WEBVTT 00:00:06.025 --> 00:00:10.042 After interviewing thousands of poor farmers 00:00:10.042 --> 00:00:17.002 in countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, China, México, and Zambia 00:00:17.002 --> 00:00:21.061 I’ve learned that practical solutions to extreme poverty 00:00:21.061 --> 00:00:25.085 can only come from listening to poor people themselves 00:00:25.085 --> 00:00:30.056 not from the army of poverty experts in the world. 00:00:30.056 --> 00:00:34.071 I’ve developed 12 practical steps for problem solving 00:00:34.071 --> 00:00:38.053 that have helped 17 million people move out of poverty 00:00:38.053 --> 00:00:42.060 and into the middle class forever. 00:00:42.060 --> 00:00:47.064 These 12 steps apply equally well to finding practical solutions 00:00:47.064 --> 00:00:51.080 to the big social problems you may be working on. 00:00:51.080 --> 00:00:57.067 I’ve described these 12 steps in my book, Out of Poverty. 00:00:57.067 --> 00:00:59.077 For the last five years I’ve been working on a book 00:00:59.077 --> 00:01:02.028 and I’ve finally finished it. 00:01:02.028 --> 00:01:07.077 It took me five years to write a measly 200 pages. 00:01:07.077 --> 00:01:11.009 The book is called Out of Poverty: 00:01:11.009 --> 00:01:17.088 What works when traditional approaches fail. 00:01:17.088 --> 00:01:21.040 I really wrote the book to create a revolution 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:26.035 in how we think about poverty and what we do about it. 00:01:26.035 --> 00:01:32.037 It won’t create the revolution by itself but I hope it helps. 00:01:32.037 --> 00:01:39.074 For the past 25 years two questions have plagued my curiosity. 00:01:39.074 --> 00:01:42.055 What makes poor people poor? 00:01:42.055 --> 00:01:47.081 And what can they do about it? 00:01:47.081 --> 00:01:51.007 Because of these two infernal questions, 00:01:51.007 --> 00:01:58.058 I’ve had long conversations with thousands of one acre farmers in developing countries. 00:01:58.058 --> 00:02:02.016 What I learned made it possible for IDE, 00:02:02.016 --> 00:02:05.085 the development organization I started 25 years ago, 00:02:05.085 --> 00:02:13.009 to help 17 million $1-a-day people move out of poverty forever. 00:02:13.009 --> 00:02:17.013 The first three steps to practical problem solving are 00:02:17.013 --> 00:02:23.006 probably the most obvious, the most simple, and the least frequently followed. 00:02:23.006 --> 00:02:29.004 The first is go to where the action is. 00:02:29.004 --> 00:02:31.020 You can’t sit in your office at the World Bank 00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:38.004 and figure out how to solve the problem of poverty in Myanmar. 00:02:38.004 --> 00:02:41.091 Step 2, talk to the people who have the problem 00:02:41.091 --> 00:02:45.069 and listen to what they have to say. 00:02:45.069 --> 00:02:51.021 In the 1990s, agriculture experts in Bangladesh were dismayed 00:02:51.021 --> 00:02:58.053 at the tiny amounts of fertilizer small farmers in Bangladesh were applying to their monsoon rice crops. 00:02:58.053 --> 00:03:03.084 They set up intensive farmer education programs but nothing worked. 00:03:03.084 --> 00:03:08.084 Finally, somebody asked a couple of farmers why they use so little fertilizer. 00:03:08.084 --> 00:03:10.024 “That’s easy,” they said. 00:03:10.024 --> 00:03:15.056 “Every year 10 years or so we have a major flood that wipes out everything we plant. ..." 00:03:15.056 --> 00:03:22.035 "... So we only use as much fertilizer as we can afford to lose in a 10 year flood.” 00:03:22.035 --> 00:03:30.053 All of a sudden these farmers were transformed from ignorant, superstitious peasants, 00:03:30.053 --> 00:03:35.037 to people who could teach the agricultural experts a thing or two. 00:03:35.037 --> 00:03:41.064 Step 3, learn everything there is to know about the problem’s specific context. 00:03:41.064 --> 00:03:44.065 The specific context of 800 million 00:03:44.065 --> 00:03:48.078 of the 1.2 billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day, 00:03:48.078 --> 00:03:55.009 is a tiny farm with poor soils, and no irrigation. 00:03:55.009 --> 00:03:57.003 These farms are typically one acre, 00:03:57.003 --> 00:04:02.000 and split into 4 or 5 separate scattered plots. