Mara Forbes, Ariana MacPherson & Noah Schermbrucker – City Finance That Works For And With The Poor

Ills.: obrag.org

The global economic system is inherently unequal and the poor bear the full brunt of this nequality. In other words, the way finance flows and the systems that perpetuate resource distribution are inherently weighted against inclusion of the poor. Banks do not supply loans on terms affordable to slum dwellers, cities sink budgets into formal taxpaying areas rather than slums while policies, rules and regulations prop up a grossly uneven distribution of wealth. Traditional market finance does not, and in all likelihood cannot, work for the poor on a city scale – slums continue to grow, as does the gap between rich and poor, north and south. The problem is not poor people’s inability to access the global economy but the formal global economy’s inability to provide solutions that are flexible enough to include the poor.