Archive for the 'Aid Reform' Category

Long-Term Personal Development Programs

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Increasing prices of energy and food have worsened and will continue to worsen the problems of world hunger and poverty. Even in first world countries such as the United States, rising food prices and inflation have made poor people poorer, have put more people at greater risk of poverty, and have worsened the financial conditions […]

Getting Young People More Involved in Activism

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Throughout my unprofessional studies of history and geopolitics, I have come to the conclusion that young people tend to start, push and lead the most effective and positive social movements. For example, consider the hippies, yippies, and such in the United States, namely in the 60s and 70s.
I believe young people tend to have the […]

Poverty Alleviation Benefits Us All

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

The people of the world would benefit in many ways by reducing or eliminating global poverty and by increasing education levels.
I believe less poverty and more education would reduce violent crime and other forms of criminal victimization. Poor and uneducated people tend to turn to crime and anti-social behavior more often. The same happens […]

Why the Poorest Countries are Failing

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Oxford University economist Professor Paul Collier’s book about poverty has won the prestigious Lionel Gelber Prize for 2008. The book’s title explains its subject rather well: The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
According to the description, the book investigates and attempts to explain why traditional approaches […]

Food and Energy Costs Worsen Poverty Problem

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

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 […]

Poverty Priorities

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

I often stress the importance of education and raising children in the fight against poverty. Education empowers people, and people empowered with education will have the skills to take care of themselves, to take care of their families, and to help uplift society as a whole.
We do need to find large-scale ways to provide education […]

Defining Poverty

Friday, February 1st, 2008

I think those of us who work for poverty alleviation would benefit from trying harder to define poverty.
Common misconceptions about poverty hinder the social movement to eradicate poverty. I think we can often trace the misconceptions to a misunderstanding of what the word poverty means in the socioeconomic context.
I think finding a accurate and […]

Bill Gates Suggests Creative Capitalism To Alleviate Poverty

Friday, January 25th, 2008

At the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates said that we need to revise capitalism so that it also serves poor people, which he calls creative capitalism.
I usually avoid suggesting “capitalism” as a way to alleviate poverty, because so many people have such different interpretations of what the word means, and because “capitalism” usually seems to […]

Trading Away Poverty

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

In a New York Times letter-to-the-editor entitled Trading Away Poverty, Ignacio Sosa writes that free markets and trade can do more to fight poverty than donations to large organizations such as the World Bank.
I agree completely. Of course, we can both trade with and donate to poor communities. The two methods do not exclude each […]

Stop Leaving Children With Poor Parents

Monday, November 26th, 2007

Many parents could provide their children with much better lives. These parents could create an enviornment more conducive to personal success for their child. Many of these parents live in poverty, and thus force their children to grow up in poverty.
Children who grow up in poverty have a much greater chance of ending up in […]