Spotlight on Aid & Global Poverty

Happy Semana Santa! We may be on vacation, but if you're still fiending for some development talk, let me recommend to you the following podcast discussion:

Global development podcast: spotlight on the battle against global poverty

Since the conception of the millennium development goals and before, experts have discussed the pros and cons of aid to alleviate global poverty. Many nations rely wholly on foreign aid, but as stated by John Hilary, "countries that have successfully tackled poverty and inequality have done so not through foreign assistance but through the liberation of their own social, human and economic forces." So what role does foreign aid play, where should it come from, and how much should we rely on it?

One of the millennium goals is to cut the extreme global poverty rate in half by 2015. Though almost 1 billion people are still living on less than $1.25 a day, The World Bank claims this goal has been met. This can mean one of two things: Either the goals need to be more ambitious, or something fishy is going on at the World Bank.

The short podcast above is a debate between the Global Development site editor, Lucy Lamble, and an array of experts in the development field. We've got Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a regular columnist on the Global development site; Abhijit Banerjee, an economist from MIT and co-author of the acclaimed book Poor Economics; the Guardian's health editor Sarah Boseley; and Global Development reporter Mark Tran."

So listen up, read on, and educate yourself, and on a final note, when the millennium development goals expire in 2015, what should replace them?

Deep thoughts from the beach,

Dana

(Be back in Guate next week!)