Evening Standard comments continued: G8 tackles poverty?

Yet another in millions of articles over the years about supposed schemes to reduce global poverty and otherwise deal with the problems of developing nations. The problem with all of this of course, is that world leaders always go for big, top-down plans that end up costing huge amounts and accomplishing nothing. The World Bank, for instance, runs massive projects that burn through money, and often end up leaving countries worse off than they began.

The only thing that has ever really worked anywhere, is local, small-scale, bottom-up ideas. Microcredit comes to mind as an example, now served by companies such as , as pioneered by Kiva and MicroPlace. It also makes me think of Wangari Maathai’s work.