To see what other people thought of various poverty-related issues, our team created a blog (in essence an online journal that allows users to comment on the entries) at http://adollaraday.blogspot.com. On this site, we have collected several of the best blog entries and comments, and placed them in various sections. In these blog sections, posts refers to original blog entries, while comments refer to user comments to these entries.

This blog section containst two posts, about various causes and possible solutions to global poverty.

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The Post (December 16, 2005):
They are two major ways to alleviate poverty. The first one is to do at a global level, which is quite abstract, by helping countries to provide education for their people, with money, resources, or development help in general. Read More... The second way is to do it locally, which is more concrete, by going in on the ground and working with people from villages who know what they need, and by teaching the inhabitants improve their economy. Then, they can feed their family and send their kids to school to receive an education. However, the best thing is to covered it from both angles.

I met a man who spent two months in Tanzania, working on a business development project for people living with AIDS. He worked with people who are from the village because these people knew what they needed. He was helping people to set up small businesses (textile manufacturing) then they can feed their family and send their kids to school so that they can get education. But I also met a member of the Alliance Française of Dhaka-Bangladesh, heading the training of the teachers there so that they could teach children effectively. He believed the best solution to poverty was education and a better distribution of wealth between the North (developed countries) and South (developing countries).

How do you think poverty should be alleviated? Don't hesitate to leave a comment sharing your best solution to alleviate poverty. Collapse...

Comment #1: (Respondent #1)
Poverty alleviation is education, population control/family planning, women's empowerment, microcredit, rural electrification, sanitation and safe water, health care, law and order, and security....

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The Post (November 2, 2005):
While reading about various aspects of poverty alleviation, I came across some questions that I believe everyone should have a say in: Read More...

What do you think are the biggest causes of world poverty?

What do you think are the best solutions to poverty? Collapse...

Comment #1: (Respondent #1)
Inaction, in my view, is a major contributor to continued poverty. If we acted globally and decisively, I believe we could make great progress in poverty alleviation. But we drag our heels. Read More...

Consider development aid. Though wealthy nations pledged to commit at least 0.7 percent of their Gross National Incomes to development aid to benefit poor nations by 2015, the U.S., arguably the wealthiest nation, has thus far committed only about 0.15 percent, making it last among donor nations.

Consider health research funding. According to a report in the Oct. 24th New Yorker, "less than ten per cent of all investment in health research is devoted to the diseases (such as AIDs, malaria and TB) that affect ninety per cent of the world."

And consider my local community's response to the earthquake in Kashmir. While schools and churches rallied the community to contribute to relief efforts in New Orleans following [Hurricane] Katrina’s devastation, a profound local silence was all we offered the more than three million survivors of the Pakistan earthquake. At my daughter’s elementary school, the administrators explained that the school couldn’t ask families for another donation so soon after the Katrina relief effort.

I beg to differ. Donor fatigue is an unacceptable excuse when I believe in my heart that every single resident in this community could have afforded to give just a bit more to alleviate the suffering of earthquake victims. And perhaps some did, quietly writing a check to do their part. Perhaps others would have, if the schools and churches had asked. But to my knowledge they didn’t, and it’s easy to forget and move on. Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, the need to shelter the Pakistani survivors before winter arrives is “threatening to become the most difficult relief operation the world has ever faced.” Collapse...

Comment #2: (Respondent #2)
The United States is the wealthiest country in the world today, and what are they doing for poverty [alleviation] worldwide? Not much. Read More...

The United States and other superpowers need to come together and gather money to actually put a child through school in Thailand, and to actually let a teenager graduate and pursue his dream. The world is full of families with no shelter and children with no clothes for the winter. ...[T]he advanced, rapid growing nations need to join together to provide welfare for the people of the developing countries. Poverty CAN be solved. We just need to take the first step. Collapse...

Comment #3: (Respondent #3)
Just as a surefire way to get rich is to be born into a wealthy family, so poverty is often the birthright of individuals born to poor families. Read More... As a poor child, there's an excellent chance that you will receive lousy health care and a substandard education. You'll reap the benefits of a deprived neighborhood, probably suffer discrimination, and meet no personal contacts who could help open otherwise closed doors for you. You'll grow up poor, marry poor, stay poor, and have poor children, who will follow in your footsteps.

