OPIS Foundation

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the world saw the US as the indisputable economic powerhouse and the Soviet Union as a formidable political challenger. The result was that the movement of decolonization played out as a contest between these two superpowers and their respective models: the market economy of the US versus the command economy of the Soviets. The newly emerging nations of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, together with those of Latin America became known as "the third world"-although in terms of global population the name "the two-thirds world" would've been more appropriate.

By the 1960's, the agencies of international development sponsored by the west were the UN and the World Bank. The results of their efforts during this time were decidedly mixed. The Far East saw the rise of "the little tigers" such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and later Malaysia and Indonesia while Latin America and Africa lagged behind. War and political conflict was often a factor but just as often development programs themselves were at fault. As a result, large-scale projects sponsored by the World Bank in the 1960s, often left many recipient countries with unmanageable debts by the 1970s onwards.

With the fall of communism, "globalization" became the byword in development as well as economics in general. Industrialization expanded beyond the Pacific Rim to include China and India. By the turn of the century, Latin America began to experience rapid economic growth. Still some countries lagged behind, however even in those countries experiencing rapid industrialization, social ills spread as rapidly as social benefits. Some like author Mike Davis began to speak of "a planet of slums." Finally, environmental problems such as acid rain, resource depletion and global warming have forced a radical rethinking of development on institutions.

Increasingly it has been seen that a new model is needed, one that maximizes the efficient and sustainable use of resources with the equitable distribution of goods and services, all done with an eye to the provision of public goods such as education, medicine, and critical infrastructure. Opis Foundation seeks to design projects that best reconcile the contending needs of economic development, social accountability and environmental responsibility.

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Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?

James 2:15-16 (NIV)