9 Steps to End Poverty
September 6th, 2007
There are more than a billion people on the planet living in poverty. I’m not talking about flipping burgers at McDonalds for minimum wage poverty. I’m talking about extreme poverty - characterized by the World Bank as living on US $1 or less per day. In today’s age of unparalleled opportunity and wealth, this is morally repugnant.
In his emotional and eloquent plea to the world’s rich, “The End of Poverty” economist Jeffrey Sachs outlines a detailed plan to end extreme poverty worldwide by the year 2025. The basic tenets follow:
- Commit to Ending Poverty - The first step is commitment to the task. Oxfam and many other leaders in civil society have embraced a goal, Making Poverty History. The world as a whole needs now to embrace that goal. We have committed to halving poverty by 2015. Let us commit to ending extreme poverty by 2025.
- Adopt a Plan of Action - The Millennium Development Goals are the down payment on ending poverty. They are specific, quantified, and already promised in a Global Compact of Rich and Poor. Not only should the world community recommit to these goals, but its leaders should adopt a specific global plan to meet the Millennium Development Goals of the sort outlined in chapter 15 (raising ODA to 0.7 percent of rich world GDP), and offered in detail by the UN Millennium Project.
- Raise the Voice of the Poor - Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did not wait for the rich and powerful to come to their rescue. They asserted their call to justice and made their stand in the face of official arrogance and neglect. The poor cannot wait for the rich to issue the call to justice. The G8 will never champion the end of poverty if the poor themselves are silent. It is time for the world’s democracies in the poor world - Brazil, India, Nigeria, Senega, South Africa, and dozens of others - to unite to issue the call to action. The poor are starting to find their voice, in the G3 (Brazil, India, South Africa), the G20 (a trade grouping that negotiates within the WTO, and elsewhere. The world needs to hear more.
- Redeem the Role of the United States in the World - The richest and most powerful country in the world, long the leader and inspiration in democratic ideals, has become the most feared and divisive country in recent years. The self-professed quest by the United States for unchallenged supremacy and freedom of action has been a disaster, and it poses one of the greatest risks to global stability. The lack of US participation in multilateral initiatives has undermined global security and progress toward social justice and environmental protection. Its own interests have been undermined by this unilateral turn. Forged in the crucible of the Enlightenment, the United States can become a champion of Enlightened Globalization. Political action within the United States and from abroad will be needed to restore its role on the road toward global peace and justice.
- Rescue the IMF and the World Bank - Our leading international financial institutions are needed to play a decisive role in ending global poverty. They have the experience and technical sophistication to play an important role. They have the internal motivation of a highly professional staff. Yet they have been badly used, indeed misused, as creditor-run agencies rather than international institutions representing all of their 182 member governments. It is time to restore the international role of these agencies so that they are no longer the handmaidens of creditor governments, but the champions of economic justice and enlightened globalization.
- Strengthen the United Nations - It is no use blaming the UN for the missteps of recent years. We have gotten the UN that has been willed by the powerful countries of the world, especially the United States. Why are UN agencies less operational than they should be? Not because of UN bureaucracy, though that exists, but because the powerful countries are reluctant to cede more authority to international institutions, fearing reduction of their own freedom of maneuver. The UN specialized agencies have a core role to play in the end of poverty. It is time to empower the likes of the UN Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and many others to do the job - on the ground, country by country - that they are uniquely qualified to lead, helping the poorest of the poor to use modern science and technology to overcome the trap of poverty.
- Harness Global Science - Science has been the key to development from the very start of the industrial revolution, the fulcrum by which reason is translated into technologies of social advance. As Condorcet predicted, science has empowered technological advances in food production, health, environmental management, and countless other basic sectors of production and human need. Yet science tends to follow market forces as well as to lead them. It is not surprising, I have noted repeatedly, that the rich get richer in a continuing cycle of endogenous growth, whereas the poorest of the poor are often left outside of this virtuous circle. When their needs are specific - by virtue of particular diseases, or crops, or ecological conditions - their problems are bypassed by global science. Therefore, a special effort of world science, led by global scientific research centers of governments, academia, and industry, must commit specifically to addressing the unmet challenges of the poor. Public funding, private philanthropies, and not-for-profit foundations will have to back these communities, precisely because the market forces alone will not suffice.
