Abhijit Banerjee Quotes

I want to work for the poor in my country.

I fell in love with Africa and began helping people fix things there.

I have worked with Habitat for Humanity for awhile.

In India, we now see many highly qualified professionals ready to work in the rural hinterland and in their own towns and cities to tackle development issues directly without depending much on the government.

Charity is a fine thing if it's meeting a gap where needs must be met and there are no other resources. But in the long term we need to support people into helping themselves.

Maximum Feasible Participation of the Poor

Foundations have to think outside the box and maybe expand past the usual suspects that get all of the funding and start thinking about how to reach into communities and support community healing on a more local level.

When 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

By and large we have got to find the good leaders to work with to make sure that we build the strength in these communities. Simply issuing edicts from Canberra isn't going to solve issues on the APY lands.

Humanitarian help will never solve any problems. It is necessary to help us create some kind of economic infrastructure.

A lot of people think the Breakfast for Children program is charity. But what does it do? It takes the people from a stage to another stage. Any program that's revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.

If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people's lives are better, you know it's hard, and some people think it's boring.

My professional background consisted of evaluating specific programs the government was sponsoring in education or social services or, when I was in Thailand, rural development.

When I travel, I make certain that I spend at least half of my time in the field. You have to get out to meet people that are in poverty, that are looking to improve their lives. That's something that you can't read in books.

I definitely know I'm going to be working a lot more with my foundation when it comes to developing the kids in Jamaica.

Information, education, skills, healthcare, livelihood, financial inclusion, small and village enterprises, opportunities for women, conservation of natural resources, distributed clean energy - entirely new possibilities have emerged to change the development model.

I think, in terms of activism associated with my films, be it 'Salaam Baalak Trust' or 'Maisha,' taking the idea of cinema as a way to change people, I feel heartened. I am glad that we have impacted thousands of lives.

The Clinton Foundation has been able to help millions of people - over 10 million with HIV/AIDS alone - saved countless lives. It's extremely important to global health. They've done some really great things.

I dedicated my career to really working in under-served communities and really just being in the trenches.

With what Enrou was doing with helping women and taking products from local marketplaces, we thought it was really great.

As a philanthropist, I fund a lot of NGOs.

I am a huge supporter of the Waxman foundation.

I think, what I would communicate to people, if you are really keen in helping the world, you could spend so much quality time in terms of coaching, learning, providing great energy to the social entrepreneurs.

I don't have any plans to make money for myself. All I wish to do is empower rural women in our country.

Camfed graduates are active in their villages using their skills and resources to improve as many lives as possible. They are teaching financial literacy to marginalized women and bringing vital health care information to rural schoolchildren. Through example, they are demonstrating the power of philanthropy.