The more I've been learning about the work that's already been done and is being done to help communities around the world lift themselves out of extreme poverty, the more I realize it is possible to do it everywhere, and it's possible to do it quickly, within this generation. Check out this interview with our favorite economist, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs -- it's only seven minutes -- and see if you're not more convinced, too.
Here's an excerpt in case you don't have seven minutes right now:
"There are solutions. That’s the key. ... There are practical things that can be done that can cut and end this kind of hunger -- which is killing people -- that can fight diseases, that can get AIDS and malaria and TB under control, that can help impoverished people grow enough food, get livelihoods, that can turn climate change off this extraordinarily risky path that we’re on, onto something much safer for the whole planet.
"What’s happening is that more and more people are coming to the view that this war gig is really the wrong way, and that we’d better go to the more fundamental problems on the planet -- the poverty, the dislocation, the hunger, the conflict that comes from all of that, and so more and more people are getting involved, and you have to say, that’s a wonderful thing."
By the way -- one of those practical things is donating a $10 bed net, which can protect one to two people from malaria for five years. It's not overstating it to say that keeping more people healthy can change the economic course of an entire community, of an entire country. And now we've got two people willing to match our net donations -- Michael Doane, with Monsanto, and Paul Friedrichs, owner of United Mosquito and Fly Control. E-mail this request around and ask your friends to donate nets now that we've got two matching donors!
Don't doubt it: You will have contributed to nothing less than ending extreme poverty.
Stumble It!
Comments