- Promote Sustainable Development - While targeted investments in health, educatio, and infrastructure can unlock the trap of extreme poverty, the continuing environmental degradation at local, regional and planetary scales threatens the long-term sustainability of all our social gains. Ending extreme poverty can relieve many of the pressures on the environment. When impoverished households are more productive on their farms, they face less pressure to cut down neighboring forests in search of new farmland. When their children survive with high probability, they have less incentive to maintain very high fertility rates with the attendant downside of rapid population growth. Still, even as extreme poverty ends, the environmental degradation related to industrial pollution and the long-term climate change associated with massive use of fossil fuels will have to be addressed. There are ways to confront these environmental challenges without destroying prosperity (for example, by building smarter power plants that capture and dispose of their carbon emissions and by increasing use of renewable energy sources). As we invest in ending extreme poverty, we must face the ongoing challenge of investing in the global sustainability of the world’s ecosystems.
- Make a Personal Commitment - In the end, however, it comes back to us, as individuals. Individuals, working in unison, form and shape societies. Social commitments are commitments of individuals. Great social forces, Robert Kennedy powerfully reminded us, are the mere accumulation of individual actions. His words are more powerful today than ever:
Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills - against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation…
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy an daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Let the future say of our generation that we sent forth mighty currents of hope, and that we worked together to heal the world.
September 6th, 2007 at 11:51 am
You’ve been quiet on here which is really too bad because when you write, you actually make some of us think.
When I heard the other month our oceans have been over fished with 90% of the large fish on the planet now gone from our waters it became painfully obvious we have a major problem. More poignantly I am told there is something we, as individuals can do about it. We can stop ordering fish from our supermarkets and restaurants that have been harvested by methods that deplete our oceans.
In reading this post, you make reference to IMF, World Bank and United Nations. You talk about big science initiatives, Acts and large scale project. And you make mention of Funds, Organizations and other large bodies.
From my perspective there is a disconnect between me, Joe citizen and these large agencies. But say we, Joe citizen wants to “Commit to Ending Poverty”, where do we start? It’s a lofty goal to say we should join one of these agencies and work on changing their direction.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Make it cheaper and easier to adopt kids from poor countries. My wife and I would like to adopt a child but it costs a fortune! 25K minimum. We have the room in our hearts for a child but not the cash.
Create or improve wireless broadband internet infrastructure in developing countries. The internet can do wonders for education and creating jobs but only if people have access.
September 7th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Two words:
Birth Control
The Catholic Church would benefit from a math course.
September 7th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Nice steps, however the bottom line of poverty is there is just not enough resources left on this planet to accommodate our species needed.
As a whole, including the US needs to start applying constrictions on population. We (Humanity) have the nerve to place restrictions on others species populations, yet we do none to our own. Who is going to control our population???? Humanity needs to stop dancing around the political bullsh*t and get to the true bottom line ….. there are too many people in this world!
September 7th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Feh! All pious wishes.
Nothing will ever be accomplished without an indomitable crackdown on corruption.
Anybody found to be corrupt shall have all his assets confiscated.
And this shall exclude automatic capital punishment for anyone involved in organized crime.
Only then will poverty be truly eradicated.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:01 am
I found this list useless and trite. People stay poor because in every country there are dominant groups who keep them down. High on any such list should be “the rule of law” or actually having a legal system that protects individual rights and meaningful access to credit. The UN plum positions are held by the dominant groups in each nation, not their poor. “Raising the voice of the poor” is the LAST thing any dominant group wants. Ha. This idea that the world would be a better place if everyone would just be rational and “get along” is delusional. Generally speaking the world (e.g.) has enough food, however the warlords take it. Get real, the ’70s are dead, more salient less wishful ideas are needed.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Who’s going to pay for these high and mighty goals of yours? Global tax on wealth? Seize assets of the wealthy and give it to the poor? Take land and give it to poor farmers that don’t have a way to cultivate it?
Your talk is big but when the rubber hits the road it all falls apart. Giving these people handouts will do nothing but make them dependent on others for their wellbeing. They must learn themselves and do with what they have. Investment by private parties is admirable and should be encouraged but using public tax money to fund someone else is abhorrent. That money was paid by citizens of that nation for services and infrastructure of that nation. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO IT! YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ANYTHING!
