Read

The Private Sector and International Growth

When we think about promoting economic growth abroad, we tend to think along the traditional lines of international development — disaster or...

When we think about promoting economic growth abroad, we tend to think along the traditional lines of international development — disaster or famine relief, for example, or building dams or other infrastructure. Yet, as Carl Schramm has pointed out, we have a model for economic growth — the entrepreneurial model — that has proved itself in the U.S., though it flies in the face of the central-planning mindset of the international development community. Schramm's recent retirement from the Kauffman Foundation, after 10 years as CEO, is the occasion for Dan Runde to reflect, for Foreign Policy, on the the role of the private sector in international grant making. Runde credits the Kauffman Foundation and Schramm, who is now a Growth Fellow of the George W. Bush Institute, for helping to bring about a rhetorical consensus on the key role that entrepreneurship can play in international development. But, Runde warns, at the same time, the "instruments, policies, and authorities needed" to make that consensus work internationally are incomplete. Read about the challenge to facilitating entrepreneurship abroad here.