Last week I wrote about a new trend in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in which companies target the world's poorest people to move them up a notch on the ladder of economic development and profit from them as well.( I went to a slum in Angono, Rizal, here in the Philippines, to see how one Philippine company is putting this business model into practice.
There is something in development circles called Community Driven Development. At its worst, it's a buzzword that helps bureaucratic development banks feel warm and fuzzy for a moment or two. But outside the context of development jargon, it can be the key to a community thriving.