A participant in the "financial diaries" research in Madhupur, Bangladesh, March 2009. Photo: Robin Saidman /VitalEdgeAid.org

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More than 2.7 billion people in the world live on two dollars a day — or less. For most Americans that may sound impossible. Or like a living hell.

In fact, there is much more nuance to it, to that life, than images of hungry kids with tin cups might suggest.

A detailed new study of the planet’s poorest billions finds a lot of sophistication among those poor in handling money. They don’t have much. They have to stretch it. Save it. Borrow and lend. For food, a home, even retirement. On two bucks a day.

We might learn something. This hour, On Point: Half the world, on two dollars a day.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Daryl Collins joins us in our studio. She was project director of the most recent Financial Diaries Project at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, which researched how poor people in South Africa spend, borrow and save. She is also a senior associate at Bankable Frontier Associates, a Boston-based consulting firm that tries to find ways to extend financial services to underserved people worldwide. She is co-author of the new book “Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 Dollars a Day.”

Read the first chapter (pdf) of “Portfolios of the Poor.”

Stuart Rutherford joins us from Exeter, England. He did the first Financial Diaries project, in Bangladesh, and is co-author of “Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 Dollars a Day.” He’s also the author of “The Poor and their Money” (2000) and founder of SafeSave, a non-profit based in Dhaka, Bangladesh that provides saving sevices to the poor there. He has consulted with the world-famous Grameen Bank, the microfinance bank bounced by Nobel Prize winner Mohamed Yunus.

Lufefe joins us from Langa, a township outside Cape Town, South Africa (he asked that we not use his surname). He’s married and a father of two. His wife and children live in their village and he lives in a hostel area and sends money back to them. He has a job, not always steady and makes about 3,000 to 4,000 Rand a month, which translates to about $3 per day for each member of his immediate family.

Below is a slideshow of pictures from Langa Township, near Cape Town, where researchers recruited many of the South Africa study’s participants. You can also open the slideshow at full-screen size on Flickr or click on each photo below to view captions. (Photos: Robin Saidman / VitalEdgeAid.org).

Dambisa Moyo

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The world has poured aid into post-colonial Africa. And Africa remains overwhelmingly poor.

Now, one young African economist is speaking up to say, “stop the aid.” No more concerts for Africa. No more heartfelt appeals.

Dambisa Moyo — from Zambia by way of Harvard, Oxford, and Goldman Sachs — says tough market discipline is what African nations need, not handouts. She argues that the more than $1 trillion in aid that’s gone to Africa has not helped the continent, but put it on life support. Stifled entrepreneurship. Fed corruption. Made Africa’s leaders beholden to the West.

She’s been on the road with her controversial message. The pushback has been loud and strong.

This hour, On Point: We’re debating aid for Africa, with Dambisa Moyo.

You can join the conversation. Could Bono be wrong? What about Dambisa Moyo? How do you see aid to Africa?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from London is Dambisa Moyo, economist and author of the new book “Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.” She is former head of economic research and strategy for sub-Saharan Africa at Goldman Sachs and a former World Bank consultant.

From New York we’re joined by John McArthur, chief executive of the Millennium Promise, created to help achieve the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development goals, which include cutting global poverty in half by 2015.  He oversees the Millennium Villages project, which helps more than 400,000 people in rural communities across 10 countries in Africa to become economically viable. He is also research associate at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he teaches at the School of International and Public Affairs.

William Damon is one of the world’s leading scholars on adolescence and human development. And when he looks around the world, he sees a growing problem.

It’s not just that young adults don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. It’s not simply that they won’t leave home. No, it’s that and more: A growing trend of rudderlessness or purposeselessness.

But don’t just throw your hands up and despair for America’s youth, Damon says. Answer the wake-up call.

This hour, On Point: It’s time to give the children a purpose.

-Jane Clayson

Guest:

William Damon, Director of the Stanford University’s Center on Adolescence and author of “The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life.”