How to End Poverty: a Moral Imperative
from Facing the Issue: Poverty at http://www.request.org.uk/issues/topics/poverty/poverty02.htm
The Situation in Africa and the World
Malaria kills between one and three million children every year in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS has left many communities completely void of young adults. As a result, the elderly often hold the lone responsibility for more than ten of their grandchildren. Almost no children survive for secondary school and even those that do often do not have near the required resources to attend the school and leave their dependent family. With no education because of this cycle, and AIDS devastating the adults, the villages hardly ever receive leaders able to deal with the poverty levels. Many large families farm their own food from plots of less than an acre. In drought conditions like the present, even these small amounts of crops become greatly depleted. The present conditions have left farmers so impoverished that they cannot even use the fertilizer which they had utilized for years. Over the last twenty years while Asia and South America made significant gains against poverty, Africa has tailspinned into an almost fifty percent extreme poverty rate.
Around the world, eight million people die yearly because their poverty level cannot sustain life. They die because of a lack of products essential to life and inexpensive, such as anti-malaria nets and clean drinking water. These people are among the 1.1 billion in the world who live in extreme poverty, where the family earns less than a dollar a day. Extreme poverty only exists today in undeveloped nations because the developed nations of the world have spent large amounts of money eradicating the problem within their own borders, but hardly any has ventured beyond the borders.
The helpless situation of the third world stems from dependency under imperial rule. With their undeveloped colonies, imperial powers forced the many areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa into existence as a supplier of a single profitable product such as silver. While the imperial power still employed many of the colonists in their profitable businesses, no internal infrastructure developed because of constant wages. However, when the imperial power left the undeveloped nation to defend for itself, no adequate structure or education existed to support the development needed to compete in the modern world. Political inopportunity and economic isolation also contribute to the overwhelming task too often left in the impoverished hands of the undeveloped countries� political systems.
http://akamba-aid.org.uk/
World Reaction to Third World Poverty
Even with the many speeches about the great injustices of poverty around the world, the developed nations of the world have made almost no significant strides towards positive action to perturb the tragic cycles of extreme poverty in the Third World. The U.S. spends $500 billion for the armed forces while only spending $16 billion on foreign aid. This aid amount equals about 0.15% of the Gross National Product, or GNP. Many people still view poverty as the effects of the impoverished�s laziness or their government�s corruptness. Also, the protectionist policies of the post 9-11 era have left many rich countries such as the United States defending itself, while potentially prolonging the violent radicalism responsible for such great atrocities by allowing the poverty that causes such radicalism. In many cases, an underlying feeling of dominance over the poor nations allows the rich nations to place blame instead of aid on the undeveloped nations of the world. For the past twenty years, the International Monetary Fund�s policy of budget cutting in the third world has had disastrous effects throughout the world that even resonate in terrorist attacks within the borders of rich countries. All these excuses have not helped the world�s poor who continue to suffer in countries with no opportunity for betterment or even survival.
http://www.unep.org/dewa/Africa/publications/AEO-1/242.htm
Jeffrey Sachs� Plan to End Poverty
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3751529/site/newsweek/
Jeffrey Sachs is a prominent macroeconomist who is director of the U.N. Millennium Project with the goal of cutting extreme poverty in half by the year 2015. He has also written a book entitled How to End Poverty which consists of concrete ways to meet the goal set forth by the U.N.
As developed nations, it is our duty to help the undeveloped nations gain the ability to develop themselves by cooperating globally to reform development economics.
The Big Five development interventions
1. Boosting Agriculture- The providing of basic crops and tools along with the protection of grains in store houses will greatly increase food output to end chronic hunger.2. Improving Basic Health- The additions of just a few doctors and nurses along with the completely free supply of anti-malaria nets and other disease medicines will cause the death rate to decrease and encourage the end to HIV and malaria as pandemics.
3. Investing in Education- Free meals at school and expanded vocational teachings will lead to the development of leaders from within the community to guide them out of poverty.
4. Bringing Power- Electricity from grids or generators will lead to the ability to pump clean water and refrigerate the crops so that the food supply will last longer and have more health benefits.
5. Providing Clean Water and Sanitation- Latrines and better access to water will allow villagers to escape the labor of traveling to get clean water.
As a partner of the Millennium Project and as a signee of the 2002 Monterrey Consensus, the United States has agreed to spend 0.7% of its GNP on direct foreign aid. In order to truly make a difference and meet Sachs� goal, the United States must follow nine steps to improve the world�s condition, according to Jeffrey Sachs in his book How to End Poverty:
1. Commit to the Task2. Adopt a Plan of Action
3. Raise the Voice of the Poor
4. Redeem the U.S. Role in the World
5. Rescue the IMF and World Bank
6. Strengthen the U.N.
7. Harness Global Science
8. Promote Sustainable Development
9. Make a Personal Commitment
Both above lists on steps of development and basic goals are from Jeffrey Sachs' book How to End Poverty
