Known for his ground-breaking business theories on “jobs to be done,” Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School has a new book on disruptive innovation, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out Of Poverty. I sat down with the book’s co-author, Efosa Ojomo, who leads the global prosperity research at the Clayton Christensen Institute, to learn how policymakers can apply the book’s findings in Africa.

Perhaps for most in the developed world, the image of African poverty is a teeming urban slum, such as can be found in Lagos, Kinshasa, or Luanda. Yet, as Professor Leif Brottem discusses, rural poverty is more widespread and more extreme. He notes that by 2030, some nine out of ten of those living in extreme poverty will be sub-Saharan African, disproportionately rural residents of fragile states with weak institutions and often wracked with conflict.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Ashok Sircar and Tim Hanstad o…