• Growing tomatoes to be an anti-viral drug delivery agent.
• Developing an inexpensive device to diagnose malaria.
• Using lasers to enhance immune response from vaccines.
• Infecting malaria-causing mosquitoes with a fungus that inhibits their ability to smell humans.

These grants are given to encourage scientists to pursue bold ideas that could result in breakthroughs related to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases.

The Gates Foundation also announced that it will be spending $73 million to help small farmers in impoverished countries.  This money will be used for a variety of different projects, such as developing drought-tolerant corn, implementing more efficient irrigation, and helping women develop agricultural training programs.

I wonder if God blessed Bill Gates to become one of the world’s richest people because he knew how much good Bill and Melinda would do with the money.

First, I find the term “bottom billion” inappropriate and offensive, as I have lived among many of these amazing people during the nearly two years I spent in Brazil. These people face almost hopeless poverty, have enormous challenges and we need to help them. However, they are not the “bottom billion”. These are beautiful people filled with amazing potential. These might be the poorest, most underprivileged people on earth, but I don’t agree with the label “bottom billion”.

Regardless of the semantics of the name for this group of people, I agree with Dr. Collier that we need to provide hope for these underprivileged people. Dr. Collier analyzes the role the United States took to help Europe after World War II as a model that the world can follow today to help solve this problem.

He recommends that we provide:

(1) AID

(2) TRADE – After WWII the US tore up the protectionist trade policy and totally reversed it, opening trade with Europe.

(3) SECURITY – After WWII, the US tore up it’s isolationist security policy and put hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe.

(4) GOVERNMENTS – Before WWII the US had not been willing to join the League of Nations, but after WWII we became part of a larger international community that helped create the solution for Europe.

DR. Collier spoke about the need to better utilize the resources booms in these under-developed countries. He recommended international standards to create informed societies, such as government financial transparency and competitive auction formats for contracts related to the developing country resources.

I agree with Dr. Collier that these lessons learned from the successfully rebuilding of Europe after WWII can provide us with several of the necessary pieces of the solution to end global poverty. However, many more solutions are available to help us solve this problem today as compared to 60 years ago. For, example, the power of the Internet allows us to facilitate microlending from millions of people around the world in a way that would have been impossible before the Internet.

Technology advances provide phenomenal solutions if they are shared with developing countries. For example, inexpensive solar panels can provide consistent power in developing countries that have struggled with insufficient and unreliably power supply. Inexpensive wireless technologies can facilitate communication necessary to efficiently run businesses, including access to telephones, email and the Internet. Vaccines for diseases such as malaria can help to halt the ravaging effects of these diseases.

Dr. Collier is right that we need to learn from the successes of the European construction after World War II, but let’s also open our minds to the additional innovative solutions that are available. We can certainly do a better job developing underprivileged countries today than was possible in the 1940s.

The video of Dr. Collier’s speech is embedded below:

Kiva works to qualify and monitor microfinance institutions (”Field Partners”) around the world. Then, these Field Partners post profiles of qualified local entrepreneurs on the Kiva website. Then, individual lenders (like you and I) can read through the profiles of business opportunities and decide which we would like to fund. Individual lenders can contribute just a few dollars, or the entire amount needed. Many requested loans are for just a few hundred dollars.

Once the needed capital is raised, Kiva sends the funds to the Field Partner, which distributes and administers the funds. The local entrepreneur then uses the funds to start or improve a business, or in some cases to improve living conditions. The borrower is supported by the Field Partner and often by a borrowing support group in the local community. Here are some examples of lending opportunities on Kiva:

• Help a fisherman buy a refrigerator in Azerbaijan.
• Improve a restaurant in Pakistan.
• Increase inventory in a spare parts stand in Ghana.
• Increase inventory for a timber business in Tanzania.
• Buy farming equipment and supplies in Samoa.

During the course of the loan, which usually lasts 6-8 months, the lender can receive journal updates and track repayments. Eventually, as the borrower repays the Field Partner, those funds are then returned to Kiva. Kiva claims that its borrowers have a historical repayment rate of 99.7%. Once the loan is fully repaid, the lender can elect to withdraw the funds, or to re-invest the funds in another lending opportunity. Lenders can choose to invest smaller amounts in a larger number of lending opportunities, and keep a portfolio of loans in which they are participating.

Field Partners do charge an interest rate to the borrowers, but Kiva will not work with organizations that charge too high of a rate. Kiva lenders do not receive interest because of U.S. government regulation. However, PayPal waives all transaction fees, so 100% of the funds loaned reach the entrepreneurs in developing countries.

According to Kiva, as of April 13, 2008, 40,577 loans totaling $27,502,710 have been made by 277,535 lenders through Kiva with an average loan size is $520.20.

I believe that most people who learn about Kiva are moved to help. So, what can we do to help? We can obviously choose to start lending, even if it is a very small amount. We can give Kiva gift certificates for birthdays and holiday gifts. Families could save their change, and together select the people to receiver their loans. We can also ask that others make contributions to our Kiva account for their gifts to us. I would LOVE to receive a Kiva contribution as a gift, because it would be far more meaningful to me than traditional gifts.

In addition to Kiva, eBay also operates a similar project, MicroPlace.