The human spirit is extraordinary. If we give the 3 billion people who live in poverty the opportunity to change their lives, they will. For too long, we've looked at needing to "save" these people - with an emphasis on "these people" - rather than removing the constraints keeping them from solving their own problems.

The only way to end poverty, to make it history, is to build viable systems on the ground that deliver critical and affordable goods and services to the poor, in ways that are financially sustainable and scaleable. If we do that, we really can make poverty history.

We often don't realize what our action & our inaction do to people we think we will never see & never know.

As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce.

I have seen that traditional approaches to charity and aid don't solve problems of poverty. In fact, too often they create dependence.

If indeed we can create systems that allow individuals to access goods and services like health and housing and energy and water, in a way that they can afford, they'll all have greater choice, greater opportunity, greater dignity.

The time for change is now.