World Growth believes that helping the developing world realize its full potential is one of the great moral aims for those of us fortunate to live in the wealthy developed world. We also believe that a misdiagnosis of what ails the underdeveloped world has yielded policy prescriptions that have been useless or even harmful to the world’s “bottom billion.”
 
World Growth believes that there is enormous untapped human and economic potential around the world. In order to unlock that potential, and allow the poorest of the world’s poor a better life, it is necessary to realize changes in institutions and policies that permit growth and human flourishing.
 
Instead of aid and handouts, what the populations of developing countries need are social and political institutions and infrastructure that foster productive economic activity and generate robust economic growth. These include, but are not limited to, property rights and protections, the rule of law, free markets, open trade, government accountability and transparency.
 
For too long, well-meaning governments, aid agencies and others have promoted policies that fail to address the true problems that afflict poor societies. As a result, too many people around the globe remained locked in pre-modern conditions where their talents and inherent capacities are shackled.  
 
The people of the developing world are fully capable of helping themselves to ensure a more prosperous existence. The path to prosperity does not begin with handouts from the West. Instead it requires identifying the genuine obstacles to growth and highlighting paths to reform that will yield sustainable and lasting change.