Freedom is under threat across the globe. With authoritarians and their sympathizers increasingly belligerent on every continent, it’s easy enough to identify the perpetrators. W hat’s less clear is what do about it.
Part of the problem is an inconsistent and, in some cases, divergent understanding of what the word “freedom” means. As the head of a libertarian-focused nonprofit, freedom for me is a system based on individual liberty and limited government. On a human level, freedom empowers individuals to make decisions for themselves, unencumbered by excessive government mandates that unnecessarily restrict an individual’s ability to succeed — or fail — on their own.
The connection between economic freedom and rising living standards is well documented, including in the Atlantic Council’s new Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. Yet, as global freedom has declined, traditional foreign aid has skyrocketed, reflecting a decadeslong pattern that has largely failed to bring about economic freedom where it’s needed most. Since the end of World War II, governments and philanthropists in high-income countries overestimated the impact of foreign aid, treating it as a be-all and end-all solution to poverty, hunger, war, and other social ills.
When the United Kingdom’s government slashed its foreign aid budget in 2021, global philanthropists such as Bill Gates were quick to pledge more than $140 million to make up the difference. Of course, philanthropists should be free to spend their money as they wish — and some of these funds may have benefited people in low-income countries — but such investments merely reinforce an overreliance on top-down, government-led approaches to international economic development that often fail to consider what those targeted for aid actually need.
Financial clout alone does not guarantee expertise on current events in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, or Ukraine. The true experts are the local champions of freedom, developing proposals for policy reform and joining with other local decision makers to see them through.
Intellectual Heavyweights
In this regard, some of the most important advocates for freedom are the nonprofit organizations that engage in public education, research, and advocacy to make their communities better places to live. Leaders of these local think tanks work separately from government officials or political activists. They are intellectual heavyweights who advocate for and enact change as true subject-matter experts.
My organization, Atlas Network, partners with some 500 of these groups in more than 100 countries. We use competition to motivate them and set new standards of excellence in freedom promotion, the most notable being our $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award. We believe that with the right dynamics in place for friendly competition, the next innovative breakthrough for liberty can and will happen.
We also recognize that we — and the philanthropists who support us — may need to stay out of the way. That means refraining from imposing best practices and our so-called solutions on local groups. Effective pro-freedom economic development must be localized, with those in the United States and other Western countries recognizing their own shortcomings, connecting with community experts, and empowering them to strengthen the communities they know best from within.
That requires listening to people who have been excluded from the global economy — and supporting local solutions that create more inclusive economies through scalable policy reforms.
Consider the case of India’s Centre for Civil Society, which used research and advocacy to campaign for the legal recognition of those who earn their livelihoods selling goods in the informal market. The group’s work led to the passage of the 2014 Street Vendors Act, which recognized the dignity of millions of Indians who were previously seen as a blight on their communities.
The law, considered a historic breakthrough within the world’s largest democracy, gave these valuable entrepreneurs legal status, making it easier for them to achieve upward mobility and gain financial security — a hallmark of economic freedom. They were also protected from police officers, who previously demanded bribes and harassed street vendors with impunity. Government overreach was held in check and still is today.
The Centre for Civil Society’s work has now evolved to educating street vendors about their new legal status, helping them create local associations that can respond to rights violations, and providing tools for sharing their concerns. One man leading the charge is Dinesh Kumar Dixit, who sold bangles on the streets of New Delhi for four decades while painstakingly documenting all the fines he paid over that period. He is now an elected member of a Town Vending Committee, earning a seat at the table with authorities who once regularly harassed him for running a business. These officials must now respect his right to earn his own livelihood — again, a true hallmark of freedom.
This is what localization looks like. India’s street vendors could have never achieved reform without local freedom champions such as Dinesh doing the hard work. Grassroots mobilization for policy reform, not foreign aid, won the day.
A similar story has unfolded in the central African nation of Burundi, where the government implemented economic reforms recommended by a local think tank, the Centre for Development and Enterprises Great Lakes. Slashing the time, paperwork, and fees required to register a business, Burundi’s government made it easier for entrepreneurs to start and legally register new companies that can set the country on a path to economic prosperity.
One of the many beneficiaries of the new law is a local entrepreneur known as Papa Coriandre, who produces various products from coriander. Before he was able to afford to register his company, he faced all manner of hurdles, even spending time in jail for operating an unregistered company. But he never gave up his dream and, with the help of an improved regulatory environment, now has a staff of 50 workers and is exploring opportunities to export the products he once needed to hide from authorities.
Where Creativity Happens
It’s time to recognize when and where creativity happens from the bottom up. Philanthropy needs to bet more heavily on local groups that are agents for change. Certainly there are plenty to choose from: The number of nongovernment organizations now tops 75,000, compared with just 5,000 in 1990. Just think about the potential for human freedom, if these tens of thousands of organizations have the resources they need to push back against authoritarianism and the big governments that too often stand in the way of ordinary citizens.
By supporting local think tanks and nonprofits that do the hard work on the ground, philanthropists can help the nonprofit community become the Silicon Valley of the global freedom movement — a place where good ideas are championed by local visionaries and matched with equally visionary donors.
It is time for a renaissance of thinking — and doing — on behalf of freedom everywhere.
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