September 7th, 2007 at 8:02 am
This article is well-thought and well meaning, but, it completely ignores the single most important factor in ending poverty. That factor is the political situation in the impoverished countries.
You could throw 5% of the US GDP at impoverished countries and all that would be accomplished would be to line the pockets of the corrupt government officials who run these places.
I challenge anyone to name an instance where there has been a famine in a country with true democracy or representative government.
If you could change the political systems of these corrupt or repressive countries, it would take surprisingly little additional aid to take them out of poverty.
Unfortunately, the UN is never, ever, going to be able to effect the change needed because it too, is a corrupt institution in league with many of the most corrupt countries.
Never underestimate the ingenuity and desire of free peoples!
September 7th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Who’s going to pay for these high and mighty goals of yours? Global tax on wealth? Seize assets of the wealthy and give it to the poor? Take land and give it to poor farmers that don’t have a way to cultivate it? (ala Zimbabwe which is starving to death because the white devil farmers that were feeding everyone were driven from the country)
Your talk is big but when the rubber hits the road it all falls apart. Giving these people handouts will do nothing but make them dependent on others for their wellbeing. They must learn themselves and do with what they have. Investment by private parties is admirable and should be encouraged but using public tax money to fund someone else is abhorrent. That money was paid by citizens of that nation for services and infrastructure of that nation. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO IT! YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ANYTHING!
September 7th, 2007 at 8:05 am
So we need to support the ecconomies and societies of countries which are fundamentally flawed in the first place? Get real if you think throwing money and “science” at the developing world will help anything.
These countries need democratic governments, HUGE social reform and especially that whole contraception thing…. since that supposedly works quite well.
There’s only so much you can do for the developing world… and when they just have another few kids for the short-term benefit of a larger crop to sell, they’re undoing anything you do to help.
When they realise that having a family of 12-15 is the reason their countries have been in strife since day dot, they might consider doing the responsible thing and let their populations recede to a sustainable level.
The developed world got ahead because of hard work plus fiscally and socially responsible actions… why should we help nations who wait for aid and welfare, while stopping it from having the desired effect?
September 7th, 2007 at 8:07 am
One of the main problems with your theory is that you would cede more power to such international bodies like the UN and world bank. However, these institutions are truly not accountable to anyone. The people do not elect these people and have no method of seeing what they are doing or recourse if these people are acting wrongly. You also forget that many of the countries are not good reprentatives at all, such as having Cuba on the human rights council.
You cannot even begin to consider giving these institutions more power until they have proven to be, atleast the very least, honest, forthright, responsible and acting with integrity. They will need to do that for a while to prove themselves. Only after that has happened and sustained for some time can you even begin to give them more authority.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Yeah, that’s really going to work: make it easier to adopt kids from LDCs and, um, give them wireless. Right.
E. D. U. C. A. T. I. O. N.
Especially where such education is the only thing which can erode the deep ignorance bred by religion and poverty.
There is no other solution. this is the only one. No nine point plan, no sermon. It’s pretty damn clear, but developed countries would rather spend money no high visibility and unsustainable projects. Congratulations on the wasted billions.
12 years in LDCs and 3 years working in the field to fight poverty is where I’m coming from. Which is another way of saying I’m no armchair poverty tourist.
–
The Banjo Players Must Die
September 7th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Up, education to eradicate religion-bred poverty.
Just like in those red states…
September 7th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Want to know what to do (and maybe even more importantly what not to do)?
First, read: The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly
Next, check out kiva.org
September 7th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Your post is honest, and it’s always nice to read the writing of someone whose strong ideology comes from well-founded intentions. However, I urge you to take a look at the IMF and UN more closely.
Ever since their establishment, world poverty has greatly increased. They operate as instrumentalities of world government, run by the few bankers, rather than morally-grounded institutions who wish to help the world. The purpose of all central banks is the same: loan money to governments, collect interest on it, sap the middle class of its financial strength via taxation to pay for this interest, and solidify the control of the few.
