The modern development aid industry is fundamentally flawed, writer and researcher Efosa Ojomo argues, because it is based on “the idea of seeing a need, seeing that a community lacks a resource, and then leaning in with the best of intentions to provide that resource without the fundamental mechanism that will sustain it.” That mechanism is what Ojomo and his co-authors call a “market-creating innovation”—an advance that spurs the creation of new businesses, customers and tax revenues that allow for improved public services.
Ojomo is the head of the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and a co-author of “The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty.” He joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week.
Listen to the full conversation with Efosa Ojomo on Trend Lines: