Making poverty history
The message to the leaders of the world's wealthiest nations could not have been louder. Pop concerts were staged simultaneously in different cities across four continents over the weekend. The Live8 concerts -- watched by over one million people and a billion more through television -- called on leaders of the Group of Eight to address the plight of the world's poorest people. If that were not enough, more than 26 million people sent text messages to support the cause.
The G-8 leaders are meeting for their annual summit in the Scottish town of Gleneagles on Wednesday. They certainly must have known about the Live8 concert, but whether or not they were listening is something else.
The call, "make poverty history", is a tall if not overly ambitious order. Poverty has always existed through the history of mankind. The point that the organizers of Live8 were trying to make is that the G-8 leaders are in a position to help less fortunate people around the world, especially those in Africa, the most impoverished continent today.
Poverty is a very complex problem that cannot be solved by simply parceling out more money to the impoverished. After all, that is what the United Nations has been doing for decades. Let us not forget either that while Africa is home to the poorest countries in the world, Asia is still home to the largest concentration of poor people.
Poverty is a complex problem that requires a complex set of solutions.
In a world where nations are competing for the same scarce economic resources, one nation's gain, more often than not, comes at the expense of other nations. If this is a cruel zero sum game, then, ultimately, the solution to the world's poverty will require large sacrifices on the part of the wealthiest nations. Until they are ready to make the necessary sacrifices, including changing their extravagant lifestyles -- and this also goes to the many people who supported the weekend's Live8 concert -- then poverty will remain to haunt mankind, and it won't be confined to history books.
This is not to belittle the recommendations that the concert organizers and their supporters made. Giving more aid and writing off debts will certainly alleviate the overwhelming burdens on many African nations. Making wealthy nations meet their obligations to set aside a small percentage of their gross domestic products (GDP) will also go a long way towards providing relief to poor people around the world. At the very least, they will reduce the guilt that the world's wealthy nations feel.
The point about the Live8 concert is that it was a petition by millions of people to demand their largely democratically elected leaders to do something about poverty in Africa. For these leaders to ignore this message would be to give democracy a bad name. They may even end up making democracy, rather than poverty, history.