In the River They Swim : Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty

by Fairbanks, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781599472515
• ISBN10: 1599472511
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Templeton Foundation Pr

Summary

The sociologist Thomas Sowell writes, "We need to confront the most blatant fact that has persisted across centuries of social history-vast ddifferences in productivity among peoples, and the economic and other consequences of such differences." Poverty demeans dignity, shrinks the soul, wastes potential, and inflicts suffering on three billion people on our planet. We must also acknowledge that, during the past fifty yyears, the record in international assistance to the least developed countries has been disappointing; the economics-based abstractions developed in the think tanks of Europe and North America are insufficient. In the River They Swimis the antithesis to that search for solutions the next big theory of global poverty. From the fresh perspective of advisors on the frontlines of development to the insight of leaders like President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Pastor Rick Warren, it tells the story of change in the microcosms of emerging businesses, industries, and governments. These essays display a personal nature to their work that rigorous analysis alone cannot explain. We learn that a Sufi master can teach us about the different levels of knowledge, the "different ways to know a river." These practitioners could have written about its length, its source, its depth, its width, the power of its current, and the life it contains. They could have invested time and money to travel to that river so that they could sit on its shores and look at it, feel the sand that borders it, and watch the birds at play over it. Instead, they dove in to swim in the river, felt its current along their bodies, and tasted something of it. They wondered, briefly, if they had the strength to swim its length, and now they share the answer. If human development is a river, the authors in this volume, and perhaps some readers, will no longer be satisfied to stand along its banks.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Fighting Poverty with Purpose	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 3
The Journey
The Backbone of a New Rwanda	p. 11
Flight VS 56: Riding the Cultural Divide	p. 15
A Space Alien in Chaps	p. 23
A Mind for the Poor	p. 28
Waiting for Mr. Anderson	p. 35
My Faith in Capitalism	p. 40
Nature Is Destiny, and the More Nature, the Worse the Destiny	p. 48
Locomotives, Needles, and Aid	p. 55
On Globalization	p. 66
The Merits of Change	p. 75
Strategies for Prosperity
Claver's Wall	p. 83
Leadership, in Context	p. 97
Selling Culture without Selling Out	p. 103
The Afghan Method	p. 113
Global Strategy in Old Kabul	p. 125
After God, It's Customer Relations	p. 134
The Longest Roundabout in the World	p. 140
Alexander the Great, Mother Teresa, and Arse	p. 146
Archimedes' Formidable Dare	p. 155
Globalization
On Presidents	p. 167
The Risk of Dreams	p. 177
Praying to the Virgin of Guadalupe	p. 188
Our Greatest Fear	p. 196
Changing Mindsets	p. 205
Entire, unto Himself	p. 209
"When Are You Coming Back?"	p. 218
"That's My Duck!" (The Case for Integration)	p. 227
"Mr. President, Tear Down the Walls!"	p. 236
Deciding What Not to Do	p. 246
Epilogue	p. 255
List of Contributors	p. 257
Index	p. 261
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