WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

CAN EXTREME POVERTY BE ELIMINATED

A REACTION PAPER #3 SUBMITTED TO THE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF SSED 495:
METHODS OF ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES;
TEACHING WITH GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

DEPARTMENT OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
BY
JEFF KEITH
MOLINE, ILLINOIS
FEBRUARY 28, 2012

In Jeffrey Sachs article: Can Extreme Poverty Be Eliminated, he discusses how extreme world poverty affects about one-sixth of the world's 6.5 billion people, can be practically eliminated by 2025 at a cost much lower than most people realize. “Famine, death from childbirth, infectious disease and countless other hazards were the norm for most of history," Sachs writes that the application of scientific advances beginning around 1750 (Industrial Revolution) enabled most of the world to escape poverty. Yet in spite of known solutions to its causes, poverty still claims 20,000 lives daily due to lack of food, safe water, medicine or other essentials. Dramatic improvement in economic conditions in much of Asia in the past 25 years shows that ending poverty is an attainable goal, according to Sachs. If donor nations would fulfill their promise to contribute about 0.7 percent of their gross national product to the effort, Sachs thinks famine, epidemics, regional conflicts and poverty could be successfully combated. Americans overestimate the amount of U.S. foreign aid by as much as 30 times, he writes. Therefore, when they fail to see impressive results, they think aid programs have failed. In reality, official U.S. assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, one of the most entrenched poverty areas, runs about $3 to $6 per person daily, most of which does not go to improve health, nutrition, food production, or transport of needed items.
Too much of past aid has gone for consultants and corrupt officials, Sachs states. But more recent aid targeted to development has achieved results such as the Green Revolution in Asia, the elimination of smallpox, and the near-eradication of polio. Much of Africa, landlocked countries of Asia, and the Andean and Central American highlands have problems with lack of rainfall, high transportation costs, inability to attract foreign investment, and flight of skilled workers. Suggested solutions include bed nets and indoor pesticides and better medicines for malaria in Africa, and drip irrigation and greater use of fertilizers, improving transportation with paved highway networks, airports, and fiber-optic cables for communications. Improved education, sanitation, water quality and health care are also needed. Present total U.S. international aid, which includes government and private aid, is around 0.21 percent of GNP, which is among the lowest ratios of all donor nations, Sachs writes. He advocates that much aid be given directly to villages and towns to minimize misappropriation by government. Aid should be provided according to a "detailed and monitored plan and new rounds of financing would be delivered only as the work actually got done."
Sachs and his colleagues from the United Nations Millennium Project created a plan to halve the rate of poverty and decrease hunger, disease, and environmental degradation by 2015 and in his book “The End of Poverty” he concludes poverty could be eliminated by 2025. Doctors today know that each patient has their own unique conditions and proper treatment should be individualized. Economists need to follow the doctor’s examples and create an individual plan for each country’s economic development.
In the past poverty was blamed on race and culture and more recently on corruption. Sachs states, that they do influence poverty but there are other factors that are more important. Geography which includes natural resources, climate, topography and proximity to trade routes and markets is one, but can be offset with technology. Another is economic growth and distribution of the wealth. This requires improvements in infrastructure, health, education and scientific and technological innovations.
To prove his theory, Sachs compares Asia to Africa over the past five decades. Asia had the Green Revolution in the 60s and the 70s and introduced higher grain yields, irrigation, and fertilization, which ended the cycle of famine, disease, and despair. It also created more manufacturing jobs, giving people more money for health care, nutrition and education. Africa did not have the same advantages that Asia had. Africa has irrigation and rainfall shortages that have caused the continents food production per person fall. They also are still are dealing with tropical diseases like malaria and transportation cost due people living inland away from ports and trade routes.
The United Nations Millennium Project has developed a list of required investments that an impoverished region needs; basic needs in health, education, water, sanitation, food production, and roads and a plan to pay for them. Sachs states, the average income of this region is only $350 per year, which is used for survival and that for tropical Africa an investment of $110 per year is needed to remove poverty. Forty dollars will come from domestic institutions and the remaining $70 from international aid. This would double the amount of aid from affluent nations from $80 billion to $160 billion or approximately .05 percent of their gross national product. Causing a shift from a basic diagnosis of extreme poverty and financing to how to deliver the assistance has developed.
In the United States, people were asked how much international aid they think is given. They overestimated by as much as thirty times the amount. People believed that so much money has been given that the programs have failed and were a waste. Sachs example of this is sub-Saharan Africa. The United States assistance to this region has been $2 billion to $4 billion a year. The aid has been in the form of technology, food contribution for famine, and debt reduction. Little to no assistance has been for health, food production, nutrition, and transportation and Sachs questions how we know if the aid is working without giving it a fair chance.
Another misconception is corruption, as long as aid is given for humanitarian reasons and not political reasons the outcomes have been favorable. Sachs plan is for aid to go directly to the villages and towns to minimize diversions and make payments only when work has been finished.
The author concludes stating that this is an investment, not a handout. This will contribute to advances in technology, science and trade. He explains that everyone will be better off when poverty has been removed.
This future professional educator found this article written by Jeffery Sachs fascinating and eye-opening world-view of poverty. He explains in depth how his plan to eliminate poverty is obtainable by 2025. This is an important article to read because poverty is ultimately everyone’s problem. As educators we need to teach by example and keep our students informed because they are future citizens of the world who need to know about people in need. Sachs article was written in 2005 before the world bomb went off and everything started collapsing. I believe it will be hard for countries to justify spending 0.7 percent of their gross national product, when their own country is struggling with debt. I understand that this is an investment but you need money to be able to invest it.

