Poverty and Calendar Tips

January is Poverty Awareness Month. It is an initiative of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. It offers a calendar of tips for the month. Today’s tip is a brief video tour of poverty in the U.S.A. The interactive calendar may be used online or downloaded.

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Image © Campaign for Human Development

Silent Epidemic. . .

. . .of malnutrition receives attention on Episode 11 of "Need To Know."

Bread For the World President, Rev. David Beckmann, speaks with Jon Meacham in the second half of the program (check PBS schedules for broadcast times).

Rev. Beckmann will address the dangers malnutrition poses to children, especially the danger posed to children by the domestic farm policy of the United States.

"Need To Know" will also air a worldwide look at this silent epidemic by photographers who worked with Doctors Without Borders to increase awareness of malnutrition and its worldwide presence.

Monitor Poverty Series Closes Today

Mark Lange, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, concludes his series on global poverty today.

He began today's column, noting

In this series, we've unpacked popular myths about extreme poverty. We've looked at how we've gotten stuck. We've laid out some key levers for change. And we've considered the consequences of success. The developed world, well-motivated governments, and civil society among the last billion poor clearly have the means to eliminate extreme poverty in one lifetime.

So, provided we have the will, where would we begin?

Begin reading his answer.

Monitor Poverty Series, Installment 4

Can we fight poverty too well? Mark Lange, in today's installment of his series looks at some of the risks.

Monitor Poverty Series, Installment 3

Fighting poverty requires thinking differently. Moving people from aid to self-sufficiency is a goal.

Thinking differently challenges accepted ways. Here's an example from today's installment of the Christian Science Monitor series on global poverty:

Micro- and small-business lending challenges the idea that enterprise is a uniquely "Western" value. When ingenious nongovernmental organizations and lenders such as Grameen Bank in Bangladesh make small loans for small-scale garment and food-processing businesses, generally to women, self-sufficiency flourishes. The loans are audited and community-based, with default rates a fraction of the International Monetary Fund's tragically bad big-loan performance. For self-sustaining enterprise, small really is beautiful.

The founder of microcredit offers this definition of it and its several "categories."

Monitor Poverty Series, Installment 2

In the first installment, yesterday, of its series on global poverty, the Christian Science Monitor introduced the phrase "the last billion." The phrase returns in today's installment; it may reappear throughout the series. The phrase refers to those in the global population, who "are the world's poorest – the last billion people who barely survive on the equivalent of less than $1 a day."The reason, author Mark Lange argues, that "so much aid for the poor has made so little difference" is because

Humanitarian aid budgets aren't focused on the last billion, where the average person has an income one-fifth of those in mid-tier developing countries. Seventy percent of the last billion live in Africa, yet in 2008 only a third of all US government direct aid will go there. (This is progress: In 2001 it was only 8 percent.) Instead, Israel and Egypt together get 10 times the US direct aid that Darfur does. Russia gets as much as 20 sub-Saharan nations combined. Ireland gets 167 times what the Central African Republic does. These may be rational political transfers – but they're not life-saving assistance.

The wealthy nations need to redesign how they help. Their help is necessary, but the ways they helped in the past are no longer effective today. Plus, helping people help themselves is another crucial layer. Mark Lange promises that tomorrow's installment will "look at the best levers for helping the last billion help themselves."
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A related story yesterday about "food security" reported on the Holy See's address to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Agency.

The text of the address was released by Zenit.com the same day.

Monitor Series Begins Today on Poverty

The Christian Science Monitor begins a series to help readers better appreciate global poverty. Journalist and former presidential speechwriter Mark Lange initiates the series. His begins "by separating fact from fiction."

One myth is that "more aid is better":

more funding isn't the most critical issue.

While humanitarian assistance has saved millions, consider this startling conclusion from a recent study by the Center for Global Development: When aid rises to 8 percent of a recipient nation's gross domestic product, it has zero effect on economic growth. Above that, it has a negative effect.

The serious challenge is one of coordination.

Within the site is a link to a conversation with the author, Mark Lange.