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You got a good point there, but education is integral part of the process as well. Some people do not know how to save and have no trust to any institutions. Th

• cwan 17y ago
  People respond to incentives - that is the the fundamental idea on which economics is based. The poor aren't as helpless/stupid as much of the developed world makes them out to be. This was one of my frustrations while working in the developing world. While I now work largely in China at least in China they don't assume that in order to help the poor that education comes first - they have first provided the conditions that businesses can meet the needs and employ the poor (one of the reasons China's growth exceeds much of the developing world and especially those who rely on "aid"). We claim that providing financial services will provide empowerment (which it does), and then we try to force them to conform with our view half a world away with how they should spend and save their money by structuring financial products according to our needs as opposed to theirs. They don't need an education to save - that the service exists and incentives to save exist are enough as they will quite quickly educate themselves in that regard. No level of "education" will disabuse someone (anyone let alone a poor person in the developing world) of the notion that their government isn't corrupt or that they can "trust" an institution. Trust is earned. What you will have, like in any society, is first the incentive/need, then the early adopters and then word of mouth and that's how institutions earn trust.