from the Washington Post
January 17, 2005
[leader of the UN Millenium Project and director of the Earth Institute
at Columbia University, U.S.A]
As Canadians, we should also listen.
If rich and poor countries will follow through on the promises they have made over the past five years to fight extreme poverty and disease -- and rely on the best science and technology in doing so -- the world can save millions of lives and extricate hundreds of millions of its poorest people from the trap of extreme poverty. The cost is a mere 50 cents out of every $100 of rich-world income in the coming decade.
The United States and most other donor countries don't give even 50 cents out of every hundred dollars of income to these causes, in public or in private contributions. The actual amounts are closer to 20 cents per hundred dollars, and they are not well targeted on the basic investments to end poverty.
Why don't we invest more? The reason is not stinginess but the lack of recognition of what we could accomplish if we really put our minds to it. Americans think that we give much more than we do. They also believe, erroneously, that corruption in poor countries blocks effective use of aid, even though dozens of impoverished countries are rather well governed yet still starved of help.
First, the president, with Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress, should call upon all of us
to act to combat the silent tsunamis such as malaria, hunger, maternal mortality and extreme poverty that grip Africa and other impoverished regions, including parts of our own hemisphere. They should endorse the report's "practical plan" to combat these horrendous but ultimately solvable scourges.
Second, just as the White House and Congress finally did with Africa's AIDS pandemic, our leaders should do the arithmetic properly. Instead of symbolic and underfunded programs to fight extreme poverty in Africa and elsewhere, they should calculate and put before the American people the amounts that are truly needed. Today's study precisely shows that the financial conclusions are not frightening: just one-half percent of our annual income. At around $60 billion total from the United States, this is a tiny fraction of, say, our annual military spending, now around $450 billion, and a
vital investment in our national security.
Third, the president should call on Americans to get involved, as he did with AIDS in 2003 and with
the tsunami last month. The president should lead our great nation to use our wealth and technology to help conquer the scourges of malaria and hunger that grip hundreds of millions of our impoverished brethren around the world. We all know that unaddressed suffering adds greatly to instability and insecurity throughout the world.
