A timely validation of inclusive market economies and a proven model of soft power
Helping Nations Prosper is a breakthrough in our understanding of how economic development progresses in emerging market countries. Developmental assistance is often framed in humanitarian terms, but the importance of an effective financial sector to create jobs and build widespread prosperity is often overlooked.
The story is told through the lens of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC), whose unique work started after the Cold War in Eastern Europe and continues to the present day in the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. We come to see how building a nation's "financial plumbing"—an independent central bank, a banking system that fosters entrepreneurship, and healthy capital markets—provides the base for economic growth.
Distinct and different from macroeconomically focused organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, FSVC's on-the-ground efforts to help build an institutional infrastructure have supported the agendas of reformers across the world of emerging markets. The book provides powerful validation of the effectiveness of market economies driven by sound banking systems, and supported by the rule of law and democratic values, in advancing a country's economic objectives.
Helping Nations Prosper demonstrates how FSVC's unique and proven model of assistance offers the United States and the West an effective soft power means of countering the influence of China and other autocratic regimes while enabling emerging economies to achieve their own objectives.
About the Author
J. Andrew Spindler is president and CEO of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, a nonprofit organization that helps strengthen banking and financial sectors in developing and emerging market countries. Before joining FSVC in 1993, he served as a senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
