Meet Pakistan's Barefoot Entrepreneurs

In many rural villages in Northern India and Nepal, long-standing cultural norms have relegated women to subordinate positions in marriage and minimal educational opportunities, stifling the social, agricultural and economic development of entire communities. But with the NGO World Neighbors' work to increase female literacy and help initiate locally-controlled savings and credit groups, these areas' female residents have become a more empowered component of local development and progressive change.

Microcredit can get people into debt when used poorly. A company in Guatemala is giving products to poor entrepreneurs on consignment and then charging a commission upon sale and in this way removing the entrepreneurs' risk.

For years, policymakers have debated different approaches to helping the poor , but new data offers resounding evidence for a strategy that works: an approach known as a “Graduation” program. This method offers participants a “productive asset” to generate income with training on how to use it, as well as the resources (such as healthcare, food, loans, and coaching) to maintain the asset while building a pathway out of poverty.

The effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and hotter global temperatures, are already having drastic impact on many communities, especially the rural, agricultural regions of countries such as Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Mozambique. Earthrise explores how people in these communities are learning new skills, implementing new techniques, and are striving in every way possible to adapt to these environmental changes while creating hope for sustainable growth in the future.

Development work is evolving beyond short-term mission trips and one-off donations into a more comprehensive, in-depth model that addresses long-term sustainability of a solution paired with empowerment of those being served. MicroConsignment is a unique branch of micro-enterprise being implemented by non-profit SolCom in Guatemala that provides individuals in rural villages the skills and resources needed to start sustainable businesses.

The United States can outsource certain kinds of "microwork," such as accurately digitizing large swaths of information, to developing countries without taking jobs from Americans ― if it’s done carefully, and ethically, as some organizations are working to do. As the author Robert Wright has argued, we no longer live in a zero-sum world, where one person’s, or one country’s gain, must be another’s loss.

Two columns on microconsignment, a new variation on microcredit that helps poor people living in developing countries - particularly women in rural villages - start small social businesses without taking on debt or requiring previous business skills. The organization, Soluciones Comunitarias, partners with a non-profit and a university student program to manage the supply chain and other components of the business necessary to support the social entrepreneurs in successful micro-ventures.

The Philadelphia-based company Solar States offers a paid training opportunity for city residents to learn to install solar panels and earn the necessary credentials to help them start careers in the industry. The company’s newest program, Find Your Ladder, is a training opportunity for people who have been through the criminal justice system.

The Chinese government is providing money, livestock, and better homes to successfully help break the cycle of poverty. $700 billion in loans and grants have gone toward the rural poverty alleviation program in addition to investments in infrastructure and job creation. The program is intended for those experiencing extreme poverty in the countryside. Critics predict that the program is unsustainably expensive but the short-term results are promising.

Mark Brown has brought Ghandian economic principles of economic justice and local autonomy to the Mexican countryside to form a farm-to-garment textile business that employs villagers who once made woolen textiles until the industrial clothing era started producing cheap synthetic clothing and rendered their craft unprofitable. Khadi Oaxaca aims to regenerate the village way of life in a sustainable way and employs several hundred villagers who grow the cotton, spin the thread, design the clothing and bring it to market for tourists - bringing a previously economically depressed village out of poverty.