« BACK TO FORUM
 Author |
 Post
|
 |
|
George Ortega
Joined: Apr 9, 2006
Posts: 7 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male & 54
Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: White Plains
|
The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 9, 2006 - 02:33 AM
|
|
We Must Give More than ½ of One Percent
For many decades, people in extreme poverty have been dying at a rate of over twenty thousand each day. Since 1970, the rich countries have repeatedly pledged seven tenths of one percent, (0.7%) of their yearly income, (GNP) to help end this tragedy. They have collectively failed to give even half of that paltry amount each year. The United States yearly contribution is 0.17 percent.
For the twenty-two richest countries to refuse to devote even one percent of their yearly income to assisting the approximately one billion people on our planet who suffer extreme poverty is evil. Those of us, like our political leaders, who can put an end to this greatest evil of our time, but because of greed, selfishness, or callous indifference refuse, are, together, that evil.
If you doubt our 0.7 pledge, Google "0.7 poverty," or click here http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/endofpoverty/oda.html, and see for yourself. We in the United States are greatly mistaken regarding how charitable we are. "When asked what percentage of the federal budget they think goes to foreign aid, Americans' median estimate is 25% of the budget, more than 25 times the actual level. Only 2% of Americans give a correct estimate of 1% of the budget or less. When asked how much of the budget should go to foreign aid, the median response is 10%."
Many people complain that the problem of extreme poverty is too big. As long as we rich countries refuse to devote even one percent of our income to helping the world's poor, the real problem is that our hearts are too small. Over the course of a few years, the Nazis killed six to twelve million people through their hatred. Every ten years, citizens of the world's richest countries kill over eighty million people through our callous indifference and endless greed.
We citizens of the richest countries live in democracies. To devote more of our country's annual income to helping those in extreme poverty, all we must do is demand that our politicians fulfill the 0.7 pledge we made thirty-six years ago.
Please help end our ignorance about how much we actually give to the world's poor, and tell our politicians how much we want to give. Don't let our politicians make criminals of us all. Please copy and email this message to everyone you believe cares enough to help.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
nguyen thi ngoc bich
Joined: Nov 8, 2005
Posts: 16 (view all)
Poster Rank:
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Female, 33
Country: Vietnam
Province/State: Ho Chi Minh
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 9, 2006 - 10:57 AM
|
|
Information which you posted are useful and remarkable.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
George Ortega
Joined: Apr 9, 2006
Posts: 7 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 54
Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: White Plains
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 11, 2006 - 01:48 AM
|
|
Thanks.
It is bewildering that all it would take to end extreme poverty on our planet is for the citizens of the rich countries to demand that their politicians fulfill the 0.7 pledge.
What is more bewildering is that the 0.7% amount is so small that donor countries would not even feel any financial loss from fulfilling the pledge.
The main thing that has to happen is that people have to be made aware of those key facts in my post. I don't understand how the people and NGOs working to end poverty have not yet succeeded in making those facts common knowledge.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
George Ortega
Joined: Apr 9, 2006
Posts: 7 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 54
Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: White Plains
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 15, 2006 - 01:14 AM
|
|
Thanks SJ,
Although NGOs work very hard to end extreme poverty, it doesn't seem like they are very effective. I'm aware of Make Poverty History, One, Results, and other organizations, and their recent efforts to mobilize public support for ending poverty. However, knowledge of the public misperception that governments do so much more than they actually do is not new, but still almost unheard of.
Long before the survey I cited in the 0.7 post, there was a very similar 1995 survey by the University of Maryland that asked respondents how much of the U.S. Federal budget goes to foreign aid, the average response being 15 percent, and how much should go, the average response being 5 percent (when, again, less than 1 percent was the actual figure). -- found on Page 135, Grace at the Table and taken from Program on International Policy Attitudes, Americans and Foreign Aid. A Study of American Public Attitudes (College Park, Md,: University of Maryland, 1995.
Unfortunately NGOs have either not sufficiently considered the significance of this public misperception regarding their government's foreign aid, or they have not developed a strategy by which to have these facts become public knowledge.
