Social Economics and Community Impact

By 2053, Black wealth could fall to zero if current trends continue. This isn't just a number—it’s a stark reminder of systemic inequities and the urgency of collective action. But here’s the thing: statistics like this don’t tell the full story. They don’t account for the power we hold to shift the narrative. As leaders, innovators, and culture-makers, we must embrace wealth equity as a core strategy. Here’s how we can start rewriting the script: 1️⃣ Build Financial Resilience Through Ownership: Ownership—whether it’s businesses, real estate, or intellectual property—is one of the fastest paths to generational wealth. Minority-owned small businesses, for example, often overlook opportunities like supplier diversity programs or university procurement partnerships. Tapping into these underutilized resources can accelerate growth. 2️⃣ Invest In Community-Centric Innovation: Many of the apps, services, and products we rely on don’t center our lived experiences. Imagine if our $1.8 trillion in buying power was directed toward solutions built for us, by us. It’s time to create platforms that reflect our values and needs, not just consume them. 3️⃣ Prioritize Financial Literacy and Intentional Spending: Knowledge is power. From understanding the compounding effect of investments to teaching the next generation how to save and build credit, we must normalize financial conversations. Similarly, supporting Black-owned businesses should be an everyday practice—not just a seasonal one. 4️⃣ Collaborate and Scale Thoughtfully: Sometimes, intentional smallness is the path to big impact. Entrepreneurs, for example, don’t need to scale at the expense of sustainability. We can focus on profitable, community-centered growth without being pressured into rapid expansion. This isn’t just about avoiding a financial cliff—it’s about building a future where our contributions are valued, our stories are told, and our wealth is sustained. So, let’s not wait for solutions to come from elsewhere. Let’s lead. Let’s invest in ourselves, our communities, and our collective power. What steps are you taking today to shift this trajectory? I’d love to hear your perspective.

Something happened in Scotland earlier this year that barely made headlines. The Scottish Parliament passed a law called the Community Wealth Building Act – and if it works, it could be a blueprint for a broader global transition from an economy of profit extraction to an economy that builds community wealth. The basic problem the new law is trying to solve: Most of the wealth created in modern economies gets pulled out of local communities and into the hands of outside investors and multinational corporations. Those corporations have little stake in whether a community thrives. Local governments are told to prioritize "economic growth" – even when that growth doesn't benefit the people generating it. Scotland's new law tries to change this by requiring local authorities to actively reduce economic inequality. Concretely, that means: - Directing government contracts to local businesses - Transitioning land and energy production to community ownership - Supporting worker co-ops and employee-owned businesses - Bringing vacant land back into productive community use - Steering investment toward local climate resilience and mitigation efforts This isn't untested. A city in England called Preston ran a version of this model starting in 2013 – and returned £70 million to the local economy, helped create 4,500 jobs, and saw a peer-reviewed 9% improvement in life satisfaction among residents. Scotland is now doing it nationally for the first time. Preston showed it could work at the city level. Scotland is now the test case at a national scale. And if it works, the argument for other countries to follow along becomes a lot harder to dismiss. I wrote a longer piece on Better Future Media's Substack about how the new law works, the Preston model, what could potentially go wrong, and why this news matters beyond just Scotland. Link in the comments 👇 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #communitywealthbuilding #economics #scotland #systemschange PS: Props to Neil McInroy at The Democracy Collaborative for helping make this happen by building momentum for CWB legislation for many years. And thanks to Jessica Friday for bringing this story to my attention!

Climate change is not gender neutral — it amplifies existing inequalities. Women, especially in vulnerable communities, face disproportionate risks due to limited access to land, finance, and decision making power. They are often the first to lose livelihoods and the last to be heard in policy spaces. Yet, they remain frontline responders - managing households, securing water and food, and holding communities together during crises. What’s missing is not awareness, but inclusion with agency. Climate action frameworks still underrepresent women in leadership, fail to integrate their lived knowledge, and overlook structural barriers like land ownership, credit access, and safety in displacement. Without embedding gender responsive planning, financial inclusion, and localized capacity building, resilience efforts remain incomplete and inequitable. The intent must shift from viewing women as beneficiaries to recognizing them as leaders of climate resilience. Investing in their skills, ensuring access to resources, and placing them at the center of climate governance is not just equitable — it is effective. Real climate solutions will emerge when policies, markets, and communities align to empower women as decision makers, innovators, and change agents. #KYA_LAGTA_HAI #Resilience #ClimateAction #GenderEquality #Climatejustice #PolicyMatters #InclusiveGrowth #Sustainability #SocialImpact #WomenLeadership #WomenEmpowerment

