Against this backdrop of unfair trade barriers and underhanded market competition, in Liberia a fair-trade clothing factory is competing internationally. It is globalization to believe in.

Whether a fact-filled economic history or a satiric novel, these ten books (listed alphabetically by author) about poverty, power and prosperity will provoke, inform and stimulate your thinking.

Each week, friends, allies, colleagues and respected leaders and thinkers from around the world offer their thoughts, ideas, aspirations and plans for a better world. All provoke me in good and thoughtful ways.

As industry analysts note, the rush to conclude that micro-lending is inherently flawed is overwrought, wrong-headed and anti-poor.

Our enlightened self-interest and our own humanity should question the wisdom of asking the poorest of the poor to pay dearly for their own futures.