In short, you're just ignorant on how the various sectors or facets of development are interlinked.
Let try a simple example. Moonki is a watchman from turkana working in Nairobi. He receive a call that his relatives are starving and badly need 2k to buy a sack of maize...Moonki doesn't have any money being mid-month and so he borrows using his nokia feature phone from CBA's Mshwari 2K..within minutes..the loan is approved..and he send the 2K...money reaches his relatives within 10mins...armed with their phone..they walk to nearest posho mill and buy enough unga..to last the a month till the rain start falling again. At end month...CBA deducts 2K plus small interest. Now imagine the same scenario in place like Tazania or Uganda without Mshwari? A Turkana living across the border in South Sudan has to wait for yellow maize to arrive months later or for the watchman to use 5,000ks (fare to turkana and back)..to deliver 2k.
So financial innovations like this are to be CELEBRATED..not derided.
Besides how does a story on Mshwari become remotely related to 1M drought stricken people in Northern Kenya?
Once again engage your brain and you'll realize why MPESA/MSWHARI plus many financial innovation emanating from poverty stricken kenya are being celebrated and copied accross the world.
Ohoo we are not suppose to celebrate anything until nobody is starving in the world
And who is the average kenyan to you? Perhaps you can take the assignment and tell us how Mshwari has not impacted hunger [ i guess the 29B being borrowed is buying ?? anything but food]. You may deride Mshwari but you'll be suprised that it actually saves a lot of lives for folks living in turkana or mandera...with relatives in nairobi...more than USAID's yellow maize will ever do.
I am not deriding the Great Mshwari. I am merely curious: I take it that the fellow is going great things there. Yet, just last week I read in the national newspapers articles (accompanied by the standard-issue grim photos) of yet more imminent, standard-issue starvation.
So take mine as a bit of curiosity: why get so excited over "financial innovations" when people continue to starve, poverty is barely changed, etc.
In fact it thanks to MPESA/MSHWARI that most NGOS and donors use to quickly do cash transfer to people in distress including those starving..that we are handling such disasters better..without it..it would take at least 3 months for yellow maize to be ordered all the way to chicago...to mombasa warehouses..get loaded to trucks...and then 30 day journey to turkana...and then another 5 days to Kainuk..and by then it's too late.
That's interesting. I thought it was your position that these NGOS/donors do bugger-all for "people in distress". Should I take it that they now do something, but MPESA should be thanked for that?