However, I can't shake the nagging feeling that like microfinance, BOP is just the latest sexy idea in international development that's a little too good to be true. Not that there aren't excellent things happening around the world in both fields, but I feel like everyone is a little to eager to jump on the magical "cure poverty and get rich at the same time!" bandwagon, or citing BOP concepts as the cure-all for everything from famine to global warming to HIV/AIDS. So I was really interested to read a recent interview with Ashok Khosla (founder of Development Alternatives in India) in Alliance Magazine called "BOP too good to be true?"
Some of my thoughts after reading the interview:
- I agree with Ashok that jobs are crucial to lifting people out of poverty, and not everyone was born to be an entrepreneur. The people who got jobs working along Henry Ford's production line are as important in the industrialization and economic development of the US as Henry Ford himself-- and hiring people to produce BOP products (instead of manufacturing them elsewhere and shipping them in for sale) could do twice as much to reduce poverty in those communities.
- His care for the environment and concern about selling disposable products that will further ruin the planet are admirable, but a little ridiculous at the same time...it would take a poor Indian buying a hell of a lot of disposable shampoo sachets to even come CLOSE to the environmental footprint I stamp on the earth each day with my comfortable American lifestyle. In terms of worst environmental offenders, let's start with Europe and the United States before blaming the poorest of the poor.
- Ashok comes across as quite arrogant in his claims about what the poor "really need." The beauty of the BOP is that even with tiny incomes, with the right products available the poor have the autonomy to make their own decisions about what they need and improve their own lives. A financial planner might tell me I don't "really need" that copy of US Weekly, but I have the right to buy whatever I want with my income. Who is he to decide which products are "non-essential and wasteful"?
- Perhaps the most ridiculous is his argument about bottled water in India. Should everyone in the world have access to clean water and excellent plumbing? Yes. In the absence of said clean water systems, should we NOT sell clean water to people who need it? No no no! Clean water is a huge issue that demands the attention of governments, aid agencies, companies, NGOs, etc etc-- but I think we can't stop getting affordable water out to communities that need it while we wait for the macro solution (yes, even if this means more disposable containers are floating around the universe).
2 comments:
Hey D,
I'm glad that you posted about BOP. Carolina for Kibera teamed up with Cornell University and a big U.S. multi-national to try out the strategy in Kibera over the last couple years. Unfortunately, while I think the business/entrepreneurial skills workshops have been positive, the jury's still out on what effect BOP will have in the long-term. I think it's viewed by Kiberans as a get-rich-quick scheme, that neither produces fast results nor actually leads to income increases. If it's going to take several years for the strategy to get to "poverty-curing" results, I think residents in Kibera would rather participate in an economic activity that helps them feed their families today than the BOP strategy which *might* lead to higher returns in a couple years.
I agree with the analysis of entrepreneurship vs. straight labor. the latter is very important. So much of entrepreneurship (and we're facing this in the oh so developed state of Maine) is driven out of necessity -- no jobs, no jobs at a liveable wage, that folks (primarily women) are turning to entrepreneurship -- creating businesses based on their skills and assets rather a market need. They serve local populations and make minimal gains. The result (in Maine) is that 21% of all jobs are in companies of 4 people or less, unable to provide benefits, affordable health care, and ultimately don't enable a living wage. There are some benefits to working for the 'man.'
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