UN officials named the biggest challenges to meeting poverty reduction goals as the rising prices of food and energy as well as global warming.
The demand for oil will continue to increase as countries all over the world continue to industrialize and develop. Of course, we continue to use up more and more of our limited supply of oil. As supply goes down and demand goes up, the costs of anything involving the use of energy increases, namely food and imports.
Poor regions suffer as poorer people can no longer afford as much goods and services as prices rise. Also, charity becomes hindered since charitable funds buy less and less.
Even in the United States and the developed world, rising prices will obviously throw even more people into poverty and worsen the conditions of people already in poverty.
Of course, even with rising prices, the world will continue to have enough resources to provide food, clean water, shelter, healthcare and education to everyone. But we need to change our society structure so that people have more access to the world’s abundant natural resources.
Additionally, we can not leave people dependent on charity or welfare. We need to make as many people self-sufficient as possible, as many families self-sufficient as possible, and all local communities self-sufficient.
As Lao Tzu famously pointed out, it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. Unfortunately, charitable organizations can barely afford to buy the proverbial fish for the hungry, let alone afford to teach them to fish.
Before matters get even worse, we need to invest a lot more in helping people help themselves. It will cost a lot more upfront, but it will cost us less in the long run, and it will save much more people overall. Namely, we need to invest heavily in education to give people the skills to support themselves and their families. Also, we need to focus on finding ways to empower local economies to make them independent of the need for charity. In fact, large amounts of charitable funds or food have often undermined local economies by putting local businesses out of business and leaving the economy and its people worse off.
What do you think? How do you suggest anti-poverty organizations help people and economies become more self-sufficient? Post your answers in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.