The Blue Sweater

"The Blue Sweater is a book by somebody who has really pioneered the use of business solutions to address poverty, Jacqueline Novogratz. Jacqueline emphasises not just charity, but how to start businesses that employ people and generate profits while also generating some kind of an improvement in the countries they operate in. For example, she is supporting a factory in East Africa that makes bed nets against malaria. “I was looking for books that offer good, practical ideas on how to make the world a better place” It’s an account of her own life in the world of development, mostly in Africa, and it’s also got some lovely anecdotes. The title of the book comes from the fact that, as a child, Jacqueline had a blue sweater that she was very, very fond of, with her name written in the back of it. At some point a boy criticised it, and off it went to the pile of giveaways. And years later she was walking through Rwanda and she sees this sweater that looks just like her old one, the one she used to love so much. And she goes over and asks the person if she can look in the back and – sure enough – there’s her name. It was the very same sweater. It’s a lovely look at how one can actually use business approaches to try to address poverty. Yes, that’s correct – and the advantage of that is that it tends to be more sustainable. If businesses are generating some kind of profit, they can then spread their model and scale it up more easily than something that is based on giving things away. Clearly you need both. If you just charge for bed nets, for example, you’re going to be really limited, and the poorest people may not be able pay for them. But where they are feasible, business models can be really powerful. You can’t do it side by side, of course. But, for example, in India, there’s a hospital company that tries to provide very low cost childbirth for women in rural India. It’s a for-profit company, and it uses other parts of the hospital to subsidise the maternity wards. Because it’s a for-profit company, and actually makes some money, it can afford to build new hospitals in new areas. That’s the kind of model that’s she’s thinking of. You need to pay for your free maternity wards and with that model, by making money, you have part of the solution."