Do you remember Bono, the lead singer for the band U2?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
His music gained popularity in the 1980s and made him rich and famous. Admirably, in the decades since, Bono has dedicated his life to activism on behalf of the world\u2019s poor, especially in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n
Unfortunately, Bono\u2019s main solution tended toward greater government aid and ever greater handouts.<\/p>\n\n\n
(And handouts can often do more harm than good.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
So it was surprising to see Bono admit in a recent interview with The New York Times<\/i> that his eyes have been opened:<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cI ended up as an activist in a very different place from where I started. I thought that if we just redistributed resources, then we could solve every problem. I now know that\u2019s not true. There\u2019s a funny moment when you realize that as an activist: The off-ramp out of extreme poverty is, ugh, commerce, it\u2019s entrepreneurial capitalism.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
I am glad Bono has come around! He still has a powerful voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
His current stance is where Mission Resource (the organization I now work for) has always been. (And without the \u201cugh\u201d!) Next year we will be celebrating two full decades of encouraging \u201centrepreneurial capitalism\u201d in Africa for some of the world\u2019s poorest people by providing the loans they need to build their businesses and their lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It struck me that what Bono went on to say about capitalism and globalizing markets could apply equally to our ministry through Mission Resource:<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cIf somebody comes to me with a better idea, I\u2019ll sign up. I didn\u2019t grow up to like the idea that we\u2019ve made heroes out of businesspeople, but if you\u2019re bringing jobs to a community and treating people well, then you are a hero. That\u2019s where I\u2019ve ended up.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
I agree with Bono: bringing jobs and kindness to a poor community is heroic!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Mission Resource is blessed with heroes on both sides of the Atlantic: our Ghanaian staff who do the legwork and our financial partners here in the States who make it possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you remember Bono, the lead singer for the band U2?\u00a0 His music gained popularity in the 1980s and made him rich and famous. Admirably, in the decades since, Bono has dedicated his life to activism on behalf of the world\u2019s poor, especially in Africa. Unfortunately, Bono\u2019s main solution tended toward greater government aid and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10418,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10417\/revisions\/10418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}