Recently Professor Eric Keys was interviewed by the prestigious British newspaper, The Guardian,
for his opinion as to how world markets could best help the poor. Eric’s
suggestions were among 18 derived from a panel of experts.
Eric notes: Information is key to M4P: Where I work in southeastern Mexico, the biggest
impediment to agricultural development is information. Farmers have little to
no idea on what the future value of crops will be. Providing them with that
would do a great deal to help them out.
Don’t conflate your goals with poor people’s goals: Poor people’s aspirations
beyond survival can be misjudged or wrongly projected by development groups.
Whether people want to participate in markets to enrich their lives, or whether
they are content as long as their children don’t get sick, aren’t clear to
outsiders. People are not necessarily in the market mindset in the way we refer
to it. Transactions occur to be sure, but they do not necessarily have the same
cost or rules that we use. Learning those rules and costs is very important.
And finding out who is not even considered in the pricing will move things
along nicely.
The other 16 can all be found at The Guardian website: