Self-Interest Helping the World's Poor

Check out this brief article in the Oct. 23, 2006 issue of US News and World Report: A Man With a Very Different Kind of Bank. I've read a few articles in recent years about the growing trend of "micro-lending", especially in third world countries, and especially to poor women. This particular article is about Muhammad Yunus, who along with his Bank was given the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in this area. Efforts such as this are having great results, pulling tens of millions of people out of poverty by helping them help themselves.

And it is great that this article correctly identifies self-interest as being at work here. Yunus' bank, Grameen, made a profit last year -- so that is clearly self-interest. But it is also an approach that relies on the self-interested actions of the person receiving the micro-loan: these people, often women, are entrepreneurial and use the money to start small businesses or otherwise improve their lives in ways that will lead them and their families to be self-sustaining in the future, and this then lifts them from poverty. I really like the final paragraph:

"Charity is not an answer to poverty," he writes of the company's business model, which last year helped Grameen log $15 million in profits. "It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away individuals' initiative to break through the wall of poverty. Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty."