An Interview with Martin Burt

by Gordon Nary

Gordon: What is one of your favorite childhood memories?

Martin: I was raised in a beautiful family of 6 children in Asunción, Paraguay, and even though our youngest brother Richard was mentally handicapped our parents took equal care of all of us. Both our parents worked a lot, my father as a businessperson and my mother as a caterer, so she could work from home and take care of Richard. We played rugby, went camping, and listened to music. Despite the military dictatorship that persecuted our family, we were, and remain, united and happy. I had the greatest parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Gordon: What schools and universities did you attend and degrees that you earned?

Martin: I attended primary school at the American School of Asunción, where I learned English. I then attended secondary school at the Jesuit Colegio Cristo Rey, where I met wonderful priests who taught me the church’s social doctrine. This is where I embraced a “preferential option for the poor” which has inspired me my whole life. One of my teachers, father Miguel Sanmarti SJ, became my mentor for many years. He was persecuted by the dictatorship and had to escape the country to prevent being incarcerated and tortured, like many of my schoolmates were.

After high school I went to the army in the inhospitable Chaco region of Paraguay for one year. Back then we all had to do compulsory military service. I became a corporal of the military police and thanks to my performance I was awarded a scholarship to attend the West Point Military Academy in the US. However,  the dictator vetoed my scholarship because of my parents and grandparents’ opposition to his corrupt regime. During this time, I met others like me and my family who were targeted and persecuted, and built strong relationships with many.

After this experience, I kept on applying to other colleges and finally, after dozens of rejections, I received a scholarship that allowed me to go to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, in northern California. I loved my four years there, not only because I loved my double major in public administration and poetry, but also because in college I met the love of my life and my future wife, Dorie. In 1980, I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in public administration and inter-American studies, where I served as student body president. I also attended George Washington University for a Master's Degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy and years later I received a PhD from Tulane University in International Development.

Gordon: What did you find most rewarding as President of the Associated Students of the University of the Pacific?

Martin: I was very thankful to have been elected Student Body President during my time at the university, as I was very active on campus. My main effort during my time there was to try to get my fellow classmates to get off campus and see the reality of the central valley and farmworkers of California. There were so many nationalities and cultures in the neighboring towns that I thought it was a pity that most students opted to stay on campus all day. It was incredibly rewarding whenever someone would take up my advice and share a story of a new experience or new relationship they had built outside of the school.

Gordon: Tell us about your work as President Paraguayan American Chamber of Commerce.

Martin: Together with some fantastic business leaders, we decided to start Fundación Paraguaya in 1985 and our objective was to have the business community understand that street vendors were not disguised unemployed people but rather economic agents. These were people who were not asking for welfare but rather wanted to work and create jobs. This was an enormous task to take on but one that we found success in. The Paraguayan American Chamber of Commerce elected me twice as their president, the last two years before the dictatorship was overthrown. Forty years later, many in the business community in Paraguay are still committed to this cause.

Gordon: You have served on the Board of several organizations. What were they?

Martin: In addition to leading the board at the Fundación Paraguaya, I have been a founding board member of Teach A Man To Fish in London, Thrive Lights in Chicago, and the Bertoni Nature Conservation Foundation in Paraguay. I have also been a member of the board of directors of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Global Food banking Network. I love to serve and to help civil society organizations and universities. I also learn a lot when participating in board meetings.

Gordon: What is one of your favorite memories when you served as Vice Minister of Commerce Ministry of Industry and Commerce Paraguay?

Martin: When the military dictatorship was overthrown in Paraguay in 1989, I was asked by the new president to join the government. First, to help the new incoming, democratic government to help establish the national social welfare agency and a year later to become undersecretary at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. Together with other members of the government’s economic team, we helped move the country from a government-controlled economy to a free market economy. We promoted low taxation to attract foreign direct investment, we freed government controls and quotas for imports and exports, and we established modern stock market regulations. We spent a lot of time educating the press and our political parties on the importance of free enterprise and an open economy. Thanks to that, the Paraguayan economy continues to grow, and poverty is steadily being reduced.

