Dan Phillips Quotes

Maximum Feasible Participation of the Poor

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

The only way to end poverty, to make it history, is to build viable systems on the ground that deliver critical and affordable goods and services to the poor, in ways that are financially sustainable and scaleable. If we do that, we really can make poverty history.

The movement toward a holistic approach to community development has been long in the making, but the housing crisis has motivated further progress.

In 2009, designer Tina Tangalakis went on a volunteer trip to Ghana and instantly fell in love with the country and its people. It was from that trip that Della was born, a company that provides jobs, education, and skills training to women in Ghana.

Growing economies are critical; we will never be able to end poverty unless economies are growing. We also need to find ways of growing economies so that the growth creates good jobs, especially for young people, especially for women, especially for the poorest who have been excluded from the economic system.

We spend billions on international aid annually, but we don't find ways to connect people to dignified work. I realized that if we don't think about ways to harness private capital to solve problems, we're leaving large amounts of money on the table and doing ourselves a disservice.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

I'm the founder and CEO of Sama Group, a family of social enterprises - Samasource, Samahope and SamaUSA - that are working to alleviate poverty by connecting the global community to opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and here in the U.S.

A ghetto can be improved in only one way; out of existence.

A generation of entrepreneurs will mop up poverty at a rate that no government ever could.

By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. By extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty

Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy - entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model.

If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended. It can never be finished. But a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.

Traditional charity and aid are never going to solve the problems of poverty.

The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance.

Without a solution to the problems of the poor, we will not solve the problems of the world. We need projects, mechanisms and processes to implement better distribution of resources, from the creation of new jobs to the integral promotion of those who are excluded'.

Purpose has always been part of Unilever's DNA. Our founder, William Lever, built a business around the sale of Lifebuoy soap that was not only profitable and sustainable but also helped transform the health of the poor in Victorian Britain.

And in rural communities we've worked alongside, Haitians are doing far more than merely recovering from the earthquake. Many are creating long-term sustainable change.

We need a better strategy for poor people...because what we're doing isn't working.

Meaningful solutions to the problems of mass poverty that prevails in India I believe can only be found in the framework of an expanding economy.

This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty.

The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes.

I have always believed that the ultimate purpose of economic policies and development policy is to meet the basic needs of our people. And for that, we need a fast-expanding economy.