Sustainable economic development requires a culture of trust, a culture that encourages sound ethical principles such as thrift, honesty, and charity, and a culture that respects God’s law, the dignity of the person, and the value of work. The Church, in its efforts to help people flourish, needs to ensure that the specific models and practices it puts into place actually prove beneficial in the long term, not only in the material sense but also culturally and spiritually.

This video begins with Harvard’s Marcela Escobari discussing how impoverished people often suffer from a mentality of “victimhood”—believing their situations are a direct result of what someone else has done to them. Lord Brian Griffiths illustrates this by telling the story of Southern Italy, whose people became unable to trust anyone outside their own families, and thereby saw their communities and markets break down.  Effective charity must be careful not to undermine the cultural capital of the countries in which it is trying to help.