During my undergrad years, I studied international development to understand 2 simple things:

1. Why are some countries poorer than others?
2. How do we help the lesser developed countries ‘catch up’?

I quickly learned that there was nothing ‘simple’ about it. Fifty years of development economics and each decade seemed to be characterized only by another failed approach to breaking the poverty trap.

The academic discipline taught me that throwing aid and money into these countries wasn’t the answer, but that “capacity building” at the local level might just work. Start a conversation, let a community identify its needs, and take a backseat in helping them actualize their development goals.

It was time for me to “practice” international development. I was skeptical, but optimistic when I entered the Peace Corps as a community health worker in sub-Saharan Africa. The 27-month commitment opened my eyes to a lot of things, including the misconceptions around the ‘dark continent.’

From a development perspective, my deep connection and integration into my lovely community of Koulikoro, Mali, left me with this key takeway:

Due to joblessness, people are struggling not only to make ends meet, but for a raison d’être.

I’m currently reading “The Coming Jobs War” by Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup. He’s a free marketeer with a bit of an American-centric bias in his writings. Gallup recently developed a World Poll - a new body of behavioral economic data that represents the opinions of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants across nearly every country and demographic group.

I was immediately weary about this so-called ‘World Poll.’ Survey the world and ask every question in the same way with the same meaning in every language so that the answers are statistically comparable? Impossible.

But, I kept reading and was pleasantly surprised. The title of the first chapter reads: What 7 Billion People Want. And what is Clifton’s discovery?

“What the whole world wants is a good job.”

The book details how a “lack of good jobs will become the cause of hunger, extremism, out-of-control migration patterns, reckless environmental trends, widening trade imbalances, and on and on."

I’m not agreeing that this is the only determining factor to current and future problems, but it’s a fundamental truth that sits right with my personal experiences...and, apparently, with Gallup as well.

So what does this have to do with business or the enterprise? I’d like to dive deeper into this issue in my next blog, but here’s a teaser....

Clifton paints a picture of a pending 'Jobs War' between nations. The nation that does the best job creating jobs, wins. Take this out of a competitive context and consider how job creation could elevate the quality of life for billions, quell extremism, and so on. So what’s it going to take?

Good jobs are not arising from cheap credit, from pouring billions into innovation, or from demanding it from your government. Job creation hinders on two basic things: entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Follow-up blog post: Entrepreneurs: Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are...