WEBVTT

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I've been living in rural East Africa
for about 10 years,

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and I want to share a field perspective
with you on global poverty.

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I believe that the greatest failure
of the human race

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is the fact that we've left more than
one billion of our members behind.

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Hungry, extreme poverty:

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these often seem like gigantic,
insurmountable problems,

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too big to solve.

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But as a field practitioner,

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I believe these are actually
very solvable problems

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if we just take the right strategies.

NOTE Paragraph

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Archimedes was an ancient Greek thinker,

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and he taught us that if we lean
on the right levers,

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we can move the world.

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In the fight against extreme poverty,
I believe there are three powerful levers

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that we can lean on.

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This talk is all about those levers,
and why they make poverty

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a winnable fight in our lifetimes.

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What is extreme poverty?

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When I first moved to rural East Africa,

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I stayed overnight with a farm family.

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They were wonderful people.

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They invited me into their home.
We sang songs together

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and ate a simple dinner.

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They gave me a blanket
to sleep on the floor.

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In the morning, however,
there was nothing to eat.

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And then at lunchtime, I watched
with an increasingly sick feeling

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as the eldest girl in the family
cooked porridge as a substitute for lunch.

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For that meal, every child
drank one cup to survive.

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And I cannot tell you how ashamed I felt

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when they handed one of those cups to me,

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and I knew I had to accept
their hospitality.

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Children need food not only to survive
but also to grow physically and mentally.

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Every day they fail to eat,
they lose a little bit of their future.

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Amongst the extreme poor,
one in three children

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are permanently stunted
from a lifetime of not eating enough.

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When that's combined
with poor access to health care,

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one in 10 extremely poor children
die before they reach age five.

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And only one quarter of children
complete high school

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because they lack school fees.

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Hunger and extreme poverty curb
human potential in every possible way.

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We see ourselves as a thinking,
feeling and moral human race,

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but until we solve these problems
for all of our members,

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we fail that standard,

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because every person
on this planet matters.

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This child matters.

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These children matter.

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This girl matters.

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You know, we see things like this,

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and we're upset by them,

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but they seem like such big problems.

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We don't know how
to take effective action.

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But remember our friend Archimedes.

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Global poverty has powerful levers.

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It's a problem like any other.

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I live and work in the field,
and as a practitioner,

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I believe these are very
solvable problems.

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So for the next 10 minutes,

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let's not be sad
about the state of the world.

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Let's engage our brains.

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Let's engage our collective passion
for problem-solving

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and figure out what those levers are.

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Lever number one: most
of the world's poor are farmers.

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Think about how extraordinary this is.

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If this picture represents
the world's poor,

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then more than half engage in farming
as a major source of income.

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This gets me really excited.

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All of these people, one profession.

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Think how powerful this is.

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When farmers become more productive,
then more than half the world's poor

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earn more money and climb out of poverty.

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And it gets better.

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The product of farming
is, of course, food.

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So when farmers become more productive,
they earn more food,

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and they don't just help themselves,

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but they help to feed healthy communities
and thriving economies.

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And when farmers become more productive,
they reduce environmental pressure.

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We only have two ways
we can feed the world:

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we can either make our existing farmland
a lot more productive,

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or we can clear cut forest and savannah
to make more farmland,

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which would be environmentally disastrous.

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Farmers are basically
a really important leverage point.

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When farmers become more productive,

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they earn more income,
they climb out of poverty,

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they feed their communities and they
reduce environmental land pressure.

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Farmers stand at the center of the world.

NOTE Paragraph

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And not a farmer like this one,

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but rather this lady.

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Most of the farmers I know
are actually women.

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Look at the strength and the will
radiating from this woman.

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She is physically strong, mentally tough,

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and she will do whatever it takes
to earn a better life for her children.

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If we're going to put the future
of humanity in one person's hands,

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then I'm really glad it's her.

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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There's just one problem:

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many smallholder farmers
lack access to basic tools and knowledge.

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Currently, they take a little bit
of saved food grain from the prior year,

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they plant it in the ground
and they till it with a manual hand hoe.

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These are tools and techniques
that date to the Bronze Age,

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and it's why many farmers
are still very poor.

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But good news, again.

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Lever number two:

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humanity actually solved the problem
of agricultural poverty a century ago.

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Let me walk you through the three
most basic factors in farming.

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First, hybrid seed is created
when you cross two seeds together.

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If you naturally pollinate
a high-yielding variety

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together with a drought-resistant variety,

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you get a hybrid that inherits
positive traits from both of its parents.

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Next, conventional fertilizer,
if used responsibly,

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is environmentally sustainable.

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If you micro-dose
just a pinch of fertilizer

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to a plant that's taller than I am,

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you unlock enormous yield gain.

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These are known as farm inputs.

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Farm inputs need to be combined
with good practice.

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When you space your seeds
and plant with massive amounts of compost,

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farmers multiply their harvests.

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These proven tools and practices
have more than tripled

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agricultural productivity
in every major region of the world,

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moving mass numbers of people
out of poverty.

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We just haven't finished delivering
these things to everybody just yet,

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particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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So overall, this is amazing news.

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Humanity actually solved
agricultural poverty a century ago,

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in theory.

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We just haven't delivered these things
to everybody just yet.

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In this century, the reason
that people remain poor

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is because maybe they live
in remote places.

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They lack access to these things.

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Therefore, ending poverty
is simply a matter

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of delivering proven goods
and services to people.

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We don't need more genius types right now.