Take a look at fiat money systems vs gold-backed (honest money). You will find that fiat money is created purely out of debt (yep, banks making money off of money they just conjured), and all of the people that produce the real value of the earth have little store of it in comparison to those who produce the commodity of exchange (money) for that value.
To get rid of poverty, one must get rid of the dishonest money system first. See some articles on financialsense.com, see zeitgeistmovie.com, and see “America: Freedom to Fascism” on google. These are just starters, but nice and quick ones.
There is so much more to learn about why our money system is a form of slavery and how it promotes poverty. But I hope at least these may lead some people to an initial offering. And then, in the interests of the human race, we may perhaps one day truly abolish the majority of poverty … once we come to understand the nature of the modern fraudulent money system.
September 7th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Here are some videos from John Pilger, that can explain the IMF WB role in this, and why they are the wrong place to look.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7932485454526581006
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/317/59/
http://www.johnpilger.com
(truth is the best linkbait)
September 7th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Thats great, but what can I do?
Waiting for the world to change…
September 7th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Educate should be numbers 1-9. You can throw all the money in the world at the poor. Unless we educate them they will spend it all on Popsicles and just keep making babies.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:51 am
The key to ending poverty in the world is global capitalism and governments that protect individual rights. If every single human being lived in freedom poverty would be a relic of the past. Human beings need to be free to produce and trade so that they can have their wants and needs full filled by their own individual efforts. Global capitalism and global freedom.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:05 am
It does my heart well to see the comments of all the people here who espouse individual freedoms and protection of property rights.
Maybe there is hope in the future for our county as well.
Power to the people, not the government!
October 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Sack’s seems to have it sort of wrong. He focus’ on the external role of states and governments to stop poverty. There is really a easier four step plan that is more efficient and makes countries more independent. Maybe bureaucrats don’t like it because they can’t profit from it.
Here is the plan: establish and enforce property rights in enpovershed countries, establish a rule by law/rule of law, establish infrastructure, and establish educational institutions to help develop human capital.
Compare this four step plan to Sack’s nine step plan. What values do the different plans emphasize and what do they each teach?
November 13th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I think the most important of the nine steps is sustainable development. This is where we should start.
http://www.live-it-true.com
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:02 pm
I think that Bono, the Millennium Project and Jeffrey Sachs do more than talk about poverty………Sachs and Bono are “hands on” regarding their belief that poverty can truly be ended by 2025. I find it amazing to read comments about Bono “just being a rock star”…he has become so much more. Several years ago, when he chose to make a difference in the world of poverty…..there was not a leader of any country in the free world who would return his phone, let alone meet with him. His tenacity and belief that our generation can make the difference, made him a major player in the world of political leaders. Now, Presidents and Prime Ministers take his phone calls and welcome him into meetings regarding poverty, disease, etc in our 3rd world countries. Over 40 years ago,Bobby Kennedy proved that citizens like you and I, can make a difference and change anything…….we can end poverty by 2025.
December 10th, 2007 at 5:41 am
To end poverty, we have to invest in solutions, some of which will save and improve lives almost immediately. For example, eliminating user fees for primary health care and basic education has drastically improved access to schools and clinics in Uganda. Others, like training nurses and teachers, will take time, but are no less important. But these things all cost money. The good news is that it won’t take much, at least not compared to how much we have promised to provide. Our country has committed to spending 0.7% of national income – a pittance – on eliminating poverty, but we haven’t come anywhere close to keeping that promise.
I believe we live in a country that should keep its promises and commit to investing in the elimination of global poverty. I ask that you make the fulfillment of our 0.7% promise a high priority and propose a timeline for our country to meet our commitments by 2015. If we can do this, the world stands a good chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Please let me know what you plan to do to make sure that our generation succeeds in ending poverty.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
hey thanks for this i neededthis on my classroom report we get to pick a topic and thi was mine.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
JA, I agree. Education is the answer. I can’t figure out why they’re pulling millions out of education and putting them into prisons. It seems to me if the money went into the education systems that there would be less of a need for the prison capital.
I think that poverty, to some extent, is inevitable tho. As long as capitalism exists, so will poverty (sad reality). And even if the standard of living is raised world wide, all it will do is simply redefine what poverty is, but poverty will still exist.