After over 50 years of billions of dollars in foreign aid being channeled to developing nations, increasing numbers of people are concluding that aid has largely been a failure. Indeed there is growing evidence that free enterprise, access to global markets, strong institutional commitments to private property and rule of law, and the growth of human capital are the path to prosperity for developing nations.

On November 9, 2010 the Acton Institute in cooperation with the Institute for Political Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal will be holding sponsoring a day-long conference - Catholic Social Teaching, Free Enterprise, and Poverty - in Lisbon, Portugal, to consider the role of free enterprise in diminishing poverty in developing nations, and to explore the connection of these ideas with Catholic social teaching. With a special focus on Portuguese-speaking developing countries such as Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Timor Leste, and Guinea-Bissau, this conference brings together academics, practitioners, clergy, and policy-makers from developed and developing nations with recognized expertise in this area. This conference is the fourth in the seven-part series Poverty, Entrepreneurship, and Integral Development.