from Blog the Debt by Fran QuigleyIndianapolis StarLast week, I participated in a day-long downtown Indianapolis fast and demonstration asking Senator Bayh to join Senator Lugar in co-sponsoring the Global Poverty Act and Jubilee Act. By committing the U.S. to help reduce extreme poverty and cut the debt burden of struggling countries, these two pieces of legislation would address the obscene fact that 16,000 children die each day simply because they are poor.We took to the streets in the hopes of educating Hoosiers about global poverty. As it turned out, we were the students, too. Even in the age of blogs, Facebook and cell phones, there are still a few lessons best understood by talking with people face-to-face.We learned about messaging. Some people we spoke with about our issues...
from Business Daily Africa Written by Yash Tandon The OECD-inspired and promoted Accra Action Agenda (AAA) on “aid effectiveness” was concluded on September 4 2008 as a “consensus” document by almost 1,200 delegates from about 100-odd countries and intergovernmental organisations (IGOs).There was also a side event of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) attended by some 600 delegates from 325 CSOs from 88 countries.What did Accra achieve?What the Accra conference achieved was to draw attention to the unwieldiness of aid as an instrument of development.According to the OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development), donors sent 15,000 missions to 54 recipient countries in 2007. In Tanzania alone the local aid bureaucracy produced 2,400 quarterly reports to...
from the New Statesman by Nick DeardenBailing out the banks without progress on the world's problems such as poverty and climate change is like socialism for the rich. It's time for proper regulation...Gordon Brown’s conversion to financial regulation this weekend is certainly better late than never. He has joined a wide range of statesmen who, despite their role in maintaining “hands off” global finance, have come to see the error of their ways.In May the great and the good of European social democracy, led by Jacques Delors and Jacques Santer, both former Presidents of the European Commission, declared in a letter that “Financial markets can not govern us!”.In fact much of the world has been governed by financial markets for decades, and the severe poverty which still exists...
from The Age by Tim CostelloNEXT week political leaders will meet in New York to try to get the world's assault on poverty back on track. No doubt few business leaders in Australia will pay much heed to the United Nations General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals. They should. The outcome of these goals will have a profound impact on corporate Australia.Amid the turmoil gripping world economic markets triggered by the credit crunch, it is very easy to miss the importance of this event. But the fight against poverty has great implications for the future growth of the global economy and nowhere will the impact be felt more than in Asia.It is why Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is right to take a leadership role in attending the NY meeting and why those critical of his decision to miss...
from All Africa I usually stay away from columnists, but I thought this was a pretty good one. With all this talk of the poverty line moving up above a dollar. This article reminds us that many people are still well below the dollar mark. - KaleBy Dorene NamanyaOne dollar; less than a loaf of bread, a kilo of sugar, less than 2 bars of soap, a kilo of ground nuts, less than a kilo of beans (the kind that do not have weevils), less than transport fare to and from the town to Kireka, Ntinda and Kajjansi, less than a litre of fuel.One dollar; many people in Uganda survive on it daily, while many more people survive on less than half of it. And others, on nothing at all.The government measures the poverty line at $1 a day per person. Charles Lwanga Ntale, the executive director of...
from the Dispatch Online, South Africa Njongonkulu NdunganeTHE Group of Eight (G8) summit has come and, like other summits, gone. A lot of anticipation preceded this year’s summit against a backdrop of an escalation of the usual problems and new challenges bedevilling the world, especially Africa.Our world communities are currently confronting the worst food crisis in 45 years. Food prices have tripled in three years. The World Bank estimates that 100 million people are falling deeper into poverty as prices for staples like wheat, rice, and corn have risen 83percent. Coming on top of Africa’s old, existing challenges, our continent is disproportionately affected.Escalating global oil prices, which contribute to the dramatic rise in food prices, have also hit the poor...
from All Africa Leadership (Abuja)COLUMN8 July 2008Posted to the web 8 July 2008By Kunle SomorinAbujaIn 2005, when Africa was the thrust of the G8 meeting, nothing much was achieved. Amidst great fanfare, the leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) major industrial countries, are meeting again, in northern Japanese island of Hokkaido with one of their principal objectives being the need to address the problem of poverty in Africa. KUNLE SOMORIN contends that this may be a pipe-dream for Africa's renaissance again.He was scathing and unsparing in his condemnation of the motioning without movement of the world's superpowers on the developmental crises plaguing Africa. He has been a development activist in Ghana and many parts of Africa and Asia. Charles Abugre, head of policy and advocacy at...
