empowerment

Last Day to Vote: Building Assets into a 21st Century Foreign Assistance Framework

Jamie Zimmerman — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:48:00 -0500

Its last day of the Better World Campaign's On Day One project and there is still time to vote for the idea you think President-Elect Barak Obama should prioritize on the first day of the next administration for improving the United State's image in the world. When blogger Mark Goldberg of the UN Foundation came to New America in the spring of 2008 soliciting ideas for policy proposals, I thought it was little more than a fun experiment in the use of new media to express opinions. I had no idea the Campaign would face the ideas off against each other in November, narrowing 81 selected ideas down to 9 for '09 (9 big ideas for the incoming president to consider upon taking office). Or that my idea to reform foreign assistance (to focus the allocation of funds more squarely on the social and economic empowerment of poor people) would win the Global Poverty category. Or that there would be a Round 2 to the contest in which the 9 for '09 would face off yet again.

I don't expect to win the contest -- my idea is up against some even more lofty and innovative competitors. On the other hand, that this idea - that funds should be more smartly allocated to providing opportunities for asset building and wealth creating empowerment for the poor, rather than wasted and corrupted on ineffectual top-down projects - has resonated with voters in this first place (and making a fair showing at that), should be utterly encouraging for those of us working to elevate asset-building microfinance and social policies around the globe.

Even in a world of economic uncertainty, there is a still a belief that given the right tools, the poor and traditionally disenfranchised can stake their own claim it the dream of a better future. The microcredit movement has helped shape this confidence in the power of individuals to lift themselves out of poverty. Yet, the tools people need to take ownership of their lives extend well beyond microcredit, including (but certainly not limited to) an identity that will allow them access to the formal economy; property rights so that they can take ownership in their land, home, or business; access to an array of financial services such as savings accounts allow them to save for future investments in education, a business or old age and insurance to further protect them from the vulnerability of any number of shocks, and; access to policies and programs that facilitate this process, such as child development accounts, conditional cash transfers, or other microfinance-plus initiatives.

Reforming the foreign assistance framework to redirect resources toward bottom-up programs is a fairly specific policy idea, yet it finds itself competing with much grander goals. In this final day of the contest, I thank voters for their encouraging show of interest in telling President Obama to break the wasteful status quo in development assistance spending and, instead, concentrate on something with potentially a much greater return on investment - the empowerment of people.

Identity, Assets and Empowerment of the Poor: Comments on UNDP Report Released Today

Jamie Zimmerman — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:10:00 -0400

I want to flag today's global launch of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor's timely and important report, "Making the Law Work for Everyone." Co-chairs Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto briefly discussed the Commission's findings and this report this morning at a press conference at the United Nations as well as in their recent Time op-ed. As eloquently as they both discussed the foundations and findings of the report in a few short minutes, the full report is brilliant, powerful and well worth the read for anyone in the asset-building community.

For the asset-building field, their report eloquently provides a richer perspective on how and why wealth (among other) inequalities persist within societies. It delves deep into the persistence of poverty through lack of access to justice and such essential rights as an identity, in most countries a requisite for access to anything asset-building related - property, real estate, pensions, social transfers, micro-credit or even the most basic financial services. Essentially, the lack of identity makes this vulnerable population virtually invisible to the formal economy or society, which in turn denies them basic rights necessary for them to access the opportunities and protections afforded to and taken for granted by the rest of us. [slideshow]

I found their focus on the power and importance of assets and asset protection as a vital component of legal, economic and social empowerment encouraging and I certainly applaud it. My only disappointment from the asset-building perspective on their conceptualization of legal empowerment was their decision to discuss access to finance narrowly under their new term, "business rights." While they mention access to basic financial services here, they are essentially referring to the accessible provision of affordable micro-credit to micro-entrepreneurs, which is only a small piece of the financial needs (perhaps even rights?) of the poor.

Overall though, I found their conceptualization compelling, and their argument for this being both smart politics and economics persuasive. Indeed pieces of their arguments as well as their prescriptions for systemic change compliment, if not mirror, the foundations of the asset-building agenda - creating institutions, policies and markets that provide and encourage opportunities for wealth accumulation (or empowerment, more generally speaking) for all, not just the already-fortunate-few.

While I encourage everyone to read the document in the entirety, I leave you with a snippet from its executive summary: "Thus it is not the absence of assets or the lack of work that hold [the poor] back, but the fact that the assets and work are insecure, unprotected, and far less productive that they might be....In too many countries, the laws institutions, and policies governing economic, social and political affairs deny a large part of the society the chance to participate on equal terms. The rules of the game are unfair."

Indeed.