Product Description

Paul Polak, whose organisation, International Development Enterprises (IDE) has directly helped over 17 million people get out of poverty permanently, exposes the top 3 things we are doing wrong in our efforts to end the root causes of poverty. He then, through the story of a Nepali farmer, goes on to detail solutions for what actually works in ending poverty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81943 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 232 pages

About the Author
In 1939, on the eve of the holocaust, a young Paul Polak fled with his family from Czechoslovakia. When they eventually re-settled in Canada, Polak helped his family rebuild their life from the ground up. From that experience he learned that 'you have to keep your eyes open, there are always a thousand opportunities and if you are willing to take risks you will land on your feet in the end.' Polak has embraced this entrepreneurial attitude throughout his life and multiple careers. In 1981 he founded International Development Enterprises (IDE), the non-profit organisation he currently heads as president. Through his work with IDE, he has helped some 15 million impoverished farmers in developing countries to escape the cycle of subsistence poverty. IDE makes innovative, low-cost water-resource technologies accessible to the world's poorest farmers, enabling them to access and control water, increase and diversify agricultural production, create new wealth and improve their families' quality of life. What makes Polak's work unique is the market-based approach that he brings to poverty alleviation-an approach based on his belief that the rural poor are natural entrepreneurs who, if given the opportunity, will invest their own limited resources to ensure their families' security and well-being. Polak's and IDE's achievements have been recognised the Scientific American Top Fifty award for agriculture policy (2003), the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award (2004) and the Tech Museum award for the design of IDE's low-cost drip irrigation system (2004). Articles about IDE and Polak have appeared in National Geographic, Harpers, Forbes and Scientific American. Polak gives frequent talks and presentations at leading universities like Stanford and MIT, as well as academic and professional conferences like the 2006 International Symposium on Groundwater Sustainability (ISGWAS), the Annual Meeting of the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Association (NCIIA) and the 2006 Aspen Design Summit. Prior to his work with IDE, Polak served as Executive Director and Founder of the Southwest Denver Community Mental Health Center (1971 -- 1981) and as Chief of the Fort Logan Mental Health Center's Crisis Intervention Service (1967 -- 1971). Polak received his M.D. from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada in 1958, and his certification from the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry in 1978.

Customer Reviews

Tasks and Business Models to Increase Incomes for the Poorest of the Poor

One of my favorite nonfiction books is Small Is Beautiful. I never thought I would find a book that I liked as much as that one for how to reduce poverty, but Small Is Beautiful has now been replaced by Paul Polak's Out of Poverty as a helpful guide for poverty elimination.

I was drawn to the book by Susan Harrow's video of a talk by Dr. Polak, and I attended a recent presentation he made at MIT to learn more. Though trained as a psychiatrist, Dr. Polak appears to have been a thoughtful listener before he began to treat patients. That sincere interest in understanding the circumstances and perceptions of others has served him well in understanding the real and mental barriers that keep rural poor people who live on less than a dollar a day in income from lifting themselves out of poverty.

In Out of Poverty, Dr. Polak summarizes what he has learned from in-depth conversations with over 3,000 poor people and in attempting to design and deliver products and services that would help them to earn more money from their existing resources. A key lesson that readers will learn is that each person's situation is different, and you cannot impose solutions from above. Instead, you should seek to take advantage of the hard work of poor people and their determination to survive and thrive (if possible).

His overall model is to help rural poor (who are most of the poorest of the poor in the world) to grow high-priced items (such as out-of-season vegetables and fruits) that require lots of labor on tiny plots of land (scattered holdings that total an acre or less for a family). While the concept is simple, turning that concept into reality isn't. Farmers need to lift, store, and ration water carefully for dry seasons; avoid excess water in wet seasons; learn how to handle the new crops; find markets for what they produce; and be able to afford the investments required. Much of the book involves a single case history of a Nepalese farmer, Krishna Bahadur Thapa, and his family who attempt to follow this route.

For poor people who live in slums, Dr. Polak has a parallel vision: Manufacture high quality items that wealthy people will want to purchase that require lots of low-cost labor. Here again, a lot of work needs to precede the solution: customers found, designs created, standards set, training provided, small factories established, suppliers qualified, financing made available, and market knowledge developed to shift into new opportunities.

Dr. Polak also describes his past work with International Development Enterprises to design and deliver very low-cost treadle water pumps, drip irrigation systems, and water storage containers. He outlines his plans for a new organization, D-REV, which aims to increase the availability of designers and designs for solving the most pressing economic problems of the poorest people. The book outlines what some of those design needs are.

For those who prefer conventional solutions such as massive international aid to developing countries, charity, extending the green revolution, advancing technology, and encouraging major corporations, Dr. Polak has bad news. Those efforts haven't worked, and they aren't likely to start working now. He also describes the inevitable failures of even the most humanely intended and thorough forms of assistance.

Affordability of new options is the key. Poor people need to spend very little (ideally just a tiny bit more than they do now) to get a lot more income so that they get their money back in a few months. This might mean buying a treadle pump that will only last two years. But if it pays back in three months, they can afford to buy a better one in two years.

These people are so poor that they cannot afford a drought or a flood that wipes out a crop year. As a result, they will not commit all of their scarce resources to an innovation. Even a good innovation will do them no good in a flood. As a result, they will starve or have to become beggars.

If you really want to understand how you can help poor people, read and follow the advice in this book. Poor people will be glad that you decided to take the time to listen and act appropriately.

Bravo, Dr. Polak!

Solutions that work
Polak's book is a fantastic balance between C.K. Prahalad's view that multi-national corporations will save the world and Jeffrey Sachs' view that we can donate people out of poverty. The development "experts" in Polak's view are the dollar-a-day people. With a design revolution that would see designers creating products for the dollar-a-day market such as treadle pumps, drip irrigation systems, and water storage solutions, smallholder farmers (who make up the majority of the world's 1.1 billion poorest people) can increase their incomes and move out of poverty. Polak's market-based approach is firmly grassroots, envisioning local manufacturers, retailers, distributors, retailers, and customers. Excellent examples of market-based solutions abound, and Polak's credibility is enhanced by his down-to-earth approach of consulting the true experts on development.

This book is truly refreshing for anyone tired of the top-down, big-project development ideas or the rhetoric of neo-liberal economists. This is a realistic, experience-based treatise on identifying opportunities for people to move out of poverty. Polak's optimism is infectious!