Friday, April 07, 2017

Did Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand rescue Somali drought victims? By Bashir Goth | Special to Gulf News

When disaster hits somewhere in the developing world, the conventional wisdom is to look to international humanitarian organisations for assistance. But not anymore. Not if one takes the recent drought that devastated Somalia as any indication. Instead of the humanitarian organisations, it was the Somali Diaspora remittance and modern mobile money transfer technology that teamed up to provide urgently needed relief aid to the tens of thousands of nomadic people that lost their livelihoods.

In a scenario that is reminiscent of Adam Smith’s metaphor of the “Invisible Hand” which explains how free market dynamics make things happen for the greater good of society, the victims of Somalia’s recent drought saw that Invisible Hand come to their rescue through ZAAD, the mobile money transfer service, provided by the local telecommunications company, Telesom.

Read More on Gulf News