Ending Extreme Poverty... In Our Lifetimes

Hard to conceive this is possible, right? But ending extreme poverty in our lifetimes is not only possible, but it is going to be done. Recently, Opportunity International made the pledge to focus their entire mission on accomplishing this goal.

The most amazing NGO you have never heard of, with a foundation of micro-finance in 22 countries, Opportunity International has empowered the lives of 10 million individual clients and is rapidly growing.

Recently, at Opportunity’s Global Summit in Chicago, I offered "THE BIG PICTURE," a road map of how Opportunity International will help lead the effort to end extreme poverty within our lifetimes.

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Ending Extreme Poverty in our lifetime is, in the words of leadership guru Jim Collins, a BHAG: “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.” The Grand Canyon of all Audacious Goals. But hear this: it can be done.

There is a Paradox here of course: On the one hand, ending extreme poverty cannot be done by Opportunity International alone. This mission requires the mother of all collaborations: partnerships on all continents, and all facets of human existence. Partnerships with groups we don’t now know, and who in many cases have probably not even been created yet.

But here’s the paradox: while the requirement for collaboration is true and necessary, it is equally true that success requires a singular focused leadership by the people in this room, by Opportunity International to articulate the goal, to assemble the partners, to measure the results, and to keep going when others get tired and fall by the wayside.

We can’t do this on our own, and we have to do this on our own.

I cannot begin to give you all the answers, or even most of them. My goal is to set the table, to describe where we are and where we could go.

Some Observations:

1) Global Health Can Be Dramatically Improved.

New medicines, biotechnology, remote diagnosis, accessible treatment, clean water--all of those tools can accelerate public health in ways we could never before imagine. So that 20 years from now, public health can be a positive force for economic health instead of a negative force. These breakthroughs won’t happen automatically, but a rise in global health is at least theoretically possible.

That bright future contrasts starkly with today’s bleak and seemingly hopeless disparity. The human body is the same in every continent: same DNA, same vulnerabilities, same number of arms and legs and lungs even same size brain. But the health disparity from the developing world to the developed world is astounding. I choose examples of two countries from Gallup’s 2016 Global Wellness index: 

In Uganda, 6% of the population is thriving, 71% struggling, and 23% suffering compared to Denmark, where 82% is thriving, 17% struggling, and 1% suffering.

Same human body, vastly different human condition. But doesn’t have to be that way; medications, public health, and diagnosis and treatment would work the same with Ugandans as with Danes, with Hondurans as with Californians. Imagine the change if we closed that health gap by just 20% or even 40%.

2) Technology Accelerates and Connects Everything.

The Internet of Things is the internet of all things. Artificial Intelligence inspires freedom from drudgery and empowers humans to use their God given talents, brains, and time to be productive in improving their lives instead of just barely surviving

Technology of today and tomorrow is the world of personal technologies: handheld devices, GPS, online college. The developing world will be shaped far more by mobile devices than World Bank infrastructure.

3) Demographics Rule

Here’s the downside, the giant risk: By 2050, the world will have two billion more people and most of that growth will be in the high poverty regions of Africa, South America, and southern Asia. Every single negative trend in the developing world will be exacerbated by that population explosion, unless and until we change the dynamics.

4) It’s No Longer about America

We can say “America First” but that is merely a false and dangerous bravado. The center of economic power has already shifted from the Atlantic Alliance over the last 75 years to a combination of Asia-Europe-America.

Indeed, China is not only building a second and larger Panama Canal, but is also building the New Silk Road: a physical transportation corridor between Bejing and London. Marco Polo must be smiling from the heavens.

Our challenge is not to resist this new truth, but to connect this new center of gravity to the Southern Hemisphere, to Johannesburg and Cairo and Lake Titicaca and Calcutta to work to bring the world together, not to tear it apart.

5) Representative Democracy is Challenged

As Pogo famously said 40 years ago, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Just as much of the emerging world is discovering democracy and pluralism and the rule of law, much of the developed world is seeing democracy challenged in ways not seen in 250 years.

