The poor don't live in functional market economies as the rest of us do, but in political economies where corruption and broken systems extend from local government to moneylenders.

I've always believed in local government.

Pakistan needs to have decentralisation and a good local government system.

There is no central government database that allows officials to monitor water tests by local systems.

We have this idea of bureaucracy in local government, and it's generally things that we're frustrated at. It doesn't work the way we like it to work.

I've learned that generosity is far easier than justice and that, in the highly distorted markets of the poor, it is all too easy to veer only toward the charitable, to have low--or no--expectations for low-income people. This does nothing but reaffirm prejudices on all sides.