Sachs asks us to ‘Savour our Successes’
In today’s Business Daily, Jeffrey Sachs asks us to resist letting the “bad news can crowd out good news” and instead to take the time to recognize the many creative feats achieved by governments around the globe to fight poverty, disease and hunger this past year.
As he puts it:
“The point is not merely to make ourselves feel a little better, but rather to confront one of the world’s gravest threats: the widespread pessimism that today’s problems are too big to be solved. Studying the successes gives us the knowledge and confidence to step up our shared efforts to solve today’s great global challenges.”
He goes on to list creative new programs around the globe. Among them:
“Hats off, first, to Mexico for pioneering the idea of “conditional cash transfers” to poor households. These transfers enable and encourage those households to invest in their children’s health, nutrition, and schooling. Mexico’s “Opportunities Program,” led by President Felipe Calderón is now being widely emulated around Latin America.
Recently, at the behest of the singers Shakira and Alejandro Sanz, and a social movement that they lead, all of Latin America’s leaders committed to step up the region’s programs for early childhood development, based on the successes that have been proven to date…”
You can read his full op-ed here.
-Virginia Simmons and Chris Scott
[Photo: children in Mozambique, May 2008]
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February 26, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Recently, at the behest of the singers Shakira and Alejandro Sanz, and a social movement that they lead, all of Latin America’s leaders committed to step up the region’s programs for early childhood development, based on the successes that have been proven to date
February 26, 2009 at 3:24 pm
The point is not merely to make ourselves feel a little better, but rather to confront one of the world’s gravest threats: the widespread pessimism that today’s problems are too big to be solved. Studying the successes gives us the knowledge and confidence to step up our shared efforts to solve today’s great global challenges