The End of Poverty

"The destinies of the 'haves' are intrinsically linked to the fates of the 'have-nothing-at-alls'." - Bono, from the foreword to The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs

Although I am certain I've posted quotes from Bono regarding the end to extreme poverty before, since I have started reading The End of Poverty, I am coming across them again. And they are still as poignant and powerful and they were when I first heard them. It is pretty intense to think of the immense privileges that we enjoy, as the richest sixth of the world. And I say 'we,' because if you are reading this, you probably have access to a computer, Internet and leisure time.

There are many people in the world who lack the tools required to pull themselves from extreme poverty, with extreme poverty defined as the state in which one fights daily for survival, facing struggles that many of us never worry about: malaria, TB, AIDS and malnutrition.

There is hope, though, and as I am reading this book, I hope to take more time to blog about the weighty issues involved. This is an issue that I have been processing and slugging through as much as I can, accessing as many resources as available so that I can do SOMETHING. Something big.

Here are some more quotes from the intro by Bono:

"..we could be the first generation to outlaw the kind of extreme, stupid poverty that sees a child die of hunger in a world of plenty, or of a disease preventable by a twenty-cent inoculation. We are the first generation that can afford it. The first generation that can unknot the whole tangle of bad trade, bad debt, and bad luck. The first generation that can end a corrupt relationship between the powerful and the weaker parts of the world which has been so wrong for so long."

"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?"

"Future generations flipping through these pages [of history] will know whether we answered the key question. The evidence will be the world around them. History will be our judge, but what's written is up to us. Who we are, who we've been, what we want to be remembered for. We can't say our generation didn't know how to do it. We can't say our generation couldn't afford to do it. And we can't say our generation didn't have reason to do it. It's up to us. We can choose to shift the responsibility, or, as the professor [Sachs] proposes here, we can choose to shift the paradigm."