Extreme populism, authoritarian-sounding leaders, raw nationalism, anti-immigrant fervor, growing inequality, and nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable governments, present challenges not seen since the French Revolution.

So what to do, where to start? I offer you six core pillars, or principles, that should be at the heart of our mission. I stress the interdependence of these six. One without the others will fail; even five without all six will suffer and fall short.

1) Access to personal technology

Technology is the accelerator, the enabler. It makes everything else possible, in real time. A family in Rwanda can have a bank account only with mobile devices and fingerprint retina technology; a farmer in Malawi can plant his crop and sell it, only with access to the internet and GPS for crop insurance and market quotes; a shop owner in Nicaragua can stock the store and serve the customers only if she is connected electronically to vendors and payment systems.

2) Knowledge is Power

Note I did not say education is power. Education is the road to knowledge, not knowledge itself. The essential power that will change the world, is the widespread dissemination of knowledge: to all genders, all ages, all classes, all backgrounds.  

Indeed, much of Opportunity’s success to date has been in schools, education, and creating knowledgeable clients. Remember, it is not the schools alone, although they are essential ingredients, it is the knowledge gained in those schools and elsewhere, that will change societies.

3) Access to Capital

This is Opportunity’s core competency. Five million loan clients in the last five years is big, but it’s just a beginning. And those loans are not static, they use the genius of the marketplace to renew, and recycle, and grow that capital. Whether savings, micro loans, or equity investments, capital is essential, not optional to end poverty.

All of our clients work hard; but hard work with no capital is mere survival, a continuation of poverty. Work in the fields from sunup to sundown will not produce a crop unless you buy and plant the seeds and that takes capital. If you cannot afford to buy inventory, your shelves are empty and you are stuck in poverty.

4) Rule of Law

As I said earlier, in 2017 democracy is challenged in the developed world. But economic opportunity in the developing world requires the rule of law. And that is both human rights and property rights. The reliable expectation that investment of capital and work and sweat equity will be rewarded and protected is essential to secure that investment. If corruption, criminals, or even the government can take away what you have achieved for yourself and your family, I guarantee, that you will not stretch to achieve it next year.

5) Health and Wellness

The physical health of the population is essential to economic health. I remember, from a financial education class I taught in Rwanda, emphasizing the importance of a savings account. I was confronted with the following question: “Congressman,” said the questioner, “if I have a savings account with $2 in it, my sister will come to my door and ask for the $2 to buy Malaria medicine for her daughter, or she will die. So how can I have a savings account?”

I was stumped with the moral dilemma of that question. But the right answer for Opportunity is to use all the public health assets we can find, to answer that moral dilemma, so that a family can have a savings account and the daughter will not die of malaria.

And as I said earlier, the technology, the equipment, the medicine, the NGO’s, the infrastructure exists. It just needs to extend to the rest of the world. Convert Uganda from 6% healthy to 60% healthy and it’s a whole new country.

6) Faith in God

We are not human beings with a spiritual side, but spiritual beings with a human side. We all know that religion and faith can take many forms. And, unfortunately and with some shame, we must admit that much evil has been done in the name of religion. But much of the good done in this world is also done by people of faith.

As we are impelled by our faith, and as we live our faith in this mission, our good work is powered ten-fold, hundred-fold, by the power of that faith. As Christians we are called to this mission. Jesus did not make it optional. We show by our acts of kindness and generosity that we are called by a Higher Being to be our brothers’ keeper, to do justice, to love mercy, and to repay evil with kindness.

In as much as we have done this for the least of these our brethren, we have done for Him.

In conclusion, as Christians, ending poverty is not an option, it is an imperative. We can, therefore we must.

When Jesus returned from the tomb to walk among us, he had breakfast with his disciples. The Disciples wondered, “what should we do?” Jesus then asked Peter, and all of us, “Do you love Me?” He asked three times. And then Jesus answered his own question, “Then feed My sheep. Tend My lambs. Feed My sheep.”

And that, my friends, is our calling. Tend His lambs. We can, and I submit we will, end extreme poverty in our lifetimes.