Below you will find an incredible summary of the ongoing debates about Global Poverty and what we in the “developed world” can and should do about it. Learn more at www.policyinnovations.org.

POVERTY: Essential Resources from the Carnegie Council

What are our moral obligations to the world’s poor? In this information age, those of us in rich countries can no longer plead ignorance; we see the faces of poverty on our TV and computer screens every day.

Even if we close our eyes to the ethical arguments, many have long contended—with renewed force since 9/11—that we must alleviate poverty in our own self-interest. Our national security depends on it.

But how do we go about ending poverty? How can we address the root causes rather than just the symptoms?

Is aid the answer? Rich nations have doled out billions of dollars in aid and loans over the years and poverty rates have certainly gone down in the last two decades. But they have done so unevenly and not necessarily because of aid.

According to World Bank figures, in 1981, 1.9 billion people in the developing world (one in two) were living below the poverty line of $1.25 a day (Purchasing Power Parity terms at 2005 prices). In 2005, the number was 1.4 billion people (one in four). Much of the progress occurred in Asia, particularly China, where the number of people in poverty fell by around 600 million between 1981 and 2005. But the dramatic improvement in Asia is largely thanks to industrialisation and trade, not aid. Meanwhile, in Sub-Saharan Africa the poverty rate remained at about 50 percent during that period, and the absolute number of poor nearly doubled, from 200 million in 1981 to 380 million in 2005.

It should also be noted that critics such as Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge believe that the Bank’s international poverty line of $1.25 PPP a day is far too low to cover the cost of survival, and thus their figures do not reflect the true extent of world poverty. (See Reddy’s “The World Bank’s New Poverty Estimates: Digging Deeper into a Hole,” 2008.)

What is to be done? Are we going about aid in the wrong way? Are we simply not giving enough? Or is aid not the solution, but part of the problem?

To make matters worse, the global financial crisis has hit many poor and developing countries especially hard. With the worldwide slowdown, their exports are dropping, remittances are shrinking, and aid is dwindling. How should the rich nations address this, particularly since the crisis was of their making?

These issues are of great concern to the Carnegie Council. Here is a selection of some of our many resources on world poverty.

OUR MORAL OBLIGATIONS

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty
Peter Singer, Princeton University
Ethically, there is no excuse for not helping the poor and it wouldn’t take much. If the top 90 percent of Americans gave at least 1 percent of their income we could reach the Millennium Development Goals. (Public Affairs Program, March 2009)

Obama’s Moral Obligation to Africa
Matthew Hennessey, Carnegie Council
Candidate Obama pledged to double U.S. aid to Africa by the end of his first term, but given the economic crisis, will he fulfill his campaign promises? (Carnegie Ethics Online, March 2009)

Poverty and Global Justice
Nancy Kokaz, University of Toronto
Kokaz proposes a global poverty eradication principle grounded in John Rawls’s account of human rights and assistance for the Law of Peoples. (Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 21.3, Fall 2007)

World Poverty and Human Rights
Thomas Pogge, Yale University
“Thanks in part to the rationalizations dispensed by our economists, most of us believe that severe poverty and its persistence are due exclusively to local causes. Few realize that severe poverty is an ongoing harm we inflict upon the global poor,” writes Pogge.

[This is the lead article in an Ethics & International Affairs symposium, Volume 19.1, Spring 2005

The other authors are Mathias Risse, Allen Patten, Rowan Cruft, Norbert Anwander, and Debra Satz. The symposium ends with a final article from Dr. Pogge in response.]

Debate: Global Poverty Relief (Four Articles)
Andrew Kuper, LeapFrog Investments
Peter Singer, Princeton University
Kuper asserts that there is no “royal road” to poverty relief, but rather many intersecting roads. Singer’s final response is “if we don’t know how to make deep structural changes that will end desperate poverty, it is still better to help some people rather than none.” (Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 16.1, Spring 2002)

ROOT CAUSES—AND PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University
There are three biophysical realities of impoverishment: insufficient food production, insufficient disease control, and economic isolation—and all three can easily be addressed. (Public Affairs Program, March 2005)

The Curse of Riches:

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
Paul Collier, Oxford University
Collier identifies four poverty traps and in this talk he focuses on one of them: resource riches. (Public Affairs Program, January 2008)

