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Author: Elmira Bayrasli
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Tag Archives: entrepreneurship
Rwanda: Progress or Democracy?
Rwanda is on everyone’s mind again. Sixteen years after the country suffered through a civil war and endured the nightmare of a genocide, we’re once again concerned about the tiny east African nation, no bigger than Maryland. This time our concern is over the country’s “democracy” in the hands of president Paul Kagame, who won [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ataturk, democracy, development, Kagame, poverty, Rwanda 4 Comments
What is the middle class?
Last Saturday, the NYT ran a piece on Indonesia’s economic miracle. “After Years of Inefficiency, Indonesia Emerges as an Economic Model.” That the South Asian island nation is rapidly growing wasn’t much of a surprise. How the piece defines middle class was: “In Jakarta, worsening traffic and a proliferation of megamalls are seen as signs [...]
Should food be a right?
Today’s NYT runs an off-lead story “Looking at Aid, India Asks, Should Food Be a Right?” It’s a rich piece that lays out the challenges of a government continuing a food distribution system to feed its poor, or perhaps developing a different system that doles out food coupons or cash, versus a government conceding to [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged India, market-based solutions, NYT, poverty, poverty alleviation Leave a comment
Profit: A dirty word?
Is it okay to profit off the poor? I, along with a number of other development junkies, debated this point over Twitter on Friday. It came at the behest of the inimitable Matthew Bishop, co-author of Philanthrocapitalism. He did so following a blog post he and co-author Michael Green wrote following Muhammad Yunus’s reaction over [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged aid, Bangladesh, Matthew Bishop, microfinance, microlending, Opportunity International, Philanthrocapitalism, philanthropy, poor, private sector, SKS, Yunus 5 Comments
iPads for poverty?
These are kids I met in Cambodia. But I shouldn’t have. The older ones should be at school. Instead they were with their parents, who are rice farmers selling rice to the mill. Their farm is three to five miles away from the nearest school. So they only go when they can. There are a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged bicycle, Cambodia, helmet, iPad, One Laptop Per Child, poverty, poverty alleviation 1 Comment
Can the brain drain help poverty?
The Global Post ran a great story on the African Middle Class yesterday. “Africa’s middle class,” says Vijay Mahajan, author of Africa Rising, “is the great economic engine that will drive development across the continent. That growth, author of the article Andrew Meldrum argues, is a result of better educational opportunities and entrepreneurship. Interestingly he [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged African middle class, brain drain, poverty, poverty alleviation, Tyler Cowen Leave a comment
Education or jobs? Which comes first?
“The Depression,” writes David Leonhardt in today’s New York Times Magazine, “didn’t just make Americans tougher. It made them smarter.” That’s because when the economy tanked, Leonhardt explains, more people went to school. “When times are tough, you are less likely to be missing out on a good $20-an-hour job by being in class.” Secondly, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged brain drain, developing world, development, Easterly, education, Obama Leave a comment
Goldman Sachs 0, White House 1
Day two at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship. Here’s what I wrote for Portfolio.com about one of the themes that came out of the day’s discussion: government v. business. And while poor Lloyd Blankfein slugged it out with Carl “I don’t trust you” Levin, the 250 plus Muslim entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders gathered for [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged business, entrepreneur, Fadi Ghandour, Goldman Sachs, government, Mo Ibrahim, President Obama Summit on Entrepreneurship Leave a comment
Inside the poverty puzzle: a plug for slum tours