Global Poverty: Academics and Practitioners Respond
Judith Dean, Julie Schaffner, Stephen Smith Wednesday, 1 March 2006
"[N]ow is the time to join with other countries in a historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world combat AIDS and extreme poverty. ... [A] pact including such measures as fair trade, debt relief, fighting corruption, and directing additional resources for basic needs—education, health, clean water, food, and care for orphans—would transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation in the poorest countries, at a cost equal to just one percent more of the U.S. budget."
—One Declaration
"[O]ur generation, in the U.S. and abroad, can choose to end extreme poverty by the year 2025. To do it, we need to adopt a new method.... The sources of poverty are multidimensional. So are the solutions. In my view, clean water, productive soils, and a functioning health-care system are just as relevant to development as foreign exchange rates. The task of ending extreme poverty is a collective one ... [and it] will require a global network of cooperation...."
—Jeffrey Sachs
Bono's One Campaign (www.one.org) and Professor Jeffrey Sachs' surprise bestseller, The End of Poverty (Penguin, 2005), have recently galvanized public concern about the plight of the world's poor. Despite the tremendous progress that has been made in the last three decades, the extent and severity of global poverty is still enormous. About 1.1 billion people live in extreme poverty today, with much of this poverty concentrated in Africa and in South Asia. Bono and Sachs have challenged people in wealthy countries with the bold idea that we can end extreme poverty in our time, with surprisingly little cost. All that is required is a willingness to try.
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