Justin Lin knows struggle. He also knows how to be stoic and seek adaptive opportunity in the face of economic adversity. Its not only what he has been trained to master, but something he learned through experience.

Formerly a professor at Peking University, Mr. Lin is the first person from a developing country to hold the post of the World Bank’s chief economist. And its in this regard that he recently spoke about how emerging economies should react to a slump that was not their doing, and how their respective actions will determine the shape of development for decades.

In the past few months, the financial maelstrom has swept the developing world. Though it began in the rich world, this recession and how to manage it has become the top priority for poorer countries, and for the financial institutions that seek to help them.  

The East Asian financial crisis served as a catalyst for increased economic and political risk with regard to a developing nation’s integration in to the global supply chain. However, the political and social backlash from the integration malfunction, according to Mr. Lin, has taught the world severe lessons that can now be reflected upon and learned from.

His prescription for success in emerging market opportunity would originate from fiscal stimulus, with rich countries transferring resources to emerging economies to help them create international long-term demand, nations that once didn’t have the capacity to do so. “Bottleneck“-styled infrastructure projects, also made possible via the stimulus, are a further application for enhanced growth potential for developing nations, according to Mr. Lin. He goes on to estimate cost, in that the appropriate amount that should be spent toward this stimulus initiative to garner significant results that could dramatically shift the global paradigm would be approximately $400 billion USD.

Its worth it. Economic reorientation has been the direct reason we are seeing a “rise of the rest“; when the maket changes, entrepreneurs adapt and entrepreneurship is perhaps the most vital ingredient in a recipe for long-term autonomous growth. There has never been such an opportunity for an underdog like a developing nation. Mr. Lin’s prescription to get the ball rolling is frankly a stimulus package we can all get behind.