4 ms·

Call me a pessimist, but when I see such a huge amount of money being donated - I can't help but wonder how it's meant to trickle down to the people, how it's m

• netsp 17y ago
  This is something that concerns a lot of people in the area. A lot of people want to solve this problem. There are all sorts of tools, but there is no equivalent of 'price' for philanthropy. No perfect solution. One example is the way that the Acumen Fund "invests." They insist on there being good feedback loops. Subsidised farming (eg cheap micro irrigation equipment) technology is preferred relative to free farming technology because the former requires poor farmers to dedicate extremely scarce resources. This means that they buy in to the system. Modular solutions are preferred to make-over solutions. For example, if a micro farmer (say 2 hectares) can buy or receive enough equipment to irrigate only 1/4 hectare and must make a decision about the second 1/4 hectare after seeing the results (perhaps reinvesting the gains) on the first, this is better then a plan to completely irrigate an entire village, even if they are contributing scarce cash to the project themselves.