Corporations in Liberia: Big Contracts, Not So Big Impact

The standard notion that large multinationals will generate large-scale employment creates a palpable excitement in Liberia. But jobs won’t occur through direct employment with those corporations. This is where Peace Dividend Trust comes in: helping to unleash the development — and job creation — power of Liberia’s private sector.

Maximizing Liberia’s Entrepreneurial Hustle

Seeing the private sector develop through the entrepreneurial hustle of individual Liberians – not the Liberian government or government aid agencies – is not only exceptionally impressive, but important in a country where support services for nascent businesses are mostly nonexistent.

Women working at the Liberian Women’s Sewing Project in Monrovia. Photo from CNN

GOING DUTCH IN AFGHANISTAN

Why the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s estimate that 97% of Afghanistan’s GDP is reliant upon military and donor aid is misleading, to say the least.

Côte d’Ivoire’s COCOA BAN BACKFIRES

There was good news out of the world’s biggest cocoa exporter, Côte d’Ivoire, this week. On Tuesday, a ship filled with cocoa beans harvested in the West African country left for Antwerp. It was the first ship to carry cocoa out of the country since the three and a half month ban on cocoa exports was lifted. While that is good news, that there was a ban at all is a point of concern. It has choked Côte d’Ivoire’s marketplace.

FOR MOTHER’S DAY, DON’T FORGET THE LUGNUT

Is selling Haitian artisans’ work at Macy’s smart aid?

LEVERAGING LIBERIA’S EXPATS

We recently discovered the Liberia Expat Google group, and we couldn’t be happier. It’s the perfect example of what PDT does but on a smaller scale. Think Yellow Pages meets Match.com.

GIRL POWER! SUCCESS STORIES FROM PDT

Today is International Women’s Day. At Peace Dividend Trust (PDT) we’re celebrating by showcasing the female entrepreneurs that we work with everyday.

WORLD VISION: WHAT ARE YOU SEEING?

PDT is throwing its hat into the ring on the World Vision NFL T-Shirt debate. @good_intents (via @saundra_s) has an aggregated listing, thanks Saundra!

There are several reasons why donating unwanted T-shirts to developing countries is not smart aid. But it all boils down to the fact that it distorts the local economy by killing competition. Why would anyone buy a T-shirt in Zambia or Nicaragua when they can just get one for free? The local T-shirt manufacturer and seller is now out of business, at least temporarily, and in a developing economy it is imperative that money is kept circulating with the buying and selling of basic goods.

CAN MICROFINANCE REDUCE POVERTY?

Microfinance seems to be the latest buzz word in the international development world, thanks to several high-profile micro-lending organizations and the recent string of predatory lending schemes practiced by several Western-world, wealthy lenders. The direction microfinance takes in the future will determine whether microfinance can help alleviate poverty on a large scale.