Lecturer Tackles Global Health Care Systems

“There are very few universities around the world that teach health care systems,” said Joseph Antoun, an associate public policy consultant at Eli Lilly and Company. “Those who do focus on mature systems and in doing so, they limit the expertise of their students and forgo teaching about systems [encountered by] more than half of the world’s population.”

Read whole article here.

The Global Financial Crisis: Counting the Social Costs

The World Bank estimates that because of the current global financial crisis 53 million people, who would otherwise have escaped poverty, will remain trapped. At a time when the world is questioning the foundations of finance and economics, one model that is bridging the gap between social responsibility and capitalism—microfinance—finds its mission suddenly harder to achieve.

Fortunately for the field, it has not been as integrated into banking and currency markets as the rest of the global financial system, though it is becoming more closely linked as the field grows. Its foundation in local markets, close-knit ties with the communities it serves, and a history of surviving past economic shocks positions it well to ride out the current turmoil. But the crisis may also hold many of the world’s poor in dire poverty, and microfinance can not reach them all.

One of the primary reasons for the field’s success—with or without a crisis—lies in working closely with the people it serves. The “double bottom line” for microfinance institutions (MFIs) means that one mark of success is its positive social impacts.

Read more here. Visit CGAP (link below) to learn more about development finance.

Developing India: Microfinance on the Ground in Asia and Africa

After backpacking around northern India for a week, I took an intra-country flight to the south and arrived in Chennai. The differences between northern and southern India are quite striking. As the scripts on street signs change so does the reason for my trip.

My purpose in Chennai is to help coordinate a microfinance conference for ShoreCap Exchange, the company with which I intern. The organizations encourage peer learning exchange between banks in order to increase access to financial services in underserved communities globally. During the last week of March, ShoreCap Exchange hosted 10 institutions at a branch management forum. Participants came from countries in Asia and Africa, including Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Rwanda, the Gambia, Kenya, and Mongolia.

Microfinance is a relatively new movement in international development that straddles the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Microfinance institutions (also known as MFIs) are funded with money from international donors (such as governmental aid programs), private funds, or nonprofits. Part of a larger trend towards “inclusive finance,” MFIs, alongside regulated banks, provide a variety of financial products at a reasonable cost to those who would not otherwise have access to them.

Read full article here.

From Chicago to Chennai: Policymaking on a Backpacker’s Budget

We must first learn from what has already been done—on the ground, not just in the classroom.

“International development” has long been an important topic in economics departments, including within the very notable University of Chicago’s under Milton Friedman. But while development theories battled in academia during the latter-half of the twentieth century, on-the-ground work in one very important area—the field of microfinance—was just beginning.

This spring break I took my grounding in University of Chicago economics training to the field to study microfinance in its biggest and most promising market: India.

Complete article here.

i lie in bed in the mornings, savoring the silence and mind-stillness of the day. i try to cling to that peace which was so present in india and is less than fleeting here. there is no stillness from the first-floor walkup on Broadway.

waves of sleep hit and lift-- aligning, yes, with the rise and fall of the sun, but their weight is oppressive. i cannot fight the urge to sleep at 7pm and i wake up sore from the corpselike rest of a long night: unmoving and resftul. i avoid the clusterfucking of the mind: radio, internet, i-pod.

one returns to taxes, car registrations past due, and moldy vegetables.

it's about...

"it's about being able to fly,
it's about dying nine times."

~Katie Melua, Belfast

wanderling

they say not all who wander are lost, but i am.

fadling

and it all fades... fading, the depth of love, fading the ties that bind me to Home, that bind me to the freedom of wherever. fading, what happened in india, the surprise, the newness, the smell. it. all. fades.

~

"incredible india," as it's known, becomes a motto for the frustrations of everyday life and travel here. when your taxi comes within inches of slamming into a 10-year-old who's just darted across a state highway: Incredible India.