Ostrom’s Law in Action For decades, mainstream economists pushed the idea (and still do) that shared resources must be privatized or controlled by the state to prevent overuse. The dominant fear? The so-called “Tragedy of the Commons”—where people deplete shared resources due to self-interest. But Elinor Ostrom proved them wrong. 🔹 Ostrom’s Law: “A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory.” This principle wasn’t coined by Ostrom herself—it was named in her honor by scholars who saw how her research overturned traditional economic assumptions. She demonstrated that communities worldwide have successfully managed common resources for centuries—without centralized control. Her work, which earned her the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, showed that self-governance, local rules, and social trust create sustainable economies, independent of external control. Before money became the dominant medium of exchange, communities thrived using commitment-based economies—systems where trust, labor-sharing, and reciprocal exchange sustained livelihoods. Commitment Pooling, as practiced in Grassroots Economics, revives these traditions by structuring resource-sharing agreements where people contribute labor, goods, or services into community-led pools. These systems didn’t collapse from overuse—instead, they thrived for generations because social accountability and trust replaced top-down enforcement. ✅ Communities create their own rules for managing shared resources—customized to their realities. (Grassroots Economics pools operate through local agreements rather than imposed regulations.) ✅ The "Tragedy of the Commons" doesn’t happen when clear rules, trust, and accountability exist. (Commitment Pools use rotational labor, mutual credit, and resource limitations to maintain balance.) ✅ Reputation and relationships matter more than external enforcement. (People honor commitments because they are socially accountable to their community.) ✅ Top-down economic policies fail to recognize local needs, but community governance adapts efficiently. (Commitment Pools respond to real-time conditions, unlike rigid financial systems.) ✅ Technology can enhance these traditional structures. (Blockchain tools like Sarafu.Network track commitments transparently, ensuring trust at scale.) Ostrom’s Law tells us that real-world solutions should guide economic theory, not the other way around. Grassroots Economics is proving this today—using ancient economic structures combined with modern digital tools to build resilient, decentralized economies. 💡 The future isn’t about top-down control—it’s about communities reclaiming economic sovereignty, one commitment at a time. 🔥 How do you see Ostrom’s insights shaping today’s decentralized economies? Let’s discuss! ⬇️ #OstromsLaw #GrassrootsEconomics #CommitmentPooling #CommunityWealth #RegenerativeEconomics

Indian women have done everything the financial system asked. Opened accounts. Saved diligently. Built credit histories. But. We receive credit equivalent to just 25%+ of the deposits we put into the banking system. Men receive 50%+ of that, double what we get. We are, in effect, subsidising credit for men. The credit system was built to read a specific kind of financial life - formal salary, titled property, guarantors from the right networks. Women’s income is often informal, seasonal and home-based. Our assets are rarely in our names. So, the traditional system writes us off rather than underwrite us. Consider this - Women constitute 20% of India’s MSMEs and hold just 7% of MSME credit. However, we have better data today than we had decades ago. Digital payments history, Aadhaar-linked identities, GST trails and much more. If you are building a lending product, whether you’re a bank or a fintech, the question is whether you’re reading the additional signals, in fact the signals that can make or break women’s credit. 45 crore of us are credit-eligible and waiting. Is the ecosystem ready for us? Source: NITI Aayog-TransUnion CIBIL-MicroSave Consulting 2025, Microsave 2020 #CreditAccess #WomenEntrepeneurs #FinancialInclusion #IndiaFintech