Gordon: What were some of the challenges that you addressed when you were Mayor of Asuncion, Paraguay?

Martin: I am incredibly thankful to have served as Mayor, and there were many challenges we faced during my term. One major one was that there seemed to be no sense of belonging. We worked to promote a vision of transforming inhabitants of the city who don’t care about things like trash in their neighborhoods into citizens who assume their responsibilities in a free society. It worked. We created more than 600 neighborhood committees who oversaw municipal matching grants to make improvements all over town. We cleaned the city, improved traffic, restored the old town, reopened the Municipal Theatre, invested in housing, and not only balanced the budget, but also, had a budget surplus every year! We beat the national government in terms of fiscal responsibility.

Gordon: Tell us about Fundación Paraguaya.

Martin: Together with a group of business professionals, we created Fundación Paraguaya in 1985  40 years ago. Because as in many countries trickle-down economics did not work that well in Paraguay, we established the country’s first microfinance program, which has reached more than 450,000 street vendors. The basic idea was to treat street vendors not as disguised unemployed people but rather as economic agents that could increase their income and create jobs without asking for government handouts and welfare. We believed that economic self-reliance was a fundamental factor in development. In 1995 we introduced Junior Achievement entrepreneurship education and financial literacy programs to all the public schools in Paraguay. Then, in 2003 the La Salle Christian Brothers gifted us their agricultural high school for poor boys, as the government was not keeping their word and paying teachers’ salaries. They were also concerned that the government's agricultural curriculum did not contemplate financial literacy. So, we took over the school, made it a co-ed school, and turned it into a financially self-sufficient agricultural high school, where 20 income-generating educational units not only provided a project-based learning experience, but also generated income to pay professors and depreciation. So, we developed a model of “education for ultra-poor rural youth that pays for itself.”

Around 15 years ago we created the Poverty Stoplight, a unique multidimensional poverty measurement tool and coaching methodology that works to not only help identify poverty indicators in communities but restores agency of individuals experiencing poverty and helps them eliminate it in their lives.

We are happy to still be working in community development after 40 years, both in Paraguay as well as in other 60 countries. Our programs have been translated into 24 languages. We are impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of families.

Gordon: Please provide us with an overview of your service to the Government or Paraguay.

Martin: I have tried to serve my country’s government on three occasions: Vice Minister of Commerce (1991-1993), Mayor of the Capital Asunción, (1996-2001), and Chief of Staff to the President (2012-2013). I felt that one cannot just stand on the sidelines and make suggestions, criticize, or propose. One must sometimes sacrifice family and personal finances to serve. Fairness entails giving and receiving. I instill these values in my children and their children, as they were instilled in me by my parents and grandparents.

Gordon: What courses did you teach as a visiting college professor?

Martin: I love teaching and have been lucky enough to teach courses on management, social entrepreneurship and poverty metrics at institutions such as the Catholic University of Asuncion, University of the Pacific, American University of Nigeria, Tulane University, University of California, Irvine, and currently, at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. My main objective is showing students how they can dedicate their lives to helping underprivileged sectors of society and still make a living. Basically, how they can fill their fridge and fill their soul. Social entrepreneurship is about that: using business skills and approaches to find sustainable and scalable strategies to help the poor and eliminate unnecessary suffering in the area where one is passionate.

Gordon: Tell us about Teach A Man To Fish in the UK.

Martin: The hero here is a British citizen called Nik Kafka who came to Paraguay in 2005 as a volunteer to work with us. After one year at Fundacion Paraguaya, he returned to London, quit his job at the bank where he was working and started a youth entrepreneurship education program similar to the one we had in Paraguay....but with a reach in Africa and Asia. He and his team have done wonderful work. Nik is one of my dear friends.

Teach A Man to Fish works to empower young people with the skills they need to succeed in school, work, and life. Through programmes, the organization equips educators in and out of school settings to help young people gain business and life skills through real youth-led businesses. By participating in the planning and running of a business, children and young people develop a range of life skills and experience through practical activities.

