poverty

RECENT POSTS

May 10, 2013 | 1:00 PM | By  | 

At the intersection of health and peace, a genocide survivor returns to Burundi | 

Burundi has some of the world’s worst health indicators, including high rates of child malnutrition and mortality. It suffered from the same genocidal catastrophe that Rwanda did in the mid-1990s.

But you don’t hear much about Burundi in aid and development circles. In this week’s podcast, we explore this enigma with Deogratias Niyizonkiza – Deo for short – a survivor of the genocide who is trying to rebuild his country through his non-profit, community based health organization Village Health Works.

Deo’s extraordinary life is the subject of Tracy Kidder’s best-selling book The Strength In What Remains. He’s without question one of the most inspiring people I’ve met this year. Tune into hear Deo discuss his escape from genocide, what it was like to arrive here penniless from a country most have never heard of (there’s a funny story there) and Village Heatlth Works’ truly grassroots community-building work.

Listen or download the mp3 below.

FILED UNDER: Podcasts, Africa, Burundi, Deo, health, poverty, Tracy Kidder, Village Health Works
May 3, 2013 | 3:32 PM | By  | 

Burma: Past, Present, and Future | 

Welcome to the Humanosphere podcast, our weekly look at the world of global health and development. Tom and I begin with a discussion on the headlines – everything from May Day in Seattle and Bangladesh to abortion access in El Salvador.

Then we turn to Burma, also known as Myanmar. We speak with Pwint Htun, who left Burma in ninth grade amidst a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, and resettled here in Seattle.

Her mother, a doctor, treated wounded demonstrators, and her family was blacklisted and forced to flee. Htun was the first recipient of a Prospect Burma scholarship, established using the prize money Aung San Suu Kyi donated after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. When Cyclone Nargis struck in 2008, she coordinated shipments of over 12 million water purification tablets into Burma.

These days, she’s making frequent trips back to Burma as a telecommunications consultant for The World Bank and others. The country has embarked on a process of reforms but where will it go from here? Htun gives us an inside-look at Burma past, present, and future, including its brief stint of democratic rule after colonialism. And she explains what useful, as opposed to harmful, interventions in Burma by Western businesses and NGOs should look like.

Listen below.

FILED UNDER: Podcasts, Burma, development, Myanmar, poverty, technology
April 19, 2013 | 2:46 PM | By  | 

Geek Heretic explains why technology can’t solve the poverty problem | 

Kentaro Toyama is a geek heretic, or at least, that’s what Tom Paulson dubbed him last year. Now it’s the working title for Toyama’s upcoming book. Toyama is a renowned computer scientist and expert in computer-human visual interactions. He helped launch Microsoft Research in India in 2005 and was dispatched by Bill Gates to find technological solutions to poverty and inequity. After giving it his best, Toyama decided technology, though useful, cannot fix poverty.

Kentaro Toyama
Kentaro Toyama in the studio

One of the commenters on Toyama’s ideas last year wasn’t convinced: “If he is only talking about current things like personal computers, sure. But when we get 3D Printers that can make more replicators, nanobots and the like, he is totally wrong.”

It’s certainly tempting to think that next generation of futuristic technologies can change the world. But Toyama has seen innovative technology rendered powerless, harmful even, in settings of severe poverty. He says the problems require even deeper solutions.

So we get deep into the issues in the podcast. Listen in below.

FILED UNDER: Podcasts, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Kentaro Toyama, poverty, technology
March 15, 2013 | 11:15 AM | By  | 

Bono says Yes We Can end extreme poverty while UN reports Why We Might Not | 

Bono
Flickr, Phil Romans

Bono loves data and said so in his February TED talk, which was recently released in video. He says the promise of ending extreme poverty turns him on.

“If the trajectory continues we get to the ‘zero zone.’ For number crunchers like us, that is the erogenous zone,” says Bono. “And it’s fair to say, by now, that I am sexually aroused by the collating of data.”

Extreme poverty has been halved from 43% of the world in 1990 to 21% by 2000. The current trends show that extreme poverty could end by 2030, say the World Bank, ONE and CGD.

