What Have We Learned About Fighting Poverty?

Organizations around the world spend billions of dollars each year trying to lift people out of poverty. Despite the best of intentions, many of these efforts fail, and many others achieve less than optimal results. But some organizations have successfully designed, funded, implemented, and scaled impressive anti-poverty interventions. In this panel, SSIR’s Eric Nee talks to leading experts from three.

Asif Saleh, senior director of strategy, communications, and empowerment at BRAC, talks about what the world’s largest NGO has learned about scaling up programs. Yale economist Dean Karlan outlines lessons that Innovations for Poverty Action, the nonprofit research and policy organization he founded, has drawn from more than a decade of evaluating poverty programs around the world. And Kevin Starr talks about the evidence-based approach that the Mulago Foundation, where he is managing director, uses to find and fund poverty-fighting organizations.