Fewer poor people doesn't equal prosperity.
The inventor of the idea of microcredit, the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), which is the largest non-governmental organization in the world, has done a remarkable job of lifting people out of poverty, providing emergency aid, education, health clinics and even sponsoring legal aid programs.
Its microcredit model has been widely copied in Bangladesh by Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, and throughout the world by numerous nonprofit organizations.
Despite BRAC's success at reducing poverty and despite its success at providing aid for the full spectrum of social needs, broader economic victory has been evasive. As The Economist magazine put in a November 3 feature story: Bangladeshi growth has been relatively slow.
This is why metrics showing financial success alone can't be called on to enlist investors who abide strictly by the numbers. A new definition of prosperity is needed; let's call it ROI+.
With ROI+ we'd see the human quotient of investment return. We'd be able to calculate lives saved, health improved and standard-of-living increases. We'd see a very different world from the Global North and the Global South one in which we live now.
It's not so far-fetched. Former president of France Nicolas Sarkozy pushed hard for these reforms and expanded definitions of prosperity in world economic indexes. Here's why: Such reform could play into the economic wellness and well-being calculations by ratings agencies. "Healthier" countries, under a new definition of prosperity, could see the interest rates they pay on their national debts decline.
ROI+ therefore could not only engender private capital flows to the developing world, but it could revive the public debts of myriad nation states.
Think tanks are looking hard at the promises ROI+ could afford. The World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative and other international heavyweights should take up the cause of revising the world's economic matrix. Because while reducing global poverty may not translate into increasing global prosperity, it should.
Thomas M. Kostigen is a New York Times bestselling author whose latest book Golden Dawn is available in bookstores and online.