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  • The 2017 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research goes to Hernando de Soto

    The 2017 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research goes to Hernando de Soto

    The Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research is the most prominent international award in entrepreneurship research with a price sum of EUR 100,000. De Soto’s analyses have had tremendous influence on policy throughout the world and were a main source of inspiration for the World Bank’s Doing Business program. Read More
  • 2017 Award Winner

    2017 Award Winner

    Hernando de Soto Peru  Institute for Liberty and Democracy For developing a new understanding of the institutions that underpin the informal economy as well as the role of property rights and entrepreneurship in converting the informal economy into the formal sector.   Read More
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Go to Google Maps and take a look at a township in South Africa, a slum in India or a favela in Brazil. The website will show you a few roads, surrounded by plenty of blank space. Now switch to satellite view, and you'll discover teeming cityscapes, bustling with life in unmapped houses and businesses, along hundreds of uncharted streets. Or check out Nairobi, Kenya, where you will see many roads, but the streets have no names.

Over 75% of the world’s countries suffer from inconsistent, complicated or no addressing systems. In total the UN estimates that 4 billion people live without an address. Let's be clear: an address is not a "nice-to-have". Without it, you will struggle to get a passport, stake a property claim, become an active consumer, take out a low-interest credit, or run a business.

In his book The Mystery of Capital, the Peruvian development economist Hernando de Soto put it this way: "Without an address, you live outside the law." You might as well not exist.

Read the rest of the article on Pioneers Post 

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