Doing Development Differently — India: A Pathway to Prosperity in India

Doing Development Differently: Argentina — Centro Conin Empowers Mothers in Need

An early morning haze blankets Tigre—a vast and quiet neighborhood an hour away from the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires. The only sounds are that of children running through the streets and the howls of the stray dogs following behind. This is not a wealthy neighborhood—it’s a place where hundreds of children are waking…

Doing Development Differently: Nepal — Against the Grain: Permissionless Innovation in Nepal

A thick fog blankets the wide expanse of farmland each morning in the small village of Sugauli Birta, an agrarian community near the Indian border of Nepal. There is an accompanying silence as women and men rise with the sun to work. Sugauli Birta is a 9-hour drive—or an 11-minute flight—from the Nepali capital of…

Doing Development Differently: Costa Rica — Opportunity is Sweet

The process of making nougat—a gooey candy traditionally eaten at Christmastime—can take up to four hours and requires the utmost attention to detail. A creamy mixture of egg whites, honey, and caramelized sugar sprinkled with slivers of assorted nuts is quickly poured into trays lined with thin, edible paper. The warm, sticky mass is laid…

Doing Development Differently: India — From Floor to Sky: A street vendor in India finds his voice

Street vendors are an integral part of life in India. Vegetables, fruits, milk, clothing—everything people need for day-to-day living is available from sellers who trade in the open-air. Dinesh Kumar Dixit is one of those street vendors—known locally as a “rehri-patri walla”—and he’s spent the last 40 years standing on a Delhi street, selling the…

Doing Development Differently: Peru — Building Business, Building Community, Building Peru

Colorful stands of fruit line the streets, the tang of assorted spices fills the air, tuk tuk taxis flutter along dirt roads in orderly chaos, and vendors scurry to open up shop for eager customers. This is Mercado Mayorista—a market located in the heart of Cañete province, 70 miles outside of Lima. The huge market…

Doing Development Differently: Argentina — One computer in Dock Sud is a passport to the rest of the world

In the early hours of the morning, a remote neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires awakens. Streets begin swarming with cars, shopkeepers roll up metal doors, and families accompany their eager children to school. We are in Dock Sud, one of the most dangerous and poverty-stricken areas of Argentina—but in the midst of the…

Doing Development Differently: Argentina — Prosperity’s critical mass: Cooperativa La Juanita

The smell of freshly baked pan dulce fills the air outside of Cooperativa La Juanita, a brightly painted cluster of community buildings in Buenos Aires’ La Matanza neighborhood. With a full slate of educational programming and growing business enterprises, the cooperative, which is located in a busy urban neighborhood about 5 miles outside of Argentina’s…

Doing Development Differently: Peru — Marisol’s daily struggle for water in Pamplona Alta, Peru

An estimated 200,000 people live in the Pamplona region, and a vast majority don’t have running water. This daily struggle affects everything Marisol and her family does.

Helping Slash Business Requirements in Nepal

Economies can’t flourish when it’s difficult to start a business. The Samriddhi Foundation, an Atlas Network partner based in Nepal, had a recent victory reforming business registration procedures with the country’s Office of Company Registrar (OCR), reducing the time it takes to register a new domestic business from several days down to a maximum of 30 hours. Businesses…

Restoring Property Rights to Generational Apartheid Victims

As Mrs. Maria Mothupi held the official deed to her land for the first time, her face spread into a wide smile. Until she was 99 years old, she had never experienced living in her own home or in a home legally owned by her family, because she was only two years old when the…

Championing the Entrepreneur and Taxpayer in Ukraine

Ukraine’s people have been crushed for years under the weight of an authoritarian regime and a stagnant economy, but new Atlas Network partners are working to change the country’s direction. Ukrainian Economic Freedoms Foundation (UEFF), founded in 2015, is working on several projects to help reform the judicial system, streamline bureaucratic obstacles to business activity, provide taxpayers…

Helping the Poorest of the Poor by Legalizing 93 percent of India’s Workforce

India long has been known for its Permit Raj, also known as the Licensing Raj, which makes it difficult to establish a legal business and pushes many people into the informal economy. Indeed, more than 90 percent of Indians, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the nation’s GDP, work outside of the law. Street vendors play…

Audace Institut Afrique Creates New Model for Land Ownership in Côte d’Ivoire

To protect private property effectively, rights must be clearly defined. In Côte d’Ivoire, only four percent of all rural land is legally registered, which leaves virtually all of the non-urban population vulnerable to disputes. Part of the challenge lies in the prohibitive costs associated with engaging the formal system. For example, even small farming parcels…