...but it hits me: i love this travel alone. thisthis is not like the month-long belizean trot: perhaps i was not free enough from...? to. be. free.

how can i come home with nothing to say? i know you're going to look at me that way, and ask 'what did you do out there?' 'what did you find?' 'you said you needed time; you had time. you had time.' ~ani difranco, you had time.

development

development: the uneven road from where we've come to where we're going. it is the state of the in-between, though it is lived out in eternal present-tense.
development is plastic bags and candy wrappers littering the whole of an inhabited country.
in gutters, at the sides of roads, in water, lakes, rivers, streams, along mountain pathways, scattered in gardens, concentrated just-over-the-fences in yards.
alongside homes.
cows, sheep feed in garbage piles in cities. children play among it, searching for lost balls. women sit in its heaps, pulling out salvageable cloth, cardboard, or tin.
"plastics make it possible": Development.

lake Dal

on the boat ride from the houseboat to the city, the rower says, quite under his breath and quite heavily-accented, "You are so beautiful."

i look up in surprise, but then smile at him.

he puts his head down and rows harder.

hello

two army officials, ever-present in their posts and with their machine guns, approach us in the snow. they speak in Hindi to bashir as we walk; they are of the few who do not speak english. the conversation lasts quite a while. i can pick out only such references as "america," "usa," and "english." as they leave, one looks at me and says, "english?"

"yes," i say.
"hello."
i respond, "nemeste."
their faces brighten.

later, i ask bashir what the conversation was about. he says only, "a lot of things." not happily.

we walk on.

another time.

"how many children do you want?"
"seven."
"seven? did you hear me say that earlier?"
"no," i say. "i just want seven."
"me too." now, he will say that he has found the mother of his seven children.

things we believe

"i do not believe in everything my Book has to say."

bashir

he has a daughter my age, my guide, and i believe he thinks of her and prays for me.

yesterday we traveled to the foothills of the himalayas- to ski- but the snow was melting. so he and i walked, walked around the resort in silence and few words. many men spoke to him, in kashmiri and urdu, about me. where i am from, why i am here. and so forth.

a women came up to me as we walked through a garden. she grabbed my face with both hands, "oh! little sweetie! how are you my sweetie?" i was bewildered: wide-eyed and silent for a few moments. she laughed. we moved on. and i laughed.

men will not touch be here, if they can help it, even to lend a hand to get into or out of a boat. they maintain a respectful distance.

thisthis

there is a calmness, here, in these noises. on a houseboat on lake Dal, kashmir, india. men's voices, cantor as earlymorning exchanges for fresh eggs, fish, flowers.

thisthis is my morning, and it is where i truly belong. herehere there is no contradiction between a past of unfaithful fringes and a future of one love; this is peaceful water ripples left by hand-rowed boats. this is women in hijab saris floating by. this is peace.

There Are Places Where Men Dominate.

arriving at the Kashmir Airport, customs/ security is nothing less than dozens of armed, uniformed officers standing in tow, and nothing more than unabashed staring at the short, pale women in a flowing skirt and tank top.

i'd thought i was fully covered with my long-sleeved jacket on, but i misestimated the scale.

i find myself more often in discomfort here-- there are far less non-Indian tourists than i'd anticipated-- and women. i do not feel physically threatened, or for my things, but i feel as if i am a novely, a unique and foreigh thing. perhaps in the states we treat burka'd women the same way, but at least they have something to hide behind.

all around, young people ask me for my photograph. at the Taj Mahal, boys in their teens and early twenties snapped pictures of me discreetly on their cell phones-- their friends posing as blockers. i caught many of them; i glared.

my tour guide/ 'security guard' warned me of this after it happened. i asked why. he said, 'because you are pretty.'

i countered, 'because i don't look indian?' 'yes,' he said, 'that.' but i suspect it is less not being indian and more not wearing a long, loose, flowing sari with a scarf appropriately covering my chest.

a Beautiful woman today on the plane likewise asked if she could take my picture. 'you are sweet,' she said.

later

'i love your fair skin,' said the jewelry man. 'i washed my hands so hard, but they are not like yours.'

~there is a man here whose eyes i have long known.~

'this is so pleasant,' i think,
sitting a top a bench, facing hapgar's tomb-- a mini Taj Mahal.
the breeze is just such, as i watch tour groups come in and go out. birds sing songs, and yes, this is what i had imagined india to be.

there was a faint familiarity already with this country-- no surprise to see the women in their saris, men in khakis and sandals. even the poverty is to be expected.

-later-

from chicago to chennai: policymaking on a backpacker's budget.