from the Delaware Online By STEPHEN KINZERIn the dozens of poor countries I've covered as a foreign correspondent, development specialists -- people who run projects aimed at pulling nations out of poverty -- have generally worked hand in hand with human-rights advocates. That makes sense because these two groups are natural allies. Both instinctively support governments that promote freedom and prosperity, and oppose corrupt and repressive ones.Recently, though, I've been spending time in a country where these two groups are on opposite sides: Rwanda.No other country's government is so highly praised by development specialists but so roundly condemned by human-rights advocates. In fact, Rwanda's spectacular rebirth since the shocking genocide of 1994 has reignited an old debate about...
from Red Orbit By MJ ANDERSENMY NEIGHBOR called to say that she was through with tomatoes. Had I seen the paper? The city was raising water rates. She had hoped to grow tomatoes and zucchini in her backyard plot this year, but who could afford the watering? What sense would it make?I pretended I knew all about the rate hike, which I did, in a vague, headline way. But the details, I found out later, were surprisingly grim: Water was going up 12 percent, sewer rates 19 percent. I thought of what my mom used to say, at parades or in stores or on car trips: Just hold it.As for tomatoes. Lately, the news has been full of stories about people growing their own food, to offset climbing prices at the store. It seems we are all going to be tilling the median strips, tending lettuces in container...
from the Los Angeles Times Having a car shouldn't keep needy families from receiving assistance.By Rourke O'BrienWith falling home prices, rising food and fuel costs and an unemployment rate well above the national average, the current economic downturn may push already vulnerable California families to the brink of financial destitution. Thousands of people may turn to welfare for support in the coming months. That's OK -- that's the purpose of temporary assistance. It's not as if this is the money-for-nothing welfare of the early 1990s; these folks are required to start looking for work the second they land on the rolls. Yet to qualify for assistance, many families may be forced to give up the most effective tool they have in the fight against poverty and unemployment: their car.To be...
from the Globe and MailFour billion people need access to land, income and identityLLOYD AXWORTHYOvershadowed by news of catastrophic food shortages, Asian natural disasters and the home-grown issues of gas prices and foreign-affairs high jinks was the release of a report by a United Nations-sponsored commission that offers a refreshing set of proposals to deal with the grinding reality of poverty, which afflicts two-thirds of the world's population.The report's focus is not another call for more foreign aid, a demand for revision of trade policies or a radical push to foster confrontation between the developed and developing worlds. Rather, it makes the singular point that if the poor are empowered to exercise basic legal rights, they can and will be the agency of their own poverty...
from the Union LeaderGROWING UP in New Hampshire, I was blessed enough to live in a place free from the tragedies and hardships of abject poverty, widespread disease and desperate hunger. Here at home, a person can visit a local farm for fruits and vegetables, or purchase them in a local grocery store. Children in New Hampshire are routinely inoculated and easily enrolled in school. Yet a world away in much of Africa, this situation is far from the life we treasure in the Granite State.It is with that sense of New Hampshire values and blessings that I recently traveled to Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia to view firsthand where American-led efforts are fighting extreme poverty and saving lives, most notably through Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI) and Presidential Emergency Plan for...
from the BBC International development policies are undermining the long term survival of some of the globe's poorest communities, argues Masego Madzwamuse. In this week's Green Room, she says the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the world's harsh drylands are being sacrificed in the name of progress.The world's poorest of the poor live in the toughest areas of the planet - the drylands.These areas all have key factors in common: water is scarce, and rainfall is unpredictable - or it rains only during a very short period every year.Drylands cover more than 40% of the Earth's surface and are home to more than two billion people.These areas are also home to a disproportionate number of people without secure access to food.Why are 43% of the world's cultivated lands found in dry...
from the Toronto Star Haroon Siddiqui Call him the Gandhi of our times.The Mahatma ended colonialism using non-violence. Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is lifting millions out of poverty with microcredit (lending small amounts to the neediest). Now he's onto another revolutionary idea, "social entrepreneurship" (you invest not to make a profit but to do good, while still recouping your principal).Yunus, like Gandhi, is humble in manner as well as dress: a simple long cotton kurta, shirt and vest. And wise, witty and patient.When colleagues at his Garmeen (Village) Bank in Bangladesh grumbled that only 12,000 of the 100,000 beggars it lent money to had given up panhandling, Yunus responded: "Give them time; they are restructuring their business. They know which houses are good for...
from Spotlight on Povertyby Joel Berg and Tom FreedmanSix ideas for an invigorated fight against child hunger.Poverty can have devastating consequences: terrible living conditions, limitations on economic opportunity, but perhaps most viscerally: hunger. As food prices skyrocket and the economy tightens, the presence of hunger in our country is becoming simultaneously more challenging and apparent to all.The existence of hunger in America is awful, but the fact that American children are going hungry is also an embarrassment. The numbers are startling: in 2006, over 15% of children lived below the poverty line, and 12.6 million children lived in households that were unable to always afford enough food. Of those, 430,000 children were particularly bad off, directly suffering from reduced...
