Little known Paraguay has caught a few headlines in recent years for leading South American countries in economic growth, beating Argentina in beef exports, becoming the world’s first exporter of hydroelectricity, having the world’s third largest river barge fleet, and becoming the world’s 4th largest soybean exporter. What is not known, however, is that Paraguay is also exporting knowledge and anti-poverty best practices throughout the world.
Fundacion Paraguaya is a case in point. Founded in 1985 as an NGO, it has grown to be one of Latin America’s largest social enterprises. Its mission is to design and develop practical and innovative solutions to eliminate poverty in Paraguay and the world. With its 450 employees and 24 regional offices, it has a microfinance programme assisting 85,000 families, a youth entrepreneurship programme that reaches 60,000 students a year, and 3 agricultural schools that support themselves not with tuition nor government subsidies, but with income generated on campus by teachers and students. Recently, DFID financed Fundacion Paraguaya’s agricultural school programme in Tanzania.
In 2005 Fundacion Paraguaya co-founded a UK charity called Teach A Man To Fish based in London. Its mission is to disseminate the financially self-sufficient school model throughout the world. Its programmes deal mostly with providing technical assistance to rural schools in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and in organizing massive school competitions. One such programme, is the School Enterprise Challenge, which reached 2900 schools in 106 and trained 70,193 students and 2,008 teachers in 2015. There are now self-sufficient agricultural schools in 20 countries.
In 2010 Fundacion Paraguaya developed the Poverty Stoplight. It is an innovative metric that uses visual surveys on tables to allow poor families to self-diagnose their level of multidimensional poverty and to develop customized solutions to overcome poverty. This programme is now being adopted by 40 organizations in 25 countries, including China, India, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Bolivia. Two community-based organizations in Newcastle are adapting the Poverty Stoplight to UK conditions.
In November 2010 Foreign Secretary Hague discussed the UK’s relationship with Latin America at Canning House in which he praised the innovation in social policy taking place in many countries. He cited Venezuela’s “El Sistema” music initiative, Brazil’s “Bolsa Familia” conditional cash transfers, and Fundacion Paraguaya’s export of entrepreneurship and skills training programmes.
Globalization is creating many problems to many people around the world, but it is also has many benefits. One such benefit is allowing little-known social programmes to disseminate throughout the world.