However, the most recent data (aka UNDP’s Human Development Report (HDR) 2013) suggests that ending extreme poverty will get harder if we don’t take more action:

“Environmental inaction, especially regarding climate change, has the potential to halt or even reverse human development progress. The number of people in extreme poverty could increase by up to 3 billion by 2050 unless environmental disasters are averted by co-ordinated global action,” says the report. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, AIDS, Bono, foreign aid, malaria, ONE Campaign, poverty, TB, TED, The Global Fund
March 13, 2013 | 12:12 PM | By  | 

Economist: Why food is so expensive for poor people | 

The Economist, though starting off with a misleading reference to the horse meat flap in Europe, does a nice job here in its Daily Chart of illustrating why food is so costly to the poor. Were you confused by the stories that explained, way back when, that the riots and political unrest which exploded into what we then called the Arab Spring (now perhaps better dubbed the Arab Turmoil or Festering Wounds) were sparked by food price increases? This may help clear things up.

We all know that food is essential. What we often don’t know is how big a chunk it takes out of a poor person’s daily income.

FoodCosts
Economist

A related article on why Food Riots Likely to Become the New Normal

FILED UNDER: Basics, Politics, Arab Spring, costs, food, politics, poverty
January 29, 2013 | 9:48 AM | By  | 

Did anything that matters (to the rest of us) happen in Davos? | 

Davos, World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum

Somehow, I was not invited to the prestigious and exclusive World Economic Forum in Davos this year.

Many other members of the media were there along with the corporate executives, politicians, celebrities, cautiously happy bankers, an anxious Shimon Peres complaining that the world is becoming ungovernable and some topless Ukrainian women protesters who were there but not invited. Among the missing (besides me) were top officials from the Obama Administration and a strong sense of moral purpose, or much purpose at all. To wit:

The Economist said Pretty Much No One Believes in Davos anymore, adding in a different column this observation:

“Ordinary folk trust Davos Man no more than they would a lobbyist for the Worldwide Federation of Weasels.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Politics, Ban Ki-Moon, Bill Gates, Davos, economics, inequality, poverty, World Economic Forum
January 24, 2013 | 1:15 PM | By  | 

The history of being the first in history to end poverty | 

Britain's Prime Minister Cameron speaks during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in DavosPoverty persists, as does the tendency over the last century for politicians and others to say that society is finally on the cusp of ending it. British PM David Cameron just said it this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos:

“We can be the generation that eradicates absolute poverty in our world.”

Yes, we can – just like we can also be the generation that ends hunger or AIDS, injustice or maybe even large-scale warfare. Actually doing it, however, is a bit harder than pointing out it is theoretically possible.

Owen Barder, an expert on the fight against poverty at the Center for Global Development, has compiled an historical list of those who have, over the past century, said pretty much the same thing. Starting with Cameron, he works his way backward in time quoting Jeff Sachs, Henry Kissenger, John F. Kennedy all the way to Woodrow Wilson. Funny. Sad. Read it.

FILED UNDER: Politics, Davos, poverty, World Economic Forum
November 19, 2012 | 12:00 PM | By  | 

BBC film series asks: Why Poverty? | 

The BBC, working with a non-profit called Steps and other media (mostly local public broadcast stations) today will begin airing a multi-part documentary series called Why Poverty? in which:

“Award-winning film makers (were selected) to make eight documentaries about poverty, and new and emerging talents to make around 30 short films. The films tackle big issues and pose difficult questions, but they’re also moving, subtle and thought-provoking stories.”

Basically, the in-depth series seeks to answer the question: Why does poverty exist?

The extent of this project would indicate, on the face of it, that the reasons one billion people on the planet live in extreme poverty are many and complex, and ending poverty very challenging indeed. Perhaps. But I remember what Dr. Bill Foege, the physician who defeated smallpox and, in my opinion, one of the most influential voices in global health and development, once said in answer to this same question posed at a forum at Seattle Town Hall:

“Poverty exists because so many of us benefit from it,” Foege said.

We can make it sound complicated, as if poverty exists due to some natural or economic law of inequality — much as we used to look at slavery. Slavery used to be considered part of the natural order of things and essential to the welfare of many businesses. Do we tolerate poverty today like we once tolerated slavery?

I look forward to seeing if this film series advances our understanding of the causes of poverty in a way that encourages more aggressive efforts to end the root causes, rather than just make us all feel good by once again expressing despair and moral outrage.

Guardian Documentary film-makers join forces to expose the evil of global poverty

Guardian Experts speak ou on how to end global poverty

Project website Why Poverty?

FILED UNDER: Basics, documentary film, poverty