Helping the Poor – Phone by Phone

“… mind-set, which interprets investment in the third world as charity, not an opportunity for profit, is what keeps countries poor”… “the poor will improve their own health as they become richer, and he sees cellphones as tools of production, not consumption””In the United States we either give charity to the poor or we ignore them, and neither one helps them,” he said. “Business is a proven method of solving their problems in a sustainable way.”

At the end of last year, Mr. Quadir showed how third-world ventures can be profitable — and provide a useful service — when GrameenPhone, the cellphone company he founded in Bangladesh, made $27 million in pretax profits. It turned that profit after just five years — far sooner than many first-world start-ups.

The experience of Mr. Quadir, now a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, contradicts the conventional wisdom from luminaries like Bill Gates, who has said that there is no market for such sophisticated devices in places of widespread poverty and illiteracy as well as unreliable electricity. Through his foundation, Mr. Gates has sought to first improve the health of the poor.

To Mr. Quadir, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive. He says the poor will improve their own health as they become richer, and he sees cellphones as tools of production, not consumption.

For the full text see http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/business/yourmoney/26PROF.html