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:03.091 So here’s the fourth point, 00:04:03.091 --> 00:04:09.042 if you come up with a solution to a problem there is no reason to be modest. 00:04:09.042 --> 00:04:14.088 Some of the biggest problems in the world really require big solutions, 00:04:14.088 --> 00:04:21.079 which are really small solutions applied thousands and thousands of times. 00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:24.088 Step 5, think like a child. 00:04:24.088 --> 00:04:31.028 It’s a little bit ironic that thinking big and thinking like a child go together, but they do. 00:04:31.028 --> 00:04:38.098 You have to think like a child to find the obvious solution to a big problem that people have missed. 00:04:38.098 --> 00:04:43.033 Step 6, see and do the obvious. 00:04:43.033 --> 00:04:48.020 If we can’t see our blind spots how can we see and do the obvious? 00:04:48.020 --> 00:04:53.002 Immersing yourself in the problem helps. 00:04:53.002 --> 00:04:58.066 Step 7, if somebody already invented it you don’t have to. 00:04:58.066 --> 00:05:05.005 It’s easy these days to look for solutions that other people may have already come up with. 00:05:05.005 --> 00:05:15.063 Step 8, make sure your approach has positive measurable impacts that can be brought to scale. 00:05:15.063 --> 00:05:21.072 Step 9, design to specific price targets. 00:05:21.072 --> 00:05:27.014 Affordability rules the design process for poor customers. 00:05:27.014 --> 00:05:31.001 Number 10, follow practical 3 year plans. 00:05:31.001 --> 00:05:36.038 No matter how powerful and world changing your vision for the future is, 00:05:36.038 --> 00:05:42.024 unless you can translate it into an effective work plan for the first three years, 00:05:42.024 --> 00:05:46.003 you’ll never get there. 00:05:46.003 --> 00:05:52.067 Step 11, continue to learn from your customers. 00:05:52.067 --> 00:05:58.079 When I started IDE I decided I would interview at least 100 customers a year 00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:00.037 and I’ve done that. 00:06:00.037 --> 00:06:07.075 At this point I’ve interviewed more than 3000 poor farm families, 00:06:07.075 --> 00:06:12.019 and walked around with them through their farms. 00:06:12.019 --> 00:06:15.006 When they told me that they’ve invested 00:06:15.006 --> 00:06:16.084 their new income from a treadle pump 00:06:16.084 --> 00:06:19.080 in the education of their kids, 00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:22.010 we designed a $12 solar lantern 00:06:22.010 --> 00:06:26.012 so their kids could read at night. 00:06:26.012 --> 00:06:27.045 When they said they invested 00:06:27.045 --> 00:06:30.077 some of their money from a drip system 00:06:30.077 --> 00:06:34.041 in a milk buffalo or in some goats, 00:06:34.041 --> 00:06:37.090 we learned everything there was to learn about small livestock 00:06:37.090 --> 00:06:44.089 and started helping farmers with small livestock operations. 00:06:44.089 --> 00:06:49.038 Number 12, don’t be distracted by what other people say. 00:06:49.038 --> 00:06:52.024 Just about everything that I have worked on 00:06:52.024 --> 00:06:55.030 that has turned out to be a smashing success, 00:06:55.030 --> 00:07:00.058 I’ve heard many people tell me that I was wasting my time. 00:07:00.058 --> 00:07:03.045 One and a half million treadle pumps later, 00:07:03.045 --> 00:07:10.035 we have 750 thousand acres newly under irrigation. 00:07:10.035 --> 00:07:14.089 If I had listened to people who told me it was a waste of time, 00:07:14.089 --> 00:07:17.045 we never have gotten there. 00:07:17.045 --> 00:07:20.068 If you’re willing to go out on a limb, 00:07:20.068 --> 00:07:25.058 visit the people who have the problem, in their real life setting 00:07:25.058 --> 00:07:30.018 and listen to what they have to say, 00:07:30.018 --> 00:07:31.038 and most importantly, 00:07:31.038 --> 00:07:34.041 have a keen interest in learning new things, 00:07:34.041 --> 00:07:36.073 then this approach is for you. 00:07:36.073 --> 00:07:39.099 If you and your group decide the best thing you can do is donate money, 00:07:39.099 --> 00:07:43.076 make sure you pick organizations that have measurable impacts, 00:07:43.076 --> 00:07:47.035 like poverty organizations that increase the income 00:07:47.035 --> 00:08:25.073 of people who live on less than a dollar a day.