I mentioned the book I was reading (The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs) in a previous post. Just a few quotes from the book I thought were worth sharing, and which may possibly interest you in reading it for yourself?! It has some really interesting and relevant points that I don’t think most people are aware of or understand.
Here are some thoughts and facts regarding foreign aid I found worth some thought....
“All of the incessant debate about development assistance, and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor actually concerns less than 1 percent of rich-world income. The effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the world, “You count for nothing.”
He speaks about the common argument given by Americans that foreign aid to Africa is money wasted, and we have nothing to show for it. Perhaps the problem is that our aid doesn’t amount to much?
“In 2002, the United States gave $3 per sub-Saharan African. Taking out the parts for U.S. consultants, food and other emergency aid, administrative costs, and debt relief, the aid per African came to a grand total of six cents.”
“The United States is spending thirty times more on the military than on foreign assistance in 2004, $450 billion compared with $15 billion.”
And most Americans are not informed about how much we are actually giving, and how much is really needed. I know that I was unaware...
“In a 2001 survey, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland reported that Americans, on average, believed that foreign aid accounts for 20 percent of the federal budget, roughly twenty-four times the actual figure.”
And as a closing thought...
The forward of the book, written by Bono, makes a powerful statement that I find haunting and hard to ignore...and should cause us all to really grapple with these truths.
“We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies- but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses, mechanics, children.
This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency- that’s our crisis.”
What does this mean for our lives... our lifestyle choices, how we spend money, what we do with our time, and our resources? How informed are we, or do we want to be? Do we really care about Africans and the rest of the third world as if they are our brothers and sisters, and if so, what are we doing about it?
I realize this is a loaded and controversial topic. But I believe it’s worth some serious thought.
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