The Ado about Development Results – I had my first experience of international development as an undergraduate member of AIESEC, the world largest international exchange organization run by student and recent graduates which specialized in International economics and development. AIESEC runs like a mini United Nations, giving its members the opportunity to work on community issues with a global perspective. I joined AIESEC in 1993 and became a member of my University local Executive Committee in 1995. From then till the end of my active work with the Organization in 2003, I held leadership and coordinating positions in three countries (Nigeria, Gabon and France) while I continue to do other development works alongside studies. In many of the assignments I undertook, one thing was common – a continuous attempt to introduce innovation in order to improve the impacts of the actions of a team.
I studied economics and education, with a minor in political science for my first degree. Shortly after graduation in 1997, my perspective began to change and I became more and more interested in international affairs as a major profession after reading and listening to a speech by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank from Bangladesh, during the State of the World Forum, held in the United States that year. In that speech, Dr. Yunus stated that some economic and financial theories that have helped create institutions we cherish in this modern days, are also most oftentimes impediments to the alleviation of poverty.
He let this out while narrating how the banks he approached to lend money to poor Bangladeshi artisans for small scale businesses have refused him on the pretext that there are strong theories and evidences that poor people cannot repay their credit. He would prove that wrong afterwards when he borrowed in his name and started lending to the poor. Those theoretical turnarounds, as we know gave birth to the concept of Micro Credit, which is now an example of change in development perspective the world has adopted from the Nobel Laureate in Economics….Click here to continue
