What do people in developing countries really need?
Bureaucracy.
Says journalist Maite Vermeulen in this article: Wat is oersaai en gaat de wereld redden? (Hint: wij hebben er een hekel aan).
“It took the Peruvian development economist Hernando de Soto 168 administrative actions and 13 to 25 years to register houses of the poor in the Philippines. In Egypt 77 administrative actions at 31 separate desks were needed for a building permission.”
Obviously, it turns out that when people have the security of ownership certificates, they will invest more in their houses or lands. “Farmers with land titles, plant trees more often that, in turn, provide a life-long income. They spend less time to guard the place and have more time for other things, like earning an additional income.”
Another example: “The British tax expert Lee Corrick came to Kenya in 2011 to train local tax inspectors. Because the Kenyan tax authority had problems with a multinational for a long period of time. Two workshops and a firm discussion with the multinational, finally paid off with a 23 million US dollar payment. The income of the Kenyan tax authority doubled after the help of Corrick.”
In short the article deals about the need of bureaucratic security to be able to build a future. Do governments or ngos provide that?
Read all (in Dutch): Wat is oersaai en gaat de wereld redden? (Hint: wij hebben er een hekel aan).