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The humble delivery guy is going
to end global poverty in our lifetime.

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So these are the three levers,

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and the most powerful lever
is simply delivery.

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Wherever the world's companies,
governments and nonprofits

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set up delivery networks
for life-improving goods,

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we eliminate poverty.

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OK, so that sounds really nice in theory,

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but what about in practice?

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What do these delivery networks look like?

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I want to share the concrete example
that I know best,

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my organization, One Acre Fund.

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We only serve the farmer,

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and our job is to provide her
with the tools that she needs to succeed.

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We start off by delivering farm inputs
to really rural places.

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Now, this may appear
initially very challenging,

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but it's pretty possible. Let me show you.

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We buy farm inputs with the combined power
of our farmer network,

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and store it in 20 warehouses like this.

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Then, during input delivery,
we rent hundreds of 10-ton trucks

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and send them out to where farmers
are waiting in the field.

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They then get their individual orders
and walk it home to their farms.

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It's kind of like Amazon
for rural farmers.

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Importantly, realistic delivery
also includes finance, a way to pay.

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Farmers pay us little by little over time,
covering most of our expenses.

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And then we surround
all that with training.

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Our rural field officers
deliver practical, hands-on training

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to farmers in the field

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every two weeks.

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Wherever we deliver our services,
farmers use these tools

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to climb out of poverty.

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This is a farmer
in our program, Consolata.

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Look at the pride on her face.

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She has achieved a modest prosperity
that I believe is the human right

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of every hardworking person on the planet.

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Today, I'm proud to say that we're serving
about 400,000 farmers like Consolata.

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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The key to doing this
is scalable delivery.

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In any given area, we hire
a rural field officer

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who delivers our services
to 200 farmers, on average,

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with more than 1,000 people
living in those families.

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Today, we have 2,000
of these rural field officers

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growing very quickly.

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This is our delivery army,

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and we're just one organization.

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There are many companies,
governments and nonprofits

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that have delivery armies just like this.

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And I believe we stand at a moment in time

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where collectively, we are capable of
delivering farm services to all farmers.

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Let me show you how possible this is.

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This is a map of Sub-Saharan Africa,

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with a map of the United States for scale.

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I chose Sub-Saharan Africa because
this is a huge delivery territory.

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It's very challenging.

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But we analyzed every 50-mile
by 50-mile block on the continent,

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and we found that half of farmers
live in just these shaded regions.

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That's a remarkably small area overall.

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If you were to lay these boxes
next to each other

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within a map of the United States,

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they would only cover
the Eastern United States.

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You can order pizza
anywhere in this territory

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and it'll arrive to your house
hot, fresh and delicious.

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If America can deliver pizza
to an area of this size,

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then Africa's companies,
governments and non-profits

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can deliver farm services
to all of her farmers.

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This is possible.

NOTE Paragraph

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I'm going to wrap up by generalizing
beyond just farming.

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In every field of human development,

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humanity has already invented
effective tools to end poverty.

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We just need to deliver them.

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So again, in every area
of human development,

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super-smart people a long time ago
invented inexpensive,

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highly effective tools.

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Humanity is armed to the teeth

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with simple, effective
solutions to poverty.

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We just need to deliver these
to a pretty small area.

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Again using the map
of Sub-Saharan Africa as an example,

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remember that rural poverty is
concentrated in these blue shaded areas.

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Urban poverty is even more concentrated,
in these green little dots.

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Again, using a map
of the United States for scale,

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this is what I would call
a highly achievable delivery zone.

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In fact, for the first time
in human history,

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we have a vast amount of delivery
infrastructure available to us.

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The world's companies,
governments and non-profits

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have delivery armies
that are fully capable

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of covering this relatively small area.

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We just lack the will.

NOTE Paragraph

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If we are willing,

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every one of us has a role to play.

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We first need more people to pursue
careers in human development,

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especially if you live
in a developing nation.

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We need more front line health workers,
teachers, farmer trainers,

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sales agents for life-improving goods.

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These are the delivery people
that dedicate their careers

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to improving the lives of others.

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But we also need a lot of support roles.

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These are roles available
at just my organization alone,

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and we're just one out of many.

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This may surprise you, but no matter
what your technical specialty,

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there is a role for you in this fight.

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And no matter how logistically possible
it is to end poverty,

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we need a lot more resources.

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This is our number one constraint.

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For private investors, we need
a big expansion of venture capital,

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private equity, working capital,
available in emerging markets.

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But there are also limits
to what private business can accomplish.

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Private businesses often struggle
to profitably serve the extreme poor,

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so philanthropy still has
a major role to play.

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Anybody can give,
but we need more leadership.

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We need more visionary philanthropists

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and global leaders who will take
problems in human development

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and lead humanity to wipe them
off the face of the planet.

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If you're interested in these ideas,
check out this website.

NOTE Paragraph

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We need more leaders.

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Humanity has put people on the moon.

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We've invented supercomputers
that fit into our pockets

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and connect us with anybody on the planet.

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We've run marathons
at a five-minute mile pace.

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We are an exceptional people.

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But we've left more than one billion
of our members behind.

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Until every girl like this one
has an opportunity

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to earn her full human potential,

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we have failed to become
a truly moral and just human race.

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Logistically speaking,
it's incredibly possible

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to end extreme poverty.

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We just need to deliver
proven goods and services

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to everybody.

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If we have the will, every one of us
has a role to play.

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Let's deploy our time, our careers,

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our collective wealth.

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Let us deliver an end to extreme poverty

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in this lifetime.

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)