Property Rights and the Resource Curse (Parts 1-4)
Leif Wenar, King’s College London
Poor countries with valuable resources like oil and diamonds are prone to repressive governments, civil wars, and slower growth. This series of four articles discusses the reasons why, and proposes mechanisms to protect the property rights of the poor. (Global Policy Innovations (GPI) Policy Library, April 2007)

Failed States:

Devin Stewart Interviews Seth Kaplan on “Fixing Fragile States”
Seth Kaplan looks at how weak states can promote and leverage “social cohesion” to help build development from the bottom up. (GPI, November 2008)

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World
Ashraf Ghani, Institute for State Effectiveness
Drawing on his background at the World Bank and as the first post-Taliban finance minister of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani (and co-author Clare Lockhart) develops a comprehensive framework for understanding the problem of state-building. (Public Affairs Program, April 2008)

Entrepreneurship:

Beyond Microfinance: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Poverty Alleviation
Michael Strong, Educator and Entrepreneur
Although microfinance has helped millions of individuals, it doesn’t create much real economic growth. But some organizations are moving beyond microfinance to create more substantial rural enterprises. (Carnegie Ethics Online, October 2008)

Saving the World with a Cup of Yogurt
Sheridan Prasso, Fortune
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the father of microcredit, has a new idea. It’s called social business enterprise, and the first step is a yogurt factory in Bangladesh. (GPI, March 2007. This article appeared originally in Fortune. Republished with permission.)

THE QUESTION OF AID

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
Dambisa Moyo, Economist and Author
In the past 50 years, Africa has received more than $1 trillion in development-related aid. Has it improved Africans’ lives? No, says Dambisa Moyo. In fact, aid has made the situation much worse. (Public Affairs Program, April 2009)

Book Review: “Does Foreign Aid Really Work?” (Roger C. Riddell) & “Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics” (Carol Lancaster)
These two works display a sober understanding of aid challenges, present a balanced view of the context within which aid operations take place, and provide valuable insights about the workings of aid organizations, writes reviewer Robert Picciotto. (Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 21.4, Winter 2007)

Accountability in International Development Aid
Leif Wenar, King’s College London
There is very little accountability in aid agencies, and what accountability there is often works against poverty relief. Increasing accountability, however, is not always the solution. Wenar has a proposal to make aid more effective. Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 20.1 Spring 2006)

Payments for Progress: A Hands-Off Approach to Foreign Aid
Owen Barder, aidinfo.org
Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development
The authors discuss an approach to scaling up foreign aid aimed at strengthening local capacity and institutions, including in fragile states. “Payments for progress” would link additional aid to clear evidence of progress already achieved on the ground. (GPI Policy Library—Center for Global Development Working Paper 102, December 2006)

The World’s Banker:
A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations
Sebastian Mallaby, The Washington Post
Will the World Bank survive? Despite its shortcomings, Mallaby believes we need it badly, as there is a serious lack of strong institutions to manage the challenges created by globalization and transnational threats. (Public Affairs Program, January 2005)

DEVELOPMENT THROUGH TRADE

Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development
Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University
Stiglitz details what a trade agreement might look like if based on principles of economic analysis and social justice for the world economy, and points to how less developed countries are disadvantaged in the negotiating process. (Public Affairs Program, April 2006)

See also: Jere Van Dyk Interviews Joseph Stiglitz
“I firmly believe that aid and trade have to work together,” says Dr. Stiglitz. “If we provide assistance to help people to take advantage of the new opportunities, we can get real growth, and they won’t need the handouts as much as in the past.” (April 2006)

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

The G-20′s Global Hit-and-Run
Christian Barry, Australian National University
Matt Peterson, Yale University
Ethically, poor countries are owed something better than an opportunity to acquire more debt, which is all the G-20 is offering them. The crisis has been compared to natural disasters like the tsunami but a car crash is a better analogy, where the driver who caused it must compensate the victim. (GPI, April 2009)

Developing Countries and the Global Crisis
Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University
Even developing countries that did everything right—and had far better macroeconomic and regulatory policies than the U.S. did—are feeling the impact. Unless something is done, the crisis will throw as many as 200 million additional people into poverty. (GPI—Project Syndicate, April 2009)

OneWorld.net selected the inspiring work of community leader and great friend of SMRC as the subject of a story on early childhood education. Doris is a special woman because she has the ideas and persistence to turn difficult situations into powerful success stories. Read the story published by OneWorld here: http://www.euronews24.org/world/mother-to-a-community-oneworld-net/

It doesn’t get any more straightforward than this: Poverty in Africa is still extremely high. The Bread for the World Institute has published a remarkable map of the world disclosing what percentage of people living in every country around the world is surviving on less than $1.25 per day.

