Crossfire: Can Effective Programming Approaches to Lift People Over the Poverty Line Focus on Market Systems Alone?
This debate, featured in the latest issue of Enterprise Development & Microfinance, discusses priorities and leverage points for resilience investments.
More Info
With the increase of 8.5 per cent or 56 million people falling into extreme poverty in 2021–2, effective development programming has become more urgent. Different approaches will be addressed in this crossfire.
The two debaters bring a wealth of experience to the topic. Kristin O’Planick is a market systems expert with more than 20 years of international development experience, including with the Peace Corps, Chemonics International, Inc., and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She is currently the Market Systems Team Lead in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS). John Meyer is a food security specialist with nearly 30 years’ experience consulting on and managing development programming in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He currently serves as Senior Strategy and Impact Advisor in the Center for Resilience at USAID/RFS.
Today, 711 million people live in extreme poverty. Our debaters will argue whether effective programming approaches to lift people over the poverty line can focus on market systems alone or whether they need to be complemented by efforts at the bottom of the pyramid (funded by donors) to promote extremely poor households’ financial inclusion and their participation in market systems (World Bank, 2022).