Sachs, Jeffery D. “Can Extreme Poverty Be Eliminated” Global Issues 11/12 (Pages 88- 92) September 2005. Jeff Keith; SSED 495 Department of Curriculum & Instruction WIU-Quad Cities

GLOBAL ISSUES 2011-2012; ARTICLE BRIEF
Jeffery Sachs, “Can Extreme Poverty Be Eliminated”

In Jeffrey Sachs article: Can Extreme Poverty Be Eliminated, he discusses how extreme world poverty affects about one-sixth of the world's 6.5 billion people, can be practically eliminated by 2025 at a cost much lower than most people realize. “Famine, death from childbirth, infectious disease and countless other hazards were the norm for most of history," Sachs writes that the application of scientific advances beginning around 1750 (Industrial Revolution) enabled most of the world to escape poverty. Yet in spite of known solutions to its causes, poverty still claims 20,000 lives daily due to lack of food, safe water, medicine or other essentials. Dramatic improvement in economic conditions in much of Asia in the past 25 years shows that ending poverty is an attainable goal, according to Sachs. If donor nations would fulfill their promise to contribute about 0.7 percent of their gross national product to the effort, Sachs thinks famine, epidemics, regional conflicts and poverty could be successfully combated. Americans overestimate the amount of U.S. foreign aid by as much as 30 times, he writes. Therefore, when they fail to see impressive results, they think aid programs have failed. In reality, official U.S. assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, one of the most entrenched poverty areas, runs about $3 to $6 per person daily, most of which does not go to improve health, nutrition, food production, or transport of needed items.
Other significant perspectives:

1. “For the first time in history, global economic prosperity, brought on by continuing scientific and technological progress and the self- reinforcing accumulation of wealth, has placed the world within reach of eliminating poverty.

2. Everyday more than 20000 people die from poverty.

3. 1.1 billion people go without basic living needs, living on a dollar or less a day.

4. It will take about $160 billion a year in assistance from affluent countries or .5 percent of their GNP to halve poverty by 2015. Equaling $110 per person in Africa.

5. The major factors that affect poverty are; natural resources climate topography, trade routes, major markets, race, culture, corruption health, disease, communications, and average income.