All day yesterday, I capitalized on the opportunity to unabashedly promote the asset building framework by putting a spotlight on its prominence in poverty alleviation discussions and commitments here at CGI.  And I actually barely skimmed the surface of some of the specific asset-focused activities coming out of these sessions (Habitat, others).  As much as I relished it, I also want to acknowledge that asset building and financial services for the poor are one piece of poverty alleviation in a complex global environment.  The specific commitments are great, but what about the larger perspective?

Yesterday's afternoon CGI held a plenary on profits, jobs and equitable growth.  The stifling of poverty alleviation around the world is not simply due to lack of access to effective financial services, but also to lack of access to property, to opportunity, to education and to healthcare.  Exclusion from any combination of these often results market inefficiencies, slack productivity, an inability for an individual to live to their full human potential.  Hernando de Soto called for property rights and legal empowerment of the poor to give them the tools they need to achieve their version of the American Dream. 

There is still much to learn about the financial tools needed to help the world's poor mitigate risks and build assets in order to build an economic base and contribute to long-term economic development. This session primarily focused on "building assets in the developing world."

Sylvia Matthews , director of Global Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation opened the second working group session stating that 2.3 billion with no access to financial services for the poor, even though evidence suggests they would make perfect customers. She asked her panelists: "What do people need, what works, what are some solutions and how do we reach scale?" Again, asset building and asset protection products reigned supreme:

Bob Rubin, the first Director of National Economic Council, then Secretary of the Treasury, and now a Director at Citigroup, Inc remarked on the health of the financial system and impact on financial services for the poor. "We need to stem the crisis of confidence in the US now, but we also need to put into place effective responses to longer-term problems the country faces, like healthcare, education and economic opportunities for the poor."