In July, I published a website at www.profitdonationcapitalism.org that describes a way of selling products to fund an end to poverty. Recently, I realized that these products would be ideal vehicles for getting information about poverty into the households of millions of consumers. Whether NGOs use that idea or another, they must find a way have the public understand the basic facts expressed in the U. of Maryland survey and in my 0.7 post. It's a very simple approach that does not over-complicate the poverty matter, as many academic strategies seem to.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
George Ortega
Joined: Apr 9, 2006
Posts: 7 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 54
Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: White Plains
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 15, 2006 - 03:24 AM
|
|
Hi rkalaba,
100% debt cancellation would certainly help poor countries to develop their economies. Perhaps equally important, the rich countries need to stop preventing poor countries from trading with them. Tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping duties and protectionist subsidies by rich countries have been reported by Thomas Pogge of Columbia University's Earth Institute to deprive poor countries of income from trade amounting to about $700 billion each year.
If rich countries would stop being so greedy, and allow fair trade with poor countries, in some cases these countries would not need foreign aid. These selfish protectionist trade policies by rich countries are something else that the public is hardly aware of, and an ambitious effort should be made by poverty NGOs to publicize them.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
racheal kalaba
Joined: Dec 15, 2005
Posts: 3 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Female, 28
Country: Zambia
Province/State: Copperbelt
City: Kazembe
|
poverty
April 15, 2006 - 11:35 AM
|
|
i want to comment on poverty
iam currently working on poverty reduction projects in Africa and in particular ZAmbai. i think that if there was 100% debt cancellation of the world poorest countries then we can see some development coming through. Yes there is poverty and it is not Governments gioving money but all people who are effected especially the young people take up their roles as young people are leaders of today and it should not be seen trhat those poor countries are not doing any ting but there are a lot of forces acting towrsd poverty e.g
high unemployment rates
HIV/AIDS
MAlaria
T.B
clean water and environment
good shelter
and other more areas so if these issues are looked aftre then we will see mjore countries coming out of poverty bit by bit so every onme should play a part in advocating for poverty reduction project initiated by the people concerned as in my experience i believe that the people who are in this poverty have so much hope that we can immagine !!!!
and to that African woman who travells thoussands of miles to get clean water i say you are the hero!!!!!!!
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
SJ Riley
Joined: Nov 3, 2005
Posts: 1 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Female, 29
Country: Canada
Province/State: Manitoba
City: Strathclair
|
POINT SEVEN!
April 15, 2006 - 12:04 PM
|
|
Hey George,
I completely agree with your post about the point seven pledge. However I think you underestimate what NGO's know. I say this because while most people in the G8 Countries don't know enough about it, there are NGO's that are working hard towards educating the public. You may or may not be aware of the Make Poverty History Campaign that was started last year, which spanned many organizations and whose major goals were to
1. Make Trade Fair
2. More and Better Aid
3. Relieve the Debt
But this was to be attempted by contacting politicians and voicing your opinions. Because the point seven pledge and the other goals cannot be reached by a government who is not supported in them by the population. Also related to this was the Live 8 Concerts that went on concurrently in early July around the world.
I really applaud your attempts to make this more well known and I hope you get to a lot of people.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
aj
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
Posts: 5 (view all)
Poster Rank:
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 36
Country: Canada
Province/State: Ontario
City: Carleton Place
|
debt cancellation
April 16, 2006 - 01:58 AM
|
|
Ken Wiwa said something like 'it would take the dexterity of a forensic accountant to understand how Nigeria borrowed $5 billion, paid back $16 billion and still owes $32 billion'.
It seems a ridiculous excess of usury.
I wonder, what if every country who is being choked by the World Bank got together and declared a moratorium on debt payment, ie. refused to pay, with a commitment to redirect the money back into health and education. As you recall, the SAP's sucked the life out of health and education. In other words, instead of waiting for these people to forgive the debt, do it for them.
I have heard that debt cancellation to the poorest countries would not make a significant impact on the international monetary system.
