From Poverty To Prosperity: Sir Paul Colliers Words

What have you learnt? The overarching message from this course is that although it's possible for all societies nowadays to become prosperous, to lift themselves out of poverty it's a tough struggle. In fact, it's four different struggles. One is struggle to build an authority, a political structure, which is legitimate and inclusive. And that's a long hard haul. The second component is to build a culture, a set of norms, narratives, networks that don't trap people into dysfunction.

And again, that's a long hard haul. Escaping from beliefs and attitudes that trap people into restricted lives. The third struggle is the economic struggle of harnessing that productivity miracle performed by scale and specialisation. And harnessing the natural endowments of a country, its valuable natural resources. Getting from individual small-scale activity that dooms people to poverty to the prosperous modern world. And then the final struggle is an international struggle.

It's to build rules and institutions which actually make it easier for poor countries to win those three domestic struggles. And at the moment, in many respects, our global rules, our global institutions are not sufficiently well designed to help poor countries win that struggle. That's what we've learnt, that's what you've learnt I hope. It's what I've tried to teach. It's a theme that I started in my little book, The Bottom Billion. The Bottom Billion is a set of 60 or so poor countries that have not been on track to catch up with the rest of the world. 2018, I've got another book coming out, The Eye of The Needle. Which is again about the difficulty, the struggle of getting a poor country through that eye of the needle into prosperity. So that's what I hope that I've tried to convey to you. The difficulty and yet importance of these four struggles.

How can that knowledge be applied? What can you do with it?

And I think there are two aspects to that. One is, how can you, as an individual, put that knowledge to use in the life that you lead, the career that you forge? And a lifetime's full of a lot of choices. Choices as to which social networks you try and join, which will either trap you or open up options for you. What skills you acquire. And so, I hope that this course has, to an extent, helped you in thinking through your own choices. But then there's a larger role, which is that, you are a citizen in your own society and you're a citizen in the world. And there are these two struggles. The struggle to set domestic policies that are more conducive to the escape from poverty. And the struggle to set international policies so they are more conducive to the escape from poverty. You, as a citizen, can play your part in that and I hope you will.

why have I done this course? I've done this course because Oxford, where I work, can only take 22 thousand students. That's the entire physical student body. You know, we got more people watching this course and this article than the entire physical student body at Oxford. And so, actually spread knowledge and understanding. This course can be a powerful vehicle. I'm particularly proud of that because of my own personal experience. I'm the first person in my family to get any education at all. Both my parents left school when they were only 12 years old. And as a result of that, they had no chance in life. My father and my mother would have been avid consumers of online courses if only they'd existed when they were alive. So, my last plea to you is to encourage other people, your friends, your colleagues to actually view this and other courses. Use the online system to enlarge your minds.

Thank you very much.

#OxfordX