About Rose: I grew up in Singapore, lived in Melbourne but currently call London home. I love gastronomic adventures, especially while travelling. I stated writing at 17 to remember how it all began.
Archives:
07 February 2007
thursday;12.15am
I went to clayton utz this morning for a "breakfast with Professor Jeffrey Sachs" who is the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and deemed "the most important economist in the world" by The New York Times. Elena doused herself with plenty of coffee and I with danishes. They hooked up the video conference and soon a 100 people from barrister clerks to president of World Vision Australia sat and listened to this man speak passionately live from New York.
Extreme poverty is such a prevalent issue but one that many of us choose to ignore either due to some pre-conceived notion of that we are unable to do anything or a psuedo sophisticated cynicism that any money going to impoverished African nations are pilfered by corrupted dictators. But here's the thing, both excuses are laden with indifference.
You can do something: There's always something that can be done whether it's spreading the word to 10 more people you know, creating awareness or giving your time to volunteering (at any organization) that you believe further these causes. That is, if you feel you're not too busy with uni, work or any other commitments. There's always going to be 10 reasons not to do something but here's 1 good reason why you should- HOW CAN YOU NOT?
Extreme poverty is an affliction where so many struggle just to keep alive. It is a vicious cylce that we need to help these people with. It is beyond a moral obligation, it is necessary if we have any common decency. Jeffrey Sachs spoke of his recent trip just last month where he made his way to a coastal island off Tanzania and saw the results of a commitment by the US government to its word (finally) to an investment of malaria drugs and other preventive measure to eradicate the disease. The results 1 year on in January 2007 were drastic with 99% of malaria cases in the coastal island gone. But Jeffrey Sachs reminded us that such results though astounding shouldn't be surprising because it had always been possible and remains so.
Psuedo sophisticated cynics: With extreme poverty, people affected are so below the ladder of economic development that staying alive becomes such a battle. Helping them is is not a hand out but giving them the opportunity, a chance, of actually making things better. It's impossible to think of long term development goals when the pressing need for a child is to work relentlessly in the fields stricken by drought but whose efforts are futile because he is too weak from hunger with worms in his stomach for lack of food. It's about helping them get on to the first rung of that ladder. In contrast, most of Asia have been relatively fortunate in its efforts at economic development because for the larger part, our geographical location (that shield us from persistent diseases, drought etc) and other extenuating circumstances have prevented us from being victims of extreme poverty.
What about malgovernace and corruption that plague Africa? The truth is, nations in Africa aren't the only countries that face these issues. The difference is that most economies are robust enough to withstand it. You simply can't choose to believe that something effective cannot be done because of malgovernance and corruption because if that were true, nothing would be achieved in so many parts of Asia, the US and almost every other Country that faces corruption to some extent or another. Sure, it makes helping the poverty stricken harder but it's hardly a rational or reasoned justification for refusing to help.
The promises made by world governments, and reiterated at the Monterrey Consensus, to contribute 0.7% of GNP for official development assistance are not being kept for what I believe is this congenital fear that helping countries affected by extreme poverty will be at the expense of its own prosperity. But if, for instance, the US believes this to be true i.e. spending such a small fraction of total GNP would be so adverse, how is a continued effort for a US $24 billion increase in the military budget for 2008 any more sensible? The Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, has estimated that the costs of the war on terror had, by 2006, "hit between $1,026 billion and $2,239 billion". While these numbers may be disputed, the fact remains that the has been an exorbitant cost (in both lives and finances) with little (if any at all) positive outcomes. Spending a fraction of a military budget on extreme poverty the other hand will almost always certainly secure positive life changing outcomes in the afflicted countries, something well evidenced in Tanzania for instance.
World leaders like John Howard and President Bush fail to fulfil their word when they signed the Millenium Declaration and promised 0.7% of GNP to be channelled to Global Aid. John Howard, for instance, will proclaim in this election year that he will double foreign aid. But even where such a promise is to be kept, it still does not meet the 0.7% of GNP he had committed to (not some other government in power before him) in 2000 when he and many other world leaders signed the Millenium Declaration.
In essence, we have to do something about it... in any way we can, however small. I don't believe that extreme poverty is due to the rich. Wealth, power of ideas and science have helped the richest nations in the world prosper. And while cases of exploitation of resources by MNCs and the governments of the developed world have certainly exacerbated extreme poverty, I don't believe it has been the sole or determinative factor. The poorest of the world are not asking for anything they don't deserve as decent human beings. Churchill and Roosevelt enumerated the "Four Freedoms", the third of which is the Freedom From Want. But where "a single bite from a malaria bearing mosquito is enough to end a child's life for want of a bed net or $1 treatment. A drought or pest that destroys a harvest turns subsistence into starvation. A world in which ever year 11 million children die before their fifth birthday and 3 million dies of AIDS is not a world of larger freedom".
"A billion people died on the news tonight but not so many cried at the terrible sight well mama said, it's just make believe you can't believe everything you see so baby close your eyes to the lullabies on the news tonight" -the news, jack johnson
