What We’re Reading 6/4/09

Jun 4th, 2009 10:37 AM UTC
By Chandler Smith

Reuters: “Give it away, you’ll enjoy it,” Gates tells rich
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said on Wednesday that billionaires ought to give away most of their wealth to charitable causes, and they would even find they enjoyed it. Gates also renewed his appeal to eradicate polio, saying the goal was well within reach, which would make it the second major communicable disease entirely wiped out after smallpox in the late 1970s.

Financial Times: Microcredit loans ‘used to buy food’
Fewer than half of microcredit borrowers invest the money in the grassroots businesses that such loans are intended to foster, new research into poverty alleviation has discovered.

Globe and Mail: How to make foreign aid more effective
In all the debate about foreign aid, people often lose sight of a more urgent and practical question: how to make aid more effective. Here, the Africa correspondent ponders answers to these questions from his own experiences.

Huffington Post: Tuberculosis In Muslim World: A Chance For Cooperation
With his visit to Egypt, President Obama is making steps to strengthen relationships with Muslim countries. To put those words into action, Mr. Obama must look for ways to turn this promise into a reality and in a way that reaches ordinary people, according to the author. An excellent place to start would be to partner with Muslim countries in the fight against tuberculosis where millions are affected by the disease and where important, but fragile, gains have been made.

-Chandler Smith

TAGS: What We're Reading