By Chris Penrose

The aftermath of the economic downturn left in its wake a brew of bailouts, closures and panic. Economic powerhouses around the world were trembling and somewhere, muted in the background, were developing nations raising the alarm about how the “meltdown” would affect their fragile economies.

Thinking about this very real threat was Guyanese-Canadian entrepreneur David Singh. A juggernaut in the Canadian financial industry and current chair of the Destiny Group of Companies, Singh is best-known for using his keen business sense to grow his former company, Fortune Financial Management, into an international conglomerate that at one time held over $8 billion in assets. Today, Singh is focused on facilitating development within impoverished nations through his latest endeavour, Quantum Global Initiatives (QGI).

Heading up this prospective non-profit organization as director of operations is C.J. Augustine-Kanu, former United Nations diplomat and daughter of none other than the iconic Fairness Commissioner Jean Augustine.

The QGI model works in three parts. First, it engages Canadians from various diasporas with a competitive price on money remittances and allows the easy transfer of money from the developed to developing world. Second, QGI works to create global advisory groups that highlight critical needs within developing nations. Third, based on the information provided by the global advisory groups, a portion (5 per cent) of the revenue generated through money remittances is used to fund sustainable business development and social change within impoverished nations.

“We start with a question,” says Singh. “Who makes the biggest contribution to the growth of the economy in the developing world? The reality is that money flowing from governments and money remittances makes up a substantial chunk of many national economies around the world — and this economic shake-up puts those resource streams in jeopardy. There are countries that have up to one third of their GDP made up of remittances. If you cut off the flow of remittances, you could cause a financial disaster in those countries.”

For Singh and Augustine-Kanu, the issue is not just about keeping money flowing into at-risk economies, but also about how that money is being used. With a powerful understanding of micro-finance through her work with the United Nations, Augustine-Kanu understands how desperately economic facilitation is needed in the developing world.

“I just want to see money reach the people on the ground who really need it,” she says. “I am excited about the opportunity to work with members of different diasporas, and I am excited about consulting community leaders and local voices in the countries where the projects are to be developed.”

The model proposed by QGI is an alternative to the “aid” model presently used to assist developing nations in meeting their immediate needs. Instead, this new methodology aims to empower individuals with the resources and infrastructure to proactively plan and prepare for economic and social progress.

“If we have not given them any tools or resources to start businesses, if we haven’t built any homes, we have not changed the condition that caused the problem,” says Singh. “The solution is for immigrants in their own respective diasporas to take on more responsibility, and for those immigrants to mobilize themselves and say, ‘We have a responsibility to the country that we come from, so as we get focused on chasing our own dreams, we must also remember that they have their own dreams.’”

For more on QGI, visit: quantumglobalinitiatives.org

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