from the International Herald Tribune By Carol C. AdelmanThe big story of the cyclone that ravaged Myanmar's delta region and the earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan Province in May is not only how the Chinese government outperformed the Burmese military junta in responding to natural disaster. It is also how private citizens, companies, charities and religious organizations from many countries have emerged as a frontline force in helping victims of such tragedies, even within government-dominated states.In the case of China, donations from American corporations alone totaled $90 million, compared to a modest $3.1 million in U.S. government aid. Private giving from British corporations and private citizens to help the more than 368,000 injured and 5 million homeless victims of...
from the Independent For Western travellers to malarial parts of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and south America, the parasite holds few terrors. Dose yourself with the right prophylactic drug – Malarone is the current gold standard for areas where there is drug resistance – douse yourself with insect repellent and you are unlikely to fall victim to the lethal disease.The indigenous population has fewer choices. Prophylactic drugs, at about £2 a day for Malarone, are beyond their reach. Bed nets, impregnated with insecticide, offer effective protection at minimal cost and millions have been distributed by charities. But most people in the affected countries accept malaria as an illness to be endured, suffering regular attacks.The usual response to a fever was to reach...
from the Washington PostBy Robert J. SamuelsonWhat's the world's greatest moral challenge, as judged by its capacity to inflict human tragedy? It is not, I think, global warming, whose effects -- if they become as grim as predicted -- will occur over many years and provide societies time to adapt. A case can be made for preventing nuclear proliferation, which threatens untold deaths and a collapse of the world economy. But the most urgent present moral challenge, I submit, is the most obvious: global poverty.There are roughly 6 billion people on the planet; in 2004, perhaps 2.5 billion survived on $2 a day or less, says the World Bank. By 2050, the world may have 3 billion more people; many will be similarly impoverished. What's baffling and frustrating about extreme poverty is that much...
from The International Herald Tribune By Thant Myint-UWednesday, May 21, 2008UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon arrives in Yangon on Thursday at the invitation of Myanmar's ruling generals, the first official visit by a UN chief in over 40 years. He will tour the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy River delta and work to persuade the government to allow greater international access to the hundreds of thousands of people in need of life-saving assistance.But he will not just be visiting a country reeling from its worst natural disaster ever. He will be in a country only now emerging from decades of armed conflict, where aid has long been politicized and where the urgent tasks of emergency relief may soon be coupled with the immeasurably more complex challenges of recovery and reconstruction.As...
from the Jamaica GleanerDr Mirta Roses Periago, ContributorThe global food crisis, precipitated by the steep rise in food prices and consequent inaccessibility of food, which has lead to explosions of violence in over 30 countries, some of them in our region, poses a threat to the progress in health, as well as in environmental protection and poverty reduction, achieved within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals.This crisis is occurring at a critical time in Latin America and the Caribbean, when efforts are concentrating on eradicating malnutrition and developing strategies to combat both the causes and the most visible effects of this chronic problem that undermines the populations' potential for current and future development.Food assistance is urgent, as...
from the Washington PostIt is a question with an obvious answer, something Jesus knew as he asked it: “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?” (Matthew 7:9). No, of course not. A caring parent does everything possible to nourish a child. But these days, in places like Haiti and Cameroon, that means feeding a child cakes made from mud and grass—not much better than a stone—to try to stifle the hunger pangs that just grow sharper.The world is in the grip of a global hunger crisis, fueled by soaring food prices. Prices on many items have nearly doubled in the past three years, especially for corn, wheat, rice, and soy. These increases devastate families in the poorest parts of the world, where people spend up to 80 percent of their income on...
from Business Daily Africa Written by Emmanuel MartinThe hunger riots arising from soaring food prices are a terrible human drama. The world price of wheat has nearly tripled in three years, and doubled in the last year; the price of rice has increased by more than 50 per cent in three months.The cost of a meal is 40 per cent higher than one year ago in many poor countries. When food purchases can represent 75 per cent of a household’s budget, those price increases become a nightmare.This could mean the return of millions under the poverty threshold, wiping out several years’ development efforts.What are the reasons for this situation? Given that the economy is made of complex interconnections, we shall seek the real reasons for the crisis in more depth than is usually done.The...
from Spotlight on Poverty Newt Gingrich answers Barack Obama's call for an honest discussion about poverty.In early March, Senator Barack Obama gave a speech in Philadelphia in which he invited Americans to engage in an honest discussion about poverty, race, and the future of those Americans who are currently unable to pursue happiness. It was a powerful speech and deserves response, and I am writing here to answer his call and suggest that we find real solutions. To find real solutions, we have to have real honesty and a serious dialogue in which unpleasant facts are put on the table and bold proposals are discussed.Real change requires facing reality. I think it will be very hard to go around this country and find anyone willing to stand up and suggest that the current system is...