The site can be visited here.

To get some perspective on this, I reflected on my morning. The first thing I did today (other than shower with ample clean water, brush my teeth with high quality toothpaste, and throw on some clothes that costs more than I’d like to admit), was walk to the store and by a cup of coffee for $1.60. There goes that alotment for the day. That cup of coffee. Out of reach for much of Africa as visible on this site. There remains much work to be done.

Over the years, students in developing countries have found SMRC on the web and opted to establish chapters on college campuses in their home country. This happened in Sierra Leone and below you can read the inspiring and moving story of why SMRC-SL came to be, and what it has achieved.

By Moses Beamie Seiwoh, SMRC-SL Leader

SMRC-SL was started and inspired by acclaimed youth activists, survivors of the Sierra Leone Civil War. At age nine, after nearly being buried alive as a result of disease, hunger and suffering, I pledged to spend mine life helping children. At ages 16, we successfully lobbied in the Sierra Leone’s Children’s Disarmament Campaign, an effort in the disarmament of approximately 20,000 Sierra Leonean child soldiers.

While at university I continued my vision and invited other youths to partner in the mission. SMRC-SL focuses on Sierra Leone that has faced the worst situations of all – they are beyond the need of international emergency services, but not yet advanced enough to have a self-sustaining commercial economy. Our country faces the daily realities of hunger, and a lack of basic needs such as clean water, safe schools, parks and medical care. 

We inform young people in industrialized countries about the plight of the world’s poorest children and channel their desire to create positive social change. We create tangible opportunities for young people to take action.

Sierra Leone is emerging out of over a decade of civil war.  The conflict, which lasted for over a decade, developed into one of the most gruesome civil wars seen in the sub-region. Young women and children were the most vulnerable victims. They were routinely raped, maimed, and drugged by warlords. Commanders used some as sex slaves, while others were sent into dangerous battles as combatants.   Across the country, basic infrastructure was destroyed and foreign investments ceased to exist causing thousands of jobs to be lost.

The war ended in 2002 with the support of the international community. The governments since then are struggling to tackle widespread unemployment and poverty.  According to the World Bank (WB) and the Human Poverty Index (HPI), Sierra Leone is the lowest ranked country on the Human Development Index (HDI) and the seventh poorest country on the Human Poverty Index (HPI).     Women are by impacted significantly by these numbers. The World Bank notes that less than 37% of Sierra Leonean women are educated and a vast majority is unemployed. 

With no education and very little other opportunities, women are forced to turn to prostitution for survival. Many of the women take their children with them and force children as young as eight to become prostitutes.[1]  These conditions have led to an alarming increase in teenage pregnancy, abuse, HIV/AIDS, and other STDs.

The Student movement for Real Change-Sierra Leone interviewed close to 100 women living in these areas. The conditions of the women were the worse we had seen on our multi-country assessment in Africa. Of those interviewed, 98% of them were unemployed and or illiterate, 80% of their kids were out of school because of lack of resources, 70% had engaged in some form of prostitution, 60% had been physically abused within a year of speaking with us. They had access to no government services, or opportunities to help them break out of poverty. In conclusion, the conditions of these women were beyond dire.

Upon completion of the survey, it was clear to us that our goal for Sierra Leone would be to create a special center to provide rehabilitation, basic education, vocational training, and for women. The ultimate goal of the proposed project would be to empower at least 100 women every year to break out of the cycles of poverty they face.

The empowerment of women is not a new mission, but it is one that has not been fully pursued. In 2000, 191 United Nations member states wrote and pledged to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The drive to end illiteracy and reduce the gap in gender disparity was a part of this commitment. Member states recognized the critical role of universal education in building a blueprint of a better world. World leaders cited the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education as the first step toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Through the “25 by 2005” campaign, the global community committed to intensify efforts in 25 countries to maximize the number of girls in school by 2005. The “25 by 2005” goal is the first test of the world’s commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, many countries are falling short of the 2005 target for gender parity in education.

