What does this image say?

All too often, the picture associated with the challenge of development is one of a starving child. This kind of picture may be helpful in motivating giving, but it does not necessarily lead to careful thinking about the forces that hold so many people back. There are, to be sure, desperate cases of people who are truly helpless. But images of extreme deprivation often obscure the fact that many of the world’s poorest residents attempt to help themselves, only to be stymied by ineffective rules.

We hope that this picture sends a very different message, one of tremendous opportunity. The students in this picture are studying for exams. Because they lack electricity at home, they study under the lights lining the road to the airport, the nearest reliable source of light they can find. The picture captures a fundamental challenge of development: how can people in poor countries get access to better living conditions, conditions in which many more people can successfully lift themselves out of poverty?

Basic utilities like electricity could be provided efficiently and affordably to these students if they could live under a system of rules that did not prevent private infrastructure investment or render public infrastructure provision hopelessly ineffective. Charter cities are city-scale reform zones that governments can use to create more and better choices for people like these students, who might jump at the chance to accelerate their academic careers by studying in a safe city with proper utilities and well lit apartments, homes, and libraries.