The bright lining in this picture is that there are numerous points where one can begin to puncture the cycle of poverty; for example, through improvements in health care, education, infrastructure, the workplace, etc. Sometimes, through a tiniest of openings, individuals can escape poverty's trap. Collapse...

Comment #4: (Respondent #4)
In my opinion, the biggest cause of poverty is lack of education and lack of a concerted international aid effort against poverty. Read More... When education is provided to people in developing nations, it increases their capability to succeed ecnomically in their community, and take part in an increasingly globalized world. Without education, however, people will remain trapped in the cycle of poverty for generations.

Unfortunately, this last case - the continuation of the poverty cycle - seems to be the direction the world is trending in right now. In the future, the vast majority of the illiterate will come from just five nations, all of which have significant impoverished populations within their borders.

The answer to this dilemma is increased aid, especially from the United States and Europe, the strongholds of economic power. They are the countries that can afford to invest the most in the rest of the world, and must do so. Funding education should not have to take a backseat in the budget - it should be a major component. Find a few billion dollars to take out of the bloated military budget, and direct it to builidng schools in rural Africa, or Southeast Asia, where it will make a much longer-lasting, more beneficial impact on the world. Collapse...

Comment #5: (Respondent #5)
The [poverty] problem is simply too big to be handled by even the most well-intentioned of souls. Read More... To bring 50 million Bangladeshis up to the American minimum wage living standard would bankrupt the U.S. and not be sustainable. As I see it, the root of these problems is the 'Green Revolution' of several decades ago which developed crops that could feed more people, but then failed to provide a way to support them once they had been kept alive. It sounds harsh, but the only way to a sustainable third world is to cut all foreign aid. This done, the population will necessarily (and naturally) decrease until it reaches a self-sustainable (and smaller) number. Collapse...

Comment #6: (Respondent #6)
As [Respondent #5] probably expects, I disagree! On a per capita basis, Bangladesh gets... little in foreign aid and while the 'Green Revolution' has kept millions from starving. Read More... Killing off a population by starving it is the antithesis of the concept of civilization and humanity. Moreover, as demonstrated in sub-Saharan Africa, there is no evidence that large scale die-offs helps improve the lot of those who survive.

The goal would never be to bring 50 million Bangladeshis up to US minimum wage, which is more than what [the] top 1% of Bangladeshis earn. The goal would be to provide the bottom 30% with access to clean air and water and their children an opportunity for education. That should not bankrupt anyone except an intellect that has lost its sense of humanity. It costs me just about $1 per month per child to support and pay (all the expenses) for a school with 76 students in Bangladesh.

The single greatest reason poverty exists, or more appropriately, poverty persists, is our own moral bankruptcy. Collapse...

Comment #7: (Respondent #4)
I strongly disagree with [Respondent #5's] response. Every individual has the right to life, no matter if they are American or Bengali. Read More... For under $23 billion, the 214 million most malnourished people in the world can be successfully assisted in their food supply. The world produces much more food than it needs, and as a result, staple foods cost very little. Sadly, many people still cannot afford to pay these costs, so it is up to developed nations to meet this shortfall in funds. $23 billion is almost nothing when compared to the defense budget of the U.S. (almost $400 billion), or the economies of the rest of the developed world. The United States is ready to spend $200 billion on relief for Hurricane Katrina, it should be able to find 1/10 of that amount for aid to impoverished people. Collapse...

Comment #8: (Respondent #8)
I take great exception to [Respondent #5's] suggestion that the way to cure poverty is to completely eliminate foreign aid. Read More... While I have a sense that this comment was intended more to provoke discussion than as a serious (or practical) solution, it certainly does put on the table the concept of the 'natural' evolution of the planet. Whereas [Respondent #5] is approaching the problem from a self-interested (being, in this case, I assume, a privileged non-Bangladeshi), local perspective, I believe that on a global level we, as a planet, really can improve the lot of everyone...and do it without violence to Darwinian (or even Adam Smith-ian) free markets and natural selection. It simply means taking a truly global view of our own self-interest, and realizing that we individually will ultimately be better off if the planet as a whole is better off.

As an example of the kind of 'enlightened, free-market, self-interest' I'm talking about, take a look at KickStart, a remarkably effective not-for-profit that is working to end global poverty in a free-market way that even "conservatives" like [Respondent #5] should be able to get behind.

By the way, thank you to all who put this blog together. Education and intelligent discussion is the first step to getting things done. Collapse...

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