The New Times (Kigali)OPINION12 May 2008Posted to the web 13 May 2008By Philip EmeagwaliImagine that it is May 25, 2063, the 100th anniversary of Africa Day, a day for reflecting on Africa's successes and failures. The newspaper headline announces, "Last Remaining Oilfield in West Africa's American Territory Dries Up."The article continues: "The last patch of rainforest will soon be empty land scarred by oil pipelines, pumping stations, and natural gas refineries. Wholesale pollution will be the environmental legacy for future generations."Africa's offshore oil reserves will ebb away. Abandoned oil wells could well become tourist attractions, and oil-boom settlements will be transformed into derelict ghost towns."In a world without oil, air travel will disappear, and people will...
from the London Free Press Growing food for fuel is only one of the reasons why a global food shortage looms By VIVIAN SONG, FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS; EARTH POLICY INSTITUTEThe global food shortage that has sparked bloody riots around the world serves as another grim reminder of how international crises are intimately tied to the state of the planet.Last year, this column devoted a page to Darfur that explained how the humanitarian crisis that has killed 200,000 people and displaced another 2.2 million has its roots not in a web of politics, but in an "ecological crisis" described by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.Similarly, extreme weather patterns linked to climate change, the rising price of oil and the frenzied production of ethanol are all being...
from the Los Angeles TimesThanks to disasters of its own making, the agency is losing money and influence.By Mark WeisbrotApril 27, 2008'The imf is back," declared the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, at its annual spring meeting earlier this month in Washington. And not a moment too soon either. To hear the organization's economists tell it (as they mingled in five-star hotels, long black limos and posh restaurants with bankers, businessmen and finance ministers from around the globe), they've arrived on the scene just in time to help solve the world's financial crisis.But despite the bravado, the reality is that today's IMF is not what it once was. These days, the world's most famous deficit police force is running a whopping small-country-size...
from All AfricaBusiness Daily (Nairobi)By M. J GitauUntil very recently, it was hard for economists to admit or recognise the role of politics in the economic process. That was partly because of the specialisation the profession has undergone in the last few years, and how difficult it was, and probably is, for economists to pay respect to anything immeasurable.But look at the damage politics has had on the economy in just a span of months. From rosy growth projections of seven per cent for this year, the forecast today is too weak.Today, Treasury and the Central Bank have downgraded that to about four per cent, and last week, AIG, an investment firm, gave a three per cent forecast, while it is reported that the IMF figure is about 2.5 per cent. These grim figures were seen about five...
from the Calgary HeraldHalf the world lives on less than $2 per day Naheed NenshiLast week, I attended the opening of an exhibit at the U of C's Nickle Arts Museum, entitled Bridges that Unite (bridgesthatunite.ca). The exhibit itself was remarkable, and I highly recommend seeing it before it closes this weekend.The show, sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, highlights 25 years of Canadian participation with that organization in the developing world.Without question, some of what has been accomplished is breathtaking.For example, in the remote northern areas of Pakistan, in villages that could have been incubators of fundamentalism and intolerance, the Foundation and its partners engaged in a number of initiatives that tripled per capita income, took literacy from near-zero to...
from Ottawa CitizenJohn Siebert and Robert MuggahPoor countries are less safe than rich ones. Most of the world's 30-odd armed conflicts are raging in the global South. As a country's human development ranking declines, its risk of succumbing to violent conflict grows. More than one-third of all countries mired in poverty experienced war since the late 1990s. Fewer than two per cent of rich countries experienced conflict over the same period.The international aid community has been slow to grasp the real and urgent implications of the linkage between armed violence and human development. Armed violence disrupts markets, displaces populations, destroys schools, clinics and roads, and scars families, communities and societies. More than 300,000 people die violently every year, most in the...
from Canada comDon CayoVancouver SunVANCOUVER -- You'd think that when a farm's productivity soars, so would the farmer's income.Yet, while that's often the case in a rich society like ours, it usually isn't in a poor one.There, as long as farmers produce the same old local staples -- things like rice, maize, millet or cassava, which rarely trade internationally -- it doesn't matter much how many more mouths they feed. As yields go up, prices go down, and the farmers are no better off. It's only if or when they get into export crops that their incomes increase.So, while Asia's Green Revolution freed up huge numbers of workers to move to the city and power its modern-day Industrial Revolution, the resulting new wealth is most unevenly distributed. And many, many farm families remain mired...