themselves are poorly educated and thus cannot, with the best of intentions, educate the youth. This must be addressed through modern technology and communications and in many cases schools and universities in the developed world must be used to help produce materials and programs that can be used to “teach the teacher” simultaneously with teaching the child. In the case of young girls thought leaders and political policy are critical to changing societal attitudes. Once a society has overcome this obstacle, overall improvement in living conditions results as well as a vast increase its productivity by having qualified men and women perform technical jobs. While discussing education the role of “on-the-job technical training should be addressed as this is critical to establishing a successful workforce and allowing the economy to grow. It is necessary for all parties to work in concert with each other to create a well educated population that can advance society.
By fostering these four industries developing countries will go a long way towards creating a successful society that is ready to operate on the world stage and to expand into the myriad industries that are operative in today’s world. However in each of the above four industries it is imperative to involve the public sector to act as a facilitator and regulator, philanthropists and aid agencies to help to fund new enterprises and that the private sector be allowed to leverage the industry and make profits for then they will create a successful industry.
62 Comments
Great article! We are linking to this particularly great
content on our website. Keep up the great writing.
Thanks for every other informative blog. Where else could
I get that kind of info written in such an ideal manner?
I have a mission that I’m just now working on, and I have been on the look out for such information.
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate
you writing this article and the rest of the website is extremely
good.
This information is priceless. When can I find out more?
Wonderful post however , I was wondering if you could write
a litte more on this topic? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit further.
Bless you!
I am regular reader, hoow are you everybody? This piece of writing posted
at this website is really fastidious.
I visit each day a few blogs and websites to
read articles or reviews, however this blog provides quality based posts.
We stumbled over here from a different web page annd
thougt I should check things out. I like what I see so
i am just following you. Look forward to finding ouut about your
web page for a second time.
hello!,I like your writing very so much! share we keep up a correspondence
more approximately your post on AOL? I need a specialist on this area to unravel
my problem. Maybe that’s you! Having a look forward to look you.
I really had not seen another American in all of Bogota, except Rod of course, and the first and only person I ended up meeting
lives just an hour from me. a local girl and a
British guy, and sat at a little tiny bar drinking for 5 hours last
night because the bar played mostly 80s American rock music.
The developers estimate the daily turnover on their
world exceeds $1.
I have been browsing online more than three hours lately, but I by no means discovered any interesting article like yours.
It is lovely value sufficient for me. In my opinion, if
all web owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web might be a lot more useful
than ever before.
I think you have remarked some very interesting details , regards for the post.
What’s up to every , for the reason that I am
really keen of reading this web site’s post to be updated daily.
It consists of pleasant material.
I believe you have observed some very interesting points , appreciate it for the post.
Normally I don’t learn article on blogs, however I wish to say that this write-up
very forced me to take a look at and do it! Your writing taste has
been surprised me. Thank you, quite nice post.
Aw, this was an exceptionally nice post. Finding the time
and actual effort to produce a very good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate a whole lot and
don’t manage to get nearly anything done.
Its not my first time to pay a visit this site, i am browsing this web page dailly
and obtain nice information from here everyday.
I think the admin of this website is really working hard
in favor of his site, for the reason that
here every data is quality based information.
No matter if some one searches for his necessary thing, so he/she wants to be available that in detail, so
that thing is maintained over here.
It’s really a nice and helpful piece of info. I am glad that you
just shared this useful information with us. Please keep us informed like this.
Thank you for sharing.
I every time used to study paragraph in news papers but now as I am a user
of internet so from now I am using net for articles or reviews, thanks to web.
Nice blog here! Also your website loads up very fast!
What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to
your host? I wish my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol
Only wanna tell that this is very beneficial ,
Thanks for taking your time to write this.
Thank you, I’ve recently been searching for information approximately this subject
for a long time and yours is the greatest I’ve found out till now.
But, what concerning the bottom line? Are you positive concerning the source?
I’ve been absent for some time, but now I remember why I used to love
this blog. Thanks, I will try and check back more frequently.
How frequently you update your web site?
It’s very easy to find out any matter on net as compared to textbooks, as I found this article at this website.
I have read some just right stuff here. Certainly value bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much attempt you place to make this type of excellent informative website.
Your style is very unique compared to other people I have read stuff
from. I appreciate you for posting when you have the opportunity, Guess I’ll just bookmark this page.
We are a group of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community.
Your site offered us with valuable info to work on. You have done a formidable job and our entire community
will be thankful to you.