SMRC-SL shares the belief that education plays an essential role in socio-economic development and democratic governance. Education is a vital catalyst in ending the cycle of poverty and violence; in ensures that everyone can contribute to their communities socially, politically, and economically. We also believe strongly that poverty in Sierra Leone can be crushed if opportunities are provided for the poorest people to gain access to resources and training to become economically self sustainable.
Student Movement For Real Change-Sierra Leone (SMRC-SL) is a nonprofit working to rebuild war-torn communities. The organization establishes safe and healthy environments for women and their children by providing for their core needs and developing new community infrastructure. SMRC-SL is run by a network of young leaders who are defining a new approach to delivering. humanitarian aid. By leveraging the use of local materials and employing local people, YEI-SL maximizes the economic and social impact of programs which include building schools and playgrounds.

Kroo Bay, one of the poorest areas in the centre of Sierra Leone’s beachfront capital Freetown, is a squalid slum so littered with rubbish that the paths are made of compressed plastic, cans and toothpaste tubes, and patches of bare orange earth are a rare sight.

Swarms of mosquitoes breed in pools of slimy green water, pigs and children play together in mounds of refuse. In one of the two rivers that flows past the densely packed tin and wood shelters, a bloated dead dog bobs on the surface just upstream of where people wash their clothes.

Kroo Bay’s shockingly low life expectancy is even lower than Sierra Leone national average of 45 – a major factor contributing to the country ranking last in the UN.

It rains six months of the year in Freetown and the city is one of the wettest places in the world. Kroo Bay lies at the bottom of the steep hill on which the city was built.

People living in Kroo Bay have learned to adapt to the constant invasion of water, for example by building their beds on stilts practice which means they sleep above the putrid water, causing respiratory infections.

There is no point just addressing the symptoms of the problem. Last year, The Student Movement for Real Change –Sierra Leone was able to raise $ 300 to Send four underprivileged

Kids in Kroo Bay community in Freetown-Sierra Leone, I just come got an e mail from one of my friends I met in Boulder, Colorado last summer, say he will pay to send three kids to primary school in Kroo Bay community in Freetown-Sierra Leone next academic year.

Lily Muldoon, SMRC project director, is back and we have the story to show you in a beautiful new video presentation developed by Andrea Calderson. Watch the 8 minute film and find yourself feeling totally inspired.

This is a truly remarkable story of a young innovator, William Kamkwamba, who brought windmill electricity to his community using ONLY the locally available assets. Anything is possible… Can this be done in Kayafungo? Also, check out his blog at http://www.williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

I found that South Africa, especially in the Eastern Cape, suffers from water scarcity, which inadequate infrastructure has exacerbated.  My goal is now to help rural communities self-develop infrastructures they can locally manage to ensure a sustainable water supply.  This goal directly emanated from what I saw on-the-ground in Manyeleti.  Through it all, I realized that all peoples share one common value: a sunny and indefatigable human spirit.

I am currently finishing my second year of a Rhodes Scholarship where I am completing a MSc in Water Science, Policy, and Management at the University of Oxford.  Once I complete this degree, I likely will pursue a PhD in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University in hopes of pursuing a professional career as an academic and rural enterprise developer.

Whether you are in the United States or live in rural Ghana, one thing is for sure, public health is the key to living a healthy life. What does public health really mean? In an impressive new campaign, “Healthiest Nation in 1 Generation,” American’s have the opportunity to engage in the questions of how public health efforts can improve our lives here in the US. The campaign aims to get American’s working  on improving our domestic health situation, but I think every nation should be part of this challenge. The most important measure of a society is whether its people are able to live a healthy, long life.

Watch the film: http://www.generationpublichealth.org/

SMRC is preparing an in-depth training program for students on our global development internship. We are seeking to build the capacity of each individual, of course, but we are looking for a way to train them to be catalysts for change when they get to the communities. The most compelling models that we are studying to prepare the curriculum comes from the Asset Based Community Development work that is being done at Northwestern University.

One thing that SMRC knows to be true is that communities are the best drivers for change. They have assets (albeit sometimes it’s hard to tell what they are at first) and they have informal and formal structures to develop programs and projects. The inevitable truth is that SMRC members from the United States who visit the communities will always be outsiders… so the challenge is not to become insiders (for that is impossible without permanent residence) but to become partners at most, or catalysts at least.

A catalyst for change is someone who inspires an individual to leverage existing and potential resources to build a brighter future. In this context, in any community, the possibilities are endless. We will be working on this curriculum and will be doing it with some other leading considerations in mind: the value of microfinance, power of social entrepreneurship, and the importance of the Millennial Generation. What are your thoughts?

Take a look at a draft of our Kenya projects in a clear powerpoint presentation. It is simply amazing to see how much Lily and our team achieved in Kenya over the last 12 months.