You have to think carefully about the works What we wish for solvebut above all it is necessary to think about them again and again. One of these most necessary works is the poverty of the Mexican peopleTo enter with more authority into what I am going to say, I believe, and I believe it well, to give a universal overview, to make comparisons with our reality.
There are nine million children who die annually before reaching the age of five. The probability that a women In sub-Saharan Africa, the risk of dying in childbirth is one in thirty, while that of a woman in the developed world is one in 5,600. There are more than twenty-five countries, mostly in Africa, where the life expectancy of a person does not exceed 55 years. This is the typical paragraph that can lead me to want to close this matter, because the problem of poverty in the world seems too big and unapproachable.
Unfortunately, debates about the poverty are very vague and imprecise, since instead of discussing the best way, conclusions are often reached that make no sense. Instead of discussing the best way to fight childhood diarrhea or dengue, many influential experts worldwide are fixated on the “big questions”: What is the main cause of the disease? povertyTo what extent should we believe in the free market? democracy is good for the poor? What role can aid play in development? And others like that.
Jeffrey Sarch, a UN adviser, is one such expert who has answers to all these questions: poor countries are poor because they are hot, infertile, plagued by malaria, and often landlocked, making it difficult for them to be productive for lack of a large initial investment to help them deal with these endemic problems. Furthermore, says Mr. Sarch: Foreign aid is essential, since it allows poor countries to invest in these critical areas, making them more productive and starting a virtuous circle. And if that were not enough, in his 2005 best-seller, The End of Poverty, Sarch argued that if rich countries contributed $195 billion a year in aid between 2005 and 2025, by the end of this period poverty could be completely eliminated. However, other influential voices believe that all of Sarch’s answers are wrong.
Who should we believe? Those who claim that aid will solve the problem or those who claim that it will make the situation worse? Fortunately, a new generation of scholars is emerging who are inviting us to “think again” about the problem, to no longer ignore these problems that are, above all, human, and to identify solutions that, once understood, can be solved one by one.
This debate cannot be resolved in the abstract, as evidence is needed. I will use the case of Rwanda as an example. Rwanda received a lot of money in the years following the genocide and prospered. Now with a thriving economy, its President has begun to reduce dependence on aid. This is a case worthy of a larger study, which will be presented in the next installment…
To be continued…
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