Who Owns Poverty?
By: Pablo Lacasia
Tags: Ownership, Poverty, Thoughts, Inequality, Failure

It snows in Copenhagen. I am on the top floor of the Singularity University (SU) headquarters in that city. It’s spring May 2019 and it’s cold. In the halls and corridors of the building the adrenaline runs as much as the coffee. The 45 participants of the Global Startup Program (GSP) talk, laugh, jazz up. We will have 10 minutes to pitch to an audience of mentors, Entrepreneurs In Residence (EIR) and investors the vision, mission, and business case of our companies. People from all over the world came to what SU calls the Idea Review Board (IRB) which is nothing more and nothing less than to pitch in 5 minutes the idea of ​​the project to endure 5 minutes of acidic, sharp and to the bone questions.

The audience is attentive, the clock is counting down and the IRB begins.

I looked closely into the eyes of everyone in the room and enveloping them all with my words I asked in a firm and convincing voice ‘Who do you think is the owner of the problem of poverty?’ Two seconds of silence and the answer came back almost in unison: ‘The State, the Government.’ Undaunted, I immediately asked a second question: ‘Who, then, is the owner of the solution to the problem?’ and, again, in chorus: ‘The State, the Government.’

There was no surprise. It is the common thinking.

Me, me, me

Responding openly and frankly to the question of poverty is essential for us to act.

We must be very clear about who we believe is ‘the owner of the problem of poverty’ to understand, listen and proceed accordingly. If the owner is someone else besides us, how do I help them or, in the worst case, how do I ignore them sophisticatedly? If we reckon responsibility, how do we solve it and with whom? It is indispensable to express a position, act upon it and sustain it in time.

Accustomed to the expected and unsurprising response that the other is accountable for the underprivileged other, I go back in time to that cold day in early May 2019 in Copenhagen. The audience remains attentive and maintains their consideration trying to understand where the business opportunity is in this ‘we are convinced that poverty can be eradicated in a way that restores dignity, thereby unlocking enormous potential, benefiting the poorest and all of society as a whole’ that is shown to them.

I know it is better, more comfortable and safer to say that this is something impossible and it is not my responsibility. I know! I was there. The typical response received last year is understandable given the context, culture, and history of the audience. That is why I sought to empathize with each of them and show them a new, different, disruptive solution. I showed them the characteristics, the vision and mission, the validation of the market and its size, the focus, the business model per project, the one-year strategy, the competitive advantages and the growth map… Specifically, to eradicate concentrated urban poverty.

There was surprise. They were not expecting it.

Why is that?

The numbers of poverty (of the problem and the solutions) are so impressive that they make us dizzy and take our focus: thousands of actors, millions of ideas, billions of people, trillions of dollars. The solutions applied have been multiple, inefficient, and complex, and the vast majority has been one-dimensional. It was spent alone and badly, not investment. The impact is low, not to say very low versus the non-existent ROI. The private sector was little involved because the general thinking is that ‘the owner of the problem is someone else’.

In the direction we are going as nations there will be no less poverty than there is already. The recipients of the aid will remain invisible, hidden in ethereal, cyclopean, inhuman, distant statistics; the scale of the problem will continue to be immense, although in recent years it has decreased; we also know that considerable solutions did not work. It seems that the type of aid never changed and that the general feeling is that eradicating poverty is impossible. IMPOSSIBLE!

Perhaps it is possible, and in our time. And maybe the new solutions will work. This could be the biggest surprise of our century. Countless people are presenting this and undertaking actions -Oh! So many and vast- that I will be sharing it. Because is the right thing to do, because I want to know more and distribute more these actions and to spread my unwavering hope as in the Atlantis expedition ‘that man should know that man can’ (Alfredo Barragán). And my answer to the question in this article: I certainly do feel liable to own it.

I highly recommend two books:

Poor Economics by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee

+Who owns poverty? by Martin Burt

And these articles from Medium:

I’m a Little Too Fat, a Little Too Giving. I Think I Know Why; I Don’t Know How to Money by Kristine Levine

But Seriously, Let’s Talk About Millennial Poverty; If You’ve Never Lived In Poverty, Stop Telling Poor People What To Do by Hanna Brooks Olsen

You May Have A Poor Understanding Of Poor Persons’ Mindsets and Poverty, And Not Know It by SF Ali in Extra Newsfeed

Changing the Narrative; The Opposite of Poverty by Jacqueline Novogratz

Here’s What Happens When You Give $1,000 to Someone in Extreme Poverty by Andrew McDermott

‘Slum Walks’ Aren’t Educational — They’re Glorifying Poverty For Profit by Shailee Koranne

Blockchaining The World Out Of Poverty by DrFazal

With Poverty, Money is Always the Answer by Zach J. Payne

How Poverty Defined Me by Silvia Li Sam

Why We Need to Stop Using Meritocracy to Justify Inequality by Gabi Zinum

“What if nearly everything we thought we knew about poverty was wrong?” by red press publishing