Hermando de Soto, one of the leaders of the Legal Empowerment of the Poor movement (who also headed the original UN Commission together with Madeline Albright), has always been pushing the envelop with his theories of economic growth and legal rights. He was recently interviewed (and his work in Peru subjected to prodding) by BBC radio journalists, cumulating in a 30 minute report that you can listen here.
From BBC's Crossing Continents website (Crossing Continents is BBC Radio 4's award-winning foreign affairs documentary series.):
From BBC's Crossing Continents website (Crossing Continents is BBC Radio 4's award-winning foreign affairs documentary series.):
'Can an economist save Peru?
The world famous Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto believes that the key to ending poverty for countless millions is to give them the right to own the land that they live on. If a person owns the land, and has the paperwork to prove it, his theory says, they can use it as collateral to borrow money from banks to help build businesses and improve their quality of life.
But de Soto's ideas have proved controversial. Now they are being tested in the rainforests of the Amazon. The indigenous Peruvians who live there believe that they already own the land and protest against what they see as the encroachment of big business. Last year, protests culminated in more than 30 deaths at Bagua
Linda Pressly journeys from Lima to the heart of the Amazon region with Hernando de Soto to discover how he is working with indigenous people.'
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