(February 15, 2008) IDE founder Paul Polak has collected his experiences from more than 25 years finding innovative solutions to poverty in a new book, Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail, now available from Berrett-Kohler Publishers.
In this hard-hitting new book, Paul Polak tells why traditional poverty eradication programs have fallen so short, and how he and his organization developed an alternative approach that has succeeded in lifting 17 million people out of poverty. In the book, Polak explodes what he calls the “Three Great Poverty Eradication Myths”: that we can donate people out of poverty, that national economic growth will end poverty, and that Big Business, operating as it does now, will end poverty.
Throughout the book Polak tells fascinating and moving stories about the people he and IDE have helped, especially Krishna Bahadur Thapa, a Nepali farmer who went from barely surviving to earning $4,800 a year—solidly upper middle class by local standards. Out of Poverty offers a new and promising way to end world poverty, one that honors the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor themselves.
Polak will tour the US during 2008 in support of the book, beginning with a book launch event on February 28 at the Tattered Cover bookstore in lower downtown Denver. Other book signing events will be announced through Paul's website as information becomes available.
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