Picking and scaling up winners: How to beat poverty

Monday, 28 March 2011 10:30

Written by Marvin Bionat

Ambitious title I know, but I figure thinking positive will probably help, both in selling the idea and in actually fighting poverty. Here’s the simple formula:

Every quarter, people are invited to nominate projects that have the most impact on reducing poverty. These projects may be currently run by non-government organizations or by informal community groups. To maximize interest and flush out the best, the winner is awarded a non-conditional grant, perhaps between P100,000 and P1 million. Media outlets are coaxed to provide coverage and help broaden public awareness of the nationwide competition.

The criteria for picking the winner should include the following:

1.    Pass the practicality test: The results should outweigh the costs.
2.    Replicable: The project can be implemented in most if not all regions of the country.
3.    Reduce poverty: The project helps poor people by increasing their monetary income and/or by satisfying other deprivations (nutrition, health care, education, etc.).
4.    Sustainable: It can sustain itself and does not degrade the environment. This assumes it has gone through experimentation and therefore has been successfully piloted.
5.    Empowering: Except for the initial funding, no charities or dole-outs allowed. The project empowers people to help themselves.

After a winner is identified, it gets replicated in select locations in other regions, perhaps through a public-private partnership. Results are closely monitored to ensure that the project meets the above criteria. Lessons are shared and necessary adjustment made to maximize the project’s impact. Ultimately, the project becomes public policy and is replicated throughout the country’s cities and towns.

Doing this four times a year will introduce the country to four of the most promising anti-poverty efforts around. Doing it the remaining five years of the Aquino administration will involve implementing 20 anti-poverty efforts. Even if half of the projects remain limited in impact or actually flop, 10 anti-poverty projects scaled up to a national scale should leave an indelible mark.

In most sports the key to winning is upping the numbers; for example, increasing the number of assists, rebounds, and clear shots improves the odds of winning in basketball. Likewise, I contend that the key to beating poverty is simply to up the odds of winning. Most of the country’s presidents came and went without really helping the poor, while the corrupt and those with vested interests helped themselves to the country’s coffers and vast resources. This is a call to the Aquino administration to leave a more tangible legacy by simply identifying and implementing best practices and thus maximizing the odds of scoring big in favor of the poor.

For decades, we’ve been paralyzed by the great scholarly debate about development (import substitution vs. export-led growth, Jeffersonian vs. Hamiltonian progress, Keynes vs. Friedman, strong state vs. democracy, etc.). Perhaps the emancipation of our poor won’t come from the ideas of those in ivory towers, but from those manning the trenches below.

Reference: I was compelled to write this column after reading about the projects of the Wimler Partnership for Social Progress, an NGO co-founded by Leila Rispens-Noel, a migrant advocate who has decades of experience in development work. Wimler’s projects include a school-based poultry project, which the PTA helps run, and investments in the education of poor children in Mindanao. See http://wimler.org/