“Poverty, Inc.” examines the way citizens of richer countries think about poverty in other parts of the world and how they respond to it. Using stories from Haiti and Africa, the film argues that the conceptual framework used to address global poverty ought to be changed. For example, lifting people out of poverty requires more than long-term handouts of subsidized rice and used clothing from the north. That type of response often kills local production and undermines the jobs and self-esteem associated with them. Beneficiaries of the current approach include the subsidized food producers in the industrialized donor countries. While charity givers are generally well intentioned, reaction to global poverty has become an industry unto itself. The number of NGOs working in Haiti, for example, may exceed 1,000.  Poverty response plans that lead to local job creation and production—even to excess amounts that could be internationally traded—are lauded in the vein of the adage “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  The film does not suggest the reduction of charity but rather a change in the form that it currently takes.