Poor people's hidden wealth
Poor people often stay poor because laws are stacked against them. For 20 years, Hernando de Soto has been hard at work to change this Bram Posthumus | June 2004 issue WHO? Hernando de Soto WHAT? Instituto Libertad y Democracia (ILD), an international think tank that registers the property of Read More...
The disabled are people too
Erzs Tijn Touber | June 2004 issue WHO? Erzsébet Szekeres WHAT? Alliance Industrial Union, providing care, training and housing for the disabled WHERE? Hungary WHEN? 1982 WHY? Disabled people deserve economic opportunity and maximum of independence When Erzsébet Szekeres went in search Read More...
Type in: problem Find: solution
Theresa Williamson collects solutions to the day-to-day problems of poor peolpe all over the world. How does she do it? By looking at what works in other poor communities. Tijn Touber | June 2004 issue WHO? Theresa Williamson WHAT? Catalytic Communities, a virtual network to share solutions to Read More...
Kuyichi: Max Havelaar in jeans
Marco Visscher | April 2004 issue The Dutch development organisation Solidarity had earlier pioneered the ‘fair price’ for coffee beans and the shift to organic cultivation. A few years ago it was time for a new project: clothing. Solidaridad launched Kuyichi, a clothing brand whose products Read More...
No sweat
Marco Visscher | April 2004 issue “Sweatshop” is the common term for workshops which pay low wages for the monotonous work of sewing ready-to-wear clothing, often for many hours each day and under strict supervision. These factories flourish in developing countries like India, Vietnam, Mexico Read More...
Global growth, global trash
How the West got rich from broken headphones.Jonathan Rowe | March 2004 issue Nanay and Tatay are my wife’s parents. One evening, on a visit with them a few months ago, Tatay and I went out to the bamboo shed beside the house to start the generator, the only source of electricity on the farm. Read More...
Music in the favela
Nanko van Buuren has become an 'uncle' to the underprivileged in RioEva Bomans | March 2004 issue Pot-holes, sand and stones. Most of the streets in Vigário Geral are simply dirt tracks. Although there are very few cars to be seen, there are plenty of people: 7,500 packed into an area of three Read More...
Free Africa
Foreign aid and debts have shifted attention from the native population to donors and banksMarco Visscher | January 2004 issue ‘The talk of aid is a lot of hot air. Aid has never developed a single African country to the stage of social transformation.’ Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni tells Read More...
The death of a democracy
A stunning documentary reveals how the 2000 American presidential election was stolen.Luke Disney | January 2004 issue ‘It can’t be true!’ was the incredulous reaction that stayed with me throughout ‘Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election’, a documentary from Richard Ray Pérez and Read More...
Zilu's bold step to self-reliance
Decades of development work has made Bangladesh the world's begging bowl; a land of desperation and dependence with no future. But even in the face of such misery one person can make a difference; without help from the outside. A new dream and a new vision are bringing new life to the North of Read More...