In today's world, the elites are growing even more comfortable with one another across national lines, yet at the same time, less comfortable with low-income people who share their nationality. How we create those bonds of community that are truly global as well as national is one of our generation's great challenges.
Jacqueline NovogratzAs 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.
Jacqueline NovogratzIf you're looking at distributing alternative energy in Nigeria, for instance, what gets in your way is not people's ability to pay, not people's desire for a clean solar lamps or biomass opportunities. But there is a strong status quo that really depends on selling diesel.
Jacqueline NovogratzFor too much of history, we've viewed the world's precious resources - both environmental and human - as things to extract, to make the most of in order to maximize their potential.
Jacqueline NovogratzMay each of you live lives of immersion. They won't necessarily be easy lives. But in the end, it is all that will sustain us.
Jacqueline NovogratzI believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.
Jacqueline NovogratzI think we so often equate leadership with being experts - the leader is supposed to come in and fix things. But in this interconnected world we live in now, it's almost impossible for just one person to do that.
Jacqueline NovogratzPoverty is too complex to be answered with a one-size-fits-all approach, and if there is any place that illustrates that complexity, as well as a better way forward, it is Rwanda.
Jacqueline NovogratzI wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.
Jacqueline NovogratzI was going to save the world, and I thought I would start with the African continent.
Jacqueline NovogratzThere are cases where government-to-government aid actually has worked. Look at the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. But these are really top down solutions that require government-to-government support and aid.
Jacqueline NovogratzAfrica can stun you in an instant. It can throw floods and drought and disease at you, sometimes all at the same time. In the next moment, it will tease you with its magnificent beauty, so even if you don't forget, you can find a way to forgive. Ultimately, it keeps you coming back for more.
Jacqueline NovogratzHonour what is most beautiful about the past and build it into the promise of the future.
Jacqueline NovogratzSo many low income people have seen so many failed promises broken and seen so many quacks and sporadic medicines offered to them that building trust takes a lot of time, takes a lot of patience.
Jacqueline NovogratzWhen it comes to solving problems of poverty, impact investing can act as a catalyst, but it is not a silver bullet. Successful businesses serving the poor need more than investment capital. They also need infrastructure to enable effective distribution, strong regulatory systems, access to markets, technical assistance as they scale up, and more
Jacqueline Novogratz1.5 billion people lack proper access to electricity. Many buy kerosene, which can cost 30 percent of their income. It sends millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. And often the lamp will fall over and catch the house on fire. So mothers hate it, but it's their only option.
Jacqueline NovogratzIf 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.
Jacqueline NovogratzDon't let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models -- with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working.
Jacqueline NovogratzHuman beings tend not to spend money on health preventionally. We tend to spend it on top treatment.
Jacqueline NovogratzThe best change that comes to the world is when all parties are seeing each other as equal, and all parties have the opportunity to be transformed. That really goes back to the idea of dignity.
Jacqueline NovogratzIf there's one value that is immutable, it's integrity or respect, for others and for yourself.
Jacqueline NovogratzMy dream is to find individuals who take financial resources and convert them into changing the world in the most positive ways.
Jacqueline NovogratzWe have to remember that the girls and the women are most isolated and violated and victimized and made invisible in those very societies where our men and our boys feel disempowered, unable to provide.
Jacqueline NovogratzPeople need to believe that they can participate fully in the decisions that affect their lives and have a stake in the societies in which they live
Jacqueline NovogratzOur actions - and inaction - touch people every day, people we may never know and never meet.
Jacqueline NovogratzEach of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.
Jacqueline NovogratzThe 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.
Jacqueline NovogratzEvery day we have a choice. We can take the easier road, the more cynical road, which is a road sometimes based on a dream of a past that never was, fear of each other, distancing and blame, or we can take the much more difficult path, the road of transformation, transcendence, compassion, and love, but also accountability and justice.
Jacqueline Novogratz