The Poverty Industrial Complex: The Hidden Side of “Doing Good”

IMPACT TALK — POVERTY, INC

Drawing on perspectives gathered from over 150 interviews shot over 4 years in 20 countries, Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. From disaster relief to TOMs Shoes, from adoptions to agricultural subsidies, Poverty, Inc. follows the butterfly effect of our most well-intentioned efforts and pulls back the curtain on the poverty industrial complex — the multi-billion dollar market of NGOs, multilateral agencies, and for-profit aid contractors. Are we catalyzing development or are we propagating a broken system? In this Impact Talk, Co-producer of Poverty Inc, Mark Weber and Daniela Papi-Thornton, Former Deputy Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship explore the tendency “to turn the poor into the objects of our charity” instead of dynamic subjects with their own complex narratives.