What do poor people do?

Add your description here.

And how is “development” doing at giving people all this? Not so well. For example, donors have tended to focus on poor people as entrepreneurs and assumed that they will want to start their own businesses with access to microfinance, rather than prioritising creating jobs or equipping people to get the jobs that are available. Aid for infrastructure was on the decline for years before the Chinese government stepped in and reawakened interest in the sector. And issues of personal security, of respect and dignity, are very low down the programming agenda for most big agencies. This doesn’t mean that people don’t want the things that have been provided. The schools, hospitals, vaccinations and all the other priorities of the aid sector over the last 10 years or so have unquestionably made life very much better for many people.