New York Times turns up the heat on world leaders
Today’s New York Times features a piece drafted by the Times’ editorial board calling on world leaders to keep their pledge to cut extreme poverty in half. The board makes a sharply nuanced case that living up to these promises made at the turn of the millennium would not only succeed in alleviating global poverty, but also strengthen our and other nations’ national security.
Some excerpts below, but the whole editorial is definitely worth checking out
Today, even as soaring energy and food prices exacerbate the suffering of the world’s poor, the richest nations are falling far behind on their aid commitments — and behind their past giving.
The current financial turmoil could make it even less likely that the wealthy nations will fulfill their promises to the poorest of the poor. Without that money, many of the development goals announced with such fanfare will go unmet.
Many countries tie too many strings to their largess — such as requirements to buy supplies from donor countries. (Aid flows are often swayed by domestic politics in the donor nations, making them unpredictable and difficult to manage by receiving nations.)
Aid isn’t the only area where the developed world is failing. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, wealthy countries acknowledged that poverty can be a fertile ground for terrorism and pledged to open their markets to exports from the world’s poorest nations. Those promises collapsed along with global trade talks this year.
-Chris Scott
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September 26, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Screw the other “poor countries” of the world; what about taking care of things here at home in America? How about getting Healthcare under control here first?… How about stemming poverty in the United States first?… Who’s going to come to the aid of America once our society “implodes”; which it’s on the very edge of ecomomically, politically, resource-wise, healthcare-wise, employment-wise, illegal-immigration/iinvasion-wise, militarily, and so on. Let’s get America in propper shape first before helping strangers of the world. C’mon.
October 5, 2008 at 12:42 pm
In 2008, isn’t the time right for the United States of America to re-focus attentions and resources to aid and assist the needs of our Domestic poor and those in need, and finally begin to give less to those in foreign lands?