After $1B invested over 15 years, the Gates-backed Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) promised agricultural prosperity. Instead, AGRA delivered ecological damage, farmer debt, and increased hunger, leaving target countries worse off than before the program began. AGRA began in 2006 with bold targets to double yields and incomes for 30M smallholder farmers while cutting food insecurity in half by 2020. Evaluations reveal what farmers already knew—AGRA failed to meet even its reduced goal of reaching just 9M farmers instead of the original 30M. The productivity gains fell dramatically short—only an 18% yield increase over 12 years against AGRA's promised 100%. Many regions saw growth equal to or worse than pre-AGRA rates. This structural failure hides behind selectively presented data and isolated success stories. Hunger increased by 30-31% across AGRA's 13 focus countries. The very metric AGRA was designed to improve has significantly worsened, exposing critical flaws in their entire approach to agricultural development. AGRA's single-crop farming model caused biodiversity loss by pushing farmers toward maize at the expense of hardy local varieties. Traditional climate-resilient crops declined measurably, with millet production dropping 24% between 2006-2018. Research in Zambia and Tanzania shows farmers trapped in debt after taking loans for fertilizer and hybrid seeds when harvests didn't deliver promised yields. This financial burden from input-dependency affects multiple generations of farming families. Beyond economic impacts, AGRA's chemical-intensive approach has accelerated soil degradation across target regions. Synthetic inputs disrupt soil microbial communities, compromising fertility and essential ecosystem functions like water storage and carbon sequestration. Specific soil contaminants associated with AGRA's model include PCBs, PBDEs, perfluoro carboxylic acids, benzene, and bisphenol A—compounds with documented adverse effects on ecological and human health. While AGRA now acknowledges soil degradation (65% of Sahel land affected), its solutions remain tied to chemical-intensive farming. New programs like ESMS and RE-GAIN show recognition of problems yet still fail to address their root causes. African civil society organizations increasingly call for redirecting funding from AGRA toward agroecological systems that align with both ecological imperatives and the lived realities of farming communities rather than imposing external technological dependencies. AGRA fundamentally misdiagnosed the problems facing African agriculture. After 15 years and $1B, hunger increased by 30%, yields barely improved, soils degraded, and farmers accumulated debt. Real solutions must restore ecological health while providing farmers with a pathway to prosperity.

Why do most climate adaptation projects fade after funding ends—and a few don’t? Our new research from three farming communities in rural Jamaica shows something rare: adaptation that didn’t just survive beyond the project cycle, but thrived - more than five years after formal closure of two UNDP-supported agricultural initiatives. What made the difference wasn’t better tech or bigger budgets. It was relationships. The study identifies 7️⃣ interlinked enablers that together form the social infrastructure of durable adaptation: 1️⃣ Sustained volunteerism 2️⃣ Embedded community leadership 3️⃣ Strong local-institutional partnerships 4️⃣ Alignment with national support systems 5️⃣ Locally tailored livelihoods 6️⃣ Perceived fairness and inclusion 7️⃣ Enduring collective enthusiasm These aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They reflect an ethos of adaptation as a relational, justice-centered practice. The article, coauthored with Mara Cat D., Emma Bouton, Timmons Roberts & D'Arcy Carlson, MSc, advances a relational model of adaptation, reframing sustainability not as a static outcome but as a co-produced process that is anchored in trust, recognition, institutional connectivity, and shared agency. When these foundations are reinforced by context-sensitive amplifiers (like income generation and policy alignment), adaptation becomes part of the community fabric. Key policy takeaway: If donors and governments want adaptation to last, they must invest in continuity of care, not just continuity of capital. That means budgeting for post-project engagement, peer learning, and community-led monitoring - long after ribbon-cutting. This matters as the international community works to operationalize the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). The Jamaican cases offer a corrective: 👉 What sustains adaptation over time often lies beyond what can be easily measured. We need more ex-post, field-based studies that document what holds - not only what fails. If we want adaptation to move beyond project logic, we have to take relationships seriously. 📄 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/er7Kc2GD #ClimateAdaptation #GlobalGoalOnAdaptation #ClimateJustice #DevelopmentPractice #SIDS #AdaptationFinance Photo credit: Forbes

In 2021, I became the first woman to head a unicorn in Israel, AKA Startup Nation. In many parts of the world, women are excluded from even the most basic financial services, so leading a fintech company is far from their reality. United Nations data estimates that 3.8 billion women live in the world, 50% of which are adults. According to the World Bank’s Global Findex Database, 1.4 billion of those 1.9 billion adult women, are unbanked. That’s 73.65%. Visit that statistic again. It represents a disturbing gender gap in financial access, with women being far less likely than men to have bank accounts or access formal financial services. This financial exclusion has personal impact. It diminishes women’s economic empowerment by restricting access to education and limiting their potential for personal growth and independence. It makes women more financially dependent, and therefore, more vulnerable. There's economic impact, too. Research by McKinsey highlights the economic loss due to financial exclusion of women, noting that closing the gender gap in labor force participation could add trillions to global GDP. Financial inclusion isn’t just a matter of equality – ensuring the same opportunities for all. It’s a matter of equity - ensuring women have the tools and access they need to fully participate in the global economy. That’s where technology enters the picture to level the field. The rise of mobile banking is a great example of innovation enhancing financial inclusion. According to a report by the International Finance Corporation, mobile money accounts are more popular among women in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, where access to traditional banking is limited. Various fintechs provide financial literacy resources, helping women understand financial products, budgeting, and saving strategies. Other solutions include AI-driven platforms that offer personalized recommendations and advice, empowering women to make informed financial decisions. Aside from personal apps and solutions, fintechs can facilitate community-based lending and saving initiatives, allowing women to support each other through group savings or microfinance schemes, fostering a sense of solidarity and shared purpose. This International Women’s Day’s theme is "accelerate action". In my mind, nothing accelerates action like innovation. As we mark International Women's Day, let’s advocate and innovate to enhance financial inclusion for women worldwide. #IWD2025 #financialInclusion Papaya Global

𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱. 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹. 𝗧𝘄𝗼 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿. Lauer & Llases ran 120 simulations of global economic development until 2100, using a system dynamics model (MORDRED) that tracks population, energy, climate, labor, and consumption across income classes and world regions. What they found: 🟧 𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗟𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 (LtG) 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 In 92% of business-as-usual scenarios, global output peaks and then declines persistently. Not primarily because resources run out (As in LtG scenarios), but because climate damage erodes labor productivity, creating a self-reinforcing downward spiral. By 2100, output is 15–70% below 2019 levels. Poverty reduction in poorer regions ends the moment global output peaks. This is Meadows updated. The mechanism is different. The conclusion is not. 🟧 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 The second paper compares two deliberate transition scenarios. FST1 ( Greener Growth) assumes rapid decarbonization, full green electricity by 2100, and continued economic expansion. It still reaches 2.6°C of warming. It misses every Paris target. Land, water, and minerals become the new constraints while CO2 falls. And consumption in rich countries eventually declines anyway involuntarily. Grows greener. Not green enough. 🟩 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 FST5, Sufficiency Economies, limits warming to 1.9°C, converges global consumption, and reduces material extraction. It works in the model. But it requires a Planetary Confederation, radical redistribution, and consumption cuts in the center within a decade. Institutionally implausible under current conditions. Biophysically, it is the only path that holds. These are not predictions, but risk assessments. But they shift the burden of proof. If you believe green growth is sufficient, you now have more to explain. If you believe system change is inevitable, you have the risk assessment, but (still) not the plan. Paper 1 (Ecological Economics): Lauer & Llases (2026) Limits to growth revisited: System dynamics simulations of global economic developments and distributional implications in the 21st century ( 👉 https://lnkd.in/eknByvRs) Paper 2 (Environmental Innovation & Societal Transitions): Lauer & Llases (2026) From Greener growth to sufficiency: Modeling alternative global sustainability pathways ( 👉https://lnkd.in/e7ypCXgz)

7 Key Concepts to Rethink Economics 🌎 Traditional economic thinking is no longer sufficient to address the scale and urgency of today’s social and environmental challenges. The Doughnut Economics framework outlines seven key shifts that can guide the transition to a more regenerative and distributive economic system—fit for the 21st century. GDP growth has long been treated as the primary measure of progress. A 21st-century economy must instead aim to meet the needs of all people within the means of the planet—what the Doughnut model defines as the safe and just space for humanity. Economies do not exist in isolation. Rather than viewing markets as self-contained systems, economic activity must be understood as embedded within both society and the living world. This requires recognizing ecological limits and social foundations as non-negotiable boundaries. The concept of ‘rational economic man’—self-interested, independent, and utility-maximizing—is outdated. Economic models should reflect the reality of human behavior: social, cooperative, adaptable, and shaped by context and relationships. Linear models and static equilibria fail to capture the complexity of real-world systems. Embracing systems thinking allows for a better understanding of feedback loops, delays, and tipping points that characterize economic, social, and ecological dynamics. Inequality will not resolve itself through growth alone. Equity must be embedded in the design of economic systems—ensuring that value and opportunity are shared from the outset rather than redistributed after the fact. Regeneration must become a core design principle. Economic activity should not rely on degrading the environment with the promise of future clean-up. Instead, it must actively restore and regenerate ecosystems as part of its function. Endless GDP growth is neither feasible nor necessary. A resilient economy focuses on thriving—prioritizing wellbeing, resilience, and sustainability—regardless of whether growth occurs. Reframing economics through these seven lenses offers a pathway to an economy that is better aligned with planetary boundaries and human wellbeing. The focus must shift from short-term gains to long-term systems resilience. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange #climateaction