I mean what does a bank do when someone is destitute and can't repay them. Does the bank then keep asking their children and grandchildren to pay the debt over and over again with the interest accumulated? What if these children's father was a scoundrel? Many of these loans went to corrupt people like Mobutu, or to disastrous development projects that only benefited industry, and the WB should take responsibility for irresponsible lending.
Subsidy issue I think is being debated in narrow parameters, no one is suggesting that maybe the best thing is to have protection over cost of production for farmers here and in developing countries, no crop subsidization, and no dumping. This protection over cost of production would be seen as market intervention, but if is done equitably it is a good market intervention. I think then you can also allow developing countries to have some subsidies until greater equity is achieved. I don't know why the debate focuses only on elimination of subsidizies, rather than the fact that we need some support for farmers here and abroad, because free trade is not going to do it. I don't know if protection over cost of production is considered subsidy. If you had this protection, you could have no-dumping rules as well, so that imports cannot ever be sold below the price of local food.
And no help for big agribusinesses!
And no more terminator seeds!
Arif
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
George Ortega
Joined: Apr 9, 2006
Posts: 7 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 54
Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: White Plains
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 16, 2006 - 10:59 AM
|
|
As with the fact that the U.S. government gives less than twenty-five times less foreign aid than Americans believe it does, the fact that Nigeria borrowed $5 billion, paid back $16 billion and still owes $32 billion is something that very few people in the world are aware of.
If the world's people knew the simple facts of loans to poor countries, like that, as you point out, many of these loans went to corrupt dictators, they would be in favor of complete debt cancellation.
If the world's people knew that because countries as rich as the U.S. are so selfish and greedy that they opt for subsidizing their farmers, thereby denying poor countries the opportunity feed their people through trade, they would be against such subsidies.
The problem with global poverty is not that of a lack of solutions, but rather a lack of publicity. Very few people know the facts of poverty; how little rich countries give to poor countries, how little is needed to end extreme poverty.
Poverty NGOs need to be much more creative and ambitious in their design of communications campaigns. Whether they utilize my suggestion of marketing products that give consumers the opportunity to fund an end to poverty rather than further enriching multinational corporations, and using these product labels as vehicles of information dissemination, or other large scale designs, until they become more serious with this aspect of the problem, we will spend a great deal of time agreeing as to what needs to be done rather than seeing it done.
Decades ago, the problem with poverty was proving that it could be eradicated. That era is now over. The challenge for our era is almost completely that of getting the word out in order to mobilize public support for ending poverty. Once that happens, the politicians that now stand in the way will be politically forced to begin doing what needs to be done to end poverty.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Laura Fraser
Joined: Apr 22, 2006
Posts: 1 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Female, 23
Country: Australia
Province/State: Queensland
City: Albany Creek
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 22, 2006 - 07:23 AM
|
|
Unfortunately in down in Australia, the government has only increased aid spending to 0.36% of GNI, well short of the UN-recommended 0.5% by 2010 and the ultimate 0.7% by 2015.
Despite being the best performing economy out of the 22OECD countries who promised the 0.7%, with 14 consecutive years of economic growth and 9 consecutive year of budget surplus, Australia is placed 18th in it's aid giving.
I must agree with you Georgeo57, ending poverty is possible, just not enough people know about it. The greater challenge, I believe, isn't getting governments to increase aid spending, but to change attitudes and awareness of poverty and reachable solutions to solve it.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
George Ortega
Joined: Apr 9, 2006
Posts: 7 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 54
Country: United States
Province/State: New York
City: White Plains
|
Re: The 0.7 pledge to end extreme poverty message
April 23, 2006 - 08:37 AM
|
|
I'm guessing that the only reason Australia and the other countries defaulting on the 0.7 pledge can get away with it is that the voters in those countries are just not aware of the pledge and key facts about poverty, like how little rich countries devote to ending it and how easily it could be ended with donations and trade reforms.
I agree with you that mobilizing the public is the first step; very little can be done without this. An idea I had was to use Profit-Donation Capitalism products (www.profitdonationcapitalism.org ) to bring poverty information into the households of people throughout the world. The labels of these products would be ideal, cost-free, vehicles for spreading that information.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
|
Display posts from:
|
|
