Most of you who are reading this know my heart for those living in poverty. Experiencing first-hand the indescribably horrific living conditions, disease, and poverty of those in Africa and India has really motivated me to completely understand the situation and do everything I can to raise awareness, financial support, and prophetic advocates for all God's children in the world. If something happens in the United States or Europe where thousands of people die (or even only a handful) we will hear about it for weeks in the news. Yet, for some reason when Africans or Indians are dying we don't care enough to talk about it. Or do anything about it really - even though we HAVE THE RESOURCES. It's as if a subconscious racism has allowed us to only care about people who are "like us." Do we think they somehow deserve to die -- or is it just that we don't care because it's not "close to home"?
I have been reading a truly amazing book by Jeffrey Sachs -- one of the most well-known and influential economists in the world. Poverty alleviation IS achievable -- and he sets out to explain how. I just wanted to let you all read his introduction to the book -- hopefully you will want to buy the book and continue to become more aware of just how important this fight is.
INTRODUCTION
THE END OF POVERTY by Jeffrey Sachs
This book is about ending poverty in our time. It is not a forecast. I am not predicting what will happen, only explaining what can happen. Currently, more than 8 million people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive. Our generation can choose to end that extreme poverty by the year 2025.
Every morning our newspapers could report. "More than 20,000 people perishefd yesterday of extreme poverty." The stories would put the stark numbers in context -- up to 8,000 childen dead of malaria, 5,000 mothers and fathers dead of tuberculosis, 7,500 young adults dead of AIDS and thousands more dead from diarrhea, respiratory infection, and other killer diseases that prey on bodies weakened by chronic hunger. The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die namelessly, without public comment. Sadly, such stories rarely get written. Most people are unaware of the daily struggles for survival, and of the vast numbers of impoverished people around the world who lost that struggle.
Since September 11, 2001, the United States has launched a war on terror, but it has neglected the deeper causes of global instability. The $450 billion that the US will spend this year on the military will never buy peace if it continues to spend around one thirtieth of that, just $15 billion to address the plight of the world's poorest of the poor, whose societies are destabilized by extreme poverty and thereby become havens of unrest, violence, and even global terrorism.
That $15 billion represents a tiny percentage of US income, just 15 cents on every $100 of US GNP. The share of US GNP devoted to helping the poor has declined for decades, and is a tiny fraction of what the US has repeatedly promised, and failed, to give. It is also much less than the US should give, both to solve the crisis of extreme poverty, and thereby to provide for US national security. This book, then is about making the right choices--choices that can lead to a much safer world based on a true reverence and respect for human life.