My brother recommended I might like this web site.
He was entirely right. This post truly made my day.
You cann’t imagine just how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
It’s going to be finish of mine day, but before end I am reading this wonderful
paragraph to improve my know-how.
I just want to mention I’m newbie to blogging and honestly liked this blog. Almost certainly I’m going to bookmark your blog . You actually have impressive writings. Thanks for sharing with us your web-site.
Good day! This is kind of off topic but I need some guidance from an established blog.
Is it difficult to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure
things out pretty quick. I’m thinking about creating my own but I’m not sure where to start.
Do you have any tips or suggestions? Many thanks
Hi there i am kavin, its my first occasion to commenting anywhere, when i read this post i thought i could
also create comment due to this brilliant article.
Simply desire to say your article is as amazing. The clearness in your post is simply
spectacular and i can assume you’re an expert on this subject.
Well with your permission allow me to grab your feed to keep updated with forthcoming post.
Thanks a million and please carry on the gratifying work.
I’ve been browsing online greater than 3 hours as of late, yet I by no
means found any fascinating article like yours. It is pretty value sufficient for me.
In my opinion, if all website owners and bloggers made excellent content as you probably did, the web will probably be a lot more useful than ever before.
I just want to tell you that I’m newbie to weblog and seriously enjoyed you’re page. Likely I’m want to bookmark your blog . You certainly come with incredible articles and reviews. Many thanks for sharing with us your blog.
Greetings! I’ve been reading your web site for a while now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Houston Texas!
Just wanted to tell you keep up the great work!
I have got read through great number of sites in addition to experienced many websites,but your work happens to be astounding.Hats off for the strength of mind in addition to loyalty.Do hold all of us up to date in future also.
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic
to be actually something that I think I would never understand.
It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me. I’m looking forward for
your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!
What’s up mates, its fantastic article on the topic of educationand entirely defined, keep
it up all the time.
You should be a part of a contest for one of the most useful websites on the
web. I’m going to recommend this blog!
Hi there, I want to subscribe for this webpage
to get hottest updates, therefore where can i do it please help out.
It’s remarkable in support of me to have a web
page, which is valuable designed for my experience.
thanks admin
I am actually glad to glance at this webpage posts which includes tons of valuable facts, thanks for providing these kinds of statistics.
I am genuinely happy to glance at this weblog posts which carries tons of useful
data, thanks for providing these kinds of information.
Hi, I do believe this is an excellent website. I stumbledupon it 😉 I am going to return once again since I book-marked
it. Money and freedom is the greatest way to change, may you be rich
and continue to guide other people.
Should you assume you’ll be subject to a background verify, it is necessary
to be prepared.
It’s fantastic that you are getting ideas from this article
as well as from our discussion made here.
whoah this blog is excellent i love reading your articles. Keep up the great work! You know, lots of people are searching around for this information, you could help them greatly.
I simply want to tell you that I am beginner to blogging and site-building and seriously enjoyed your web blog. More than likely I’m going to bookmark your blog post . You definitely have beneficial articles and reviews. Thank you for sharing your web site.
I’m no longer positive the place you are getting your information, however good topic. I needs to spend a while studying more or understanding more. Thanks for wonderful info I used to be searching for this info for my mission.
you are really a good webmaster. The website loading speed is incredible. It seems that you’re doing any unique trick. Moreover, The contents are masterpiece. you’ve done a great job on this topic!
I believe this is among the most important information for me.
And i am happy studying your article. However want to remark on few
general things, The web site taste is wonderful, the articles is
in point of fact great : D. Just right task, cheers
I was suggested this website by my cousin.
I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody
else know such detailed about my trouble. You
are amazing! Thanks!
I blog quite often and I genuinely thank you for your information. This article has truly peaked my interest.
I am going to take a note of your site and keep checking
for new information about once per week. I opted in for your RSS feed as well.
Hello, of course this post is truly pleasant and I have learned lot
of things from it regarding blogging. thanks.
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to this fantastic blog!
I suppose for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS
feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will share this blog with my Facebook
group. Talk soon!
It’s truly very complicated in this busy life to listen news on Television, so I simply use world wide web for that purpose, and get the most recent news.
I always emailed this weblog post page to all my friends, since if like to read it after that my friends will too.
Keep on working, great job!
Thanks for another excellent article. Where else could anyone get that kind of info in such an ideal way of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I’m on the look for such information.