Gordon: You also work in Tanzania. Tell us more.

Martin: Our work in Tanzania includes youth entrepreneurship education programs where, through training and mentoring, equips young people with the skills to find jobs or start their own businesses. We also have a financially self-sufficient agricultural high school, designed for rural youth, that offers academic, technical, and entrepreneurial training. The boarding schools aim to turn students into rural entrepreneurs by teaching sustainable agriculture, hospitality, and tourism. Fundación Paraguaya has been operating in this beautiful country for more than 15 years, and we have reached thousands of young farmers.

Gordon: Tell us about the Eisenhower Fellowship.

Martin: I had the honor of being selected as an Eisenhower Fellow both in the USA as well as in Taiwan. It allowed me to get to see vocational training programs, which in turn inspired me to develop the financially self-sufficient agricultural high school model in Paraguay as well as in other 25 countries. I met people who have helped transform my work and who I cherish friendships with to this day.

Gordon: What is your relationship with the Bertoni Nature Conservancy Foundation and the Mbaracayú Forest Reserve?

Martin: Three years after I spearheaded the creation of Fundacion Paraguaya, together with my best friend and high school classmate Raul Gauto, we created the Bertoni Foundation to help protect the Mbaracayú Forest. It has been a very successful initiative, as compared with the government-protected forests, the Mbaracayú Forest is the only one that remains intact. Fifteen years ago together with Nike Foundation we replicated a self-sufficient school for girls, which has also been very successful. The idea is to protect the forest by educating girls in the community. There was a documentary created about this initiative by Samantha Grant, Carl Byker and Chris Hedge, titled “Daughters of the Forest”.

Gordon: Tell us about the mission of Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at World Economic Forum on which you were a Board Member.

Martin: In 2005, and in view of the success of our self-sufficient school model that began to be replicated throughout Latin America and Africa, the Schwab Foundation asked me to become a fellow and attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It was a great opportunity to get to know other social entrepreneurs from different countries and disciplines. I was amazed to see how social entrepreneurs turned serious social and environmental problems into incredible solutions, all of them sustainable and scalable. Then, I was asked to join the board of directors for 6 years, so it has been a terrific experience. I also got to know leaders of multinational corporations such as Nestle, and I was happy to discover that we shared many of the same concerns for economic inclusivity and opportunity for all.

Gordon: You started the Poverty Stoplight in Paraguay. What are the principal causes of poverty in Paraguay and how are you addressing them?

Martin: Our experience with our financially self-sufficient agricultural high schools allowed us to discover new ways to understand poverty. Our approach of combining technical-vocational with entrepreneurship education allowed us to develop a “learning by doing, selling, and making money” educational program. We were happy to see our students transcend the low expectations that they usually brought from their homes, become aware of the opportunities for them to generate income, become motivated to grow, and aspire to become middle class college students upon graduation. But, we were confronted with a sad reality: many of our microfinance clients were generating income above the poverty line but still, in many cases, lacked teeth, proper sanitary and bathroom accommodations, and had no family budget or savings. We also discovered that the traditional ways to measure poverty did not contemplate subjective indicators such as motivation, self-esteem, and controlling emotions.

After interviewing thousands of families to learn about what poverty looks like to them, we came up with a self-diagnosis tool that allowed families to mark where they were green (not poor), yellow (poor) and red (very poor). After families create a dashboard that reflects their situation, they pick their priorities and we help them access a “bank of solutions” where they can turn their reds and yellows into greens. Thus, we created a new poverty metric and coaching methodology that has the family as the unit of analysis. So far we are reaching more than 578,000 families in 60 countries. In the US our program is called Thrive Lights, and in the UK our program is called Signal, with additional offices in Ecuador, Tanzania and more recently in Spain. We also have over 1,000 partners in the form of nonprofits, social enterprises, governments, and private business.

Gordon: Thank you for an exceptional interview.