iDE believes that people should have the power to prosper on their own terms. Their programs are centred around transforming the lives of people who live in the least developed areas of the world.

The team at iDE is focused on championing the rural poor as critical market actors as customers, entrepreneurs, sales agents, producers, and more. They believe that to end poverty we must empower the millions of people who live on $2 a day. By harnessing the power of creativity and entrepreneurship on an individual level, iDE aim to develop a deep understanding of the local market, before designing products and services to ensure people can benefit from them. By delivering these types of systems-change solutions, iDE aim to help people in the communities become self-reliant with the goal of creating a lasting impact.

iDE’s work is framed around a model called Infinite. The Infinite impact model outlines a progression of programmatic approaches (Assess, Availability, Access, Acceptance, Ability, Advocacy, and Adapt) that, when implemented together, create the conditions for a functional and inclusive market ecosystem. The team at iDE work to understand gaps in markets that impede people from participating in their local economy, and then test different solutions to fill those gaps. Successful solutions are replicated and scaled to reach critical mass and serve as a springboard for entire districts, provinces and nations, with the ultimate goal of moving communities from poverty to prosperity.

Across their first 30 years, iDE transformed the lives of over 20 million people, and their ambition in their current strategic plan is to accelerate the rate of impact to millions of people around the globe. To date, iDE has helped 35 million people increase their annual household income by an average of $269 USD.