This article makes me happy. I hope more people read it. I hope it helps convince public and private "aid givers" that encouraging human initiative, self confidence and risk taking is a critical ingredient in lifting people out of poverty. Look in our own backyard. "Sit down money" is a cynical term coined by the very folks who receive it. It obviously sucks away some people's inherent drive to improve their lot. Greater access to capital (and encouragement to take entrepreneurial risks with it) will help generate some sadly needed "stand up money".

The author is a litte confused here.

http://www.acumenfund.org/

The acumen fund does exactly what he claims is required, and
you guessed it, Gates is one of the major funders.

The Third world needs business leaders and commentators to state and keep stating the bleeding obvious.

A full-on assault on population growth. Yes, two, one or no children.

All the capital in the world and " hand wringing " from "do gooders" will go no-where.

Ralph

The core African problem from Cairo to Cape Town is OVER POPULATION!
http://www.afrik-news.com/article18172.html
http://www.afrol.com/articles/36793

Unless African countries wake up and take action to curb it, no amount of aid or entrepreneurialism is gong to bail them out.

Kris Sayce says:
<<<But that's not the sort of thing that makes me sad.
The kind of news that saddens me is stories such as this from 2006:
“Buffett donates $37 billion to charity”>>>

Yep! it makes me sad too –real sad.
If they genuinely wanted to do something for humanity they would have been better advised to donate the money towards the advancement of science ---like the space program.

To adapt an old piece of advice:
Do not put your capital in Africa , where Mugabe’s and Idi Amin’s will nationalise , and where Gaddafi’s will tax it to fund terrorists . But store up for humanity treasures in the heavens, where Mugabe’s and Idi Amin’s can never reach , and where Gaddafi’s thinks only jinni’s dwell . For where your treasure is, there your heart will also truly follow.

Have a look at this map of world poverty... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

Basically the more red, the more poverty... But the surprise is that it is a map of FERTILITY - how many

children are being born.

You know how our government seems unable to fund hospitals, schools and roads, and this is with our population

failing to produce enough children to replace ourselves... imagine the problems of fundiong these essential

services if the population was not declining, but trippling every twenty years... no wonder they are poor. Worse

than schools and hospitals, they somehow they also need to find more farmland too!

50 years ago, perhaps we could have ended poverty. But now there are so many more poor that the problem is so

much bigger. For example, there are 60 million shanty-town dwellers in India alone, and only 20 million

Australians...

Let alone Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, New Guinea... What about Africa? Sth America? etc etc...

Why is China becomming so rich and powerfull? The one-child policy. It means they can finally afford to catch up

with the infastructire and education that nations need to get ahead and build wealth.

I don't like the 'one child policy', but Thailand and surging Iran (Think nuclear power) also have zero-

population growth due to marketing, free contraception and free choice. It's not really the feminist idea that

educating women reduces population growth (think Iran, they're not keen on educating women)...

...continued

What succeds is explaining to people that too many kids leads to poverty, and long-lasting free contraceptive

implants. Eventually compulsary education and urbanisation also drive down birthrates, because they make kids

expensive. This tends to come along at the same time as education for all, which creates the feminist myth that

only educating women decreases birthrates... it does, but that's only a small part of the picture.

On the other hand, why is the 'aging population' such a bad thing here in Australia? Surely it means we are

living longer, and isn't that a good thing?

The problem is not an 'aging' population, it is that we are suiciding... failing to produce enough kids to

replace ourselves.

Here we need to give tax reductions for kids so middle class parents can afford the kids we want. Those on welfare are pumping out kids like there is no tomorrow because of the welfare bribes to have lots of kids.

Meaning that single mums are pressured into having more kids than they can look after. And the payment incentives which ensure that few get married, as this reduces their welfare paynments.

Also making divorce fairer, because Australian men don't want to become dads... because they are afraid of

having their kids stolen by divorce lawyers.

Dear Ralph...I like your style.

"mene mene tekel uparsin" :) look it up mate... never have truer words been written... applicable to our age.

Care to drop in on "Politics and Perception" thread and have a go at the vid ?

you can't make greedy people think responsibly & you can't expect ignorant people to know any better. So, where to now ? I'd say let's start with education. No,no, not the academic kind, the real life one. The pragmatical such as apprenticeships rather than frivolous theories.
Then, pay people at least %20 of the resale of the goods they produce. The wheeler-dealers can easily do with a %50 cut in profit. Then the fairest of all things- introduce flat tax. No excemptions. That will weed out the incompetent in our midst. No freebie superannuation or excessive travel allowances for pollies after only one term. Simplistic ? I don't think so. Simple solution ? Yes ! What's that got to do with third world aid ? Well, it could prevent Australia from sliding further towards third world status & reduce the need of charity as we are experiencing here now in many cases. Don't believe me. Give the Smith Family mob a call..

The third world has had far too much capital, given or loaned to them, rather than not enough.

As soon as some loose capital appears the smarties damn soon get hold of it, & it’s never seen again. Just how many huge loans to third world countries have been forgiven?

You only have to look at Rudd & co to see how much capital can be wasted, & he was nothing compared to many third world leaders.

A couple friends of mine were volunteers in the Kennedy founded US Peace Core. It had been going for some time, in the Pacific islands, when they became involved. They saw many of failures of their predecessors, where large effort had been put into developing cash crop plantations, then giving them to the village/island community. Almost the only ones to succeeded were those where the peace core people joined the community, & stayed.

In nearly every case these developments were reverting to scrub in a short time. The locals would not do the work for others who were not prepared to do anything themselves. A viscous circle.

Their approach was to pick a few goers from the community. These few were allocated land. & loaned seed, or young plants, & given some material & technical assistance, but no more.

As a few succeeded, & became prosperous, others wanted to have the same help. In 6 years they had half a dozen thriving communities.

They had been pretty far left in their ideology, almost communistic in outlook. They said they could now see why good ideas, with handouts, to simple peoples just don’t work. The communities are not ready to act as a co-operative, or a company.

They reckoned their best assistance cane in the form of a tinny, & outboard. Once one of their starters had bought such an outfit, the entire village wanted in. It was symbol of success they could all recognise, & aspire to

I agree with the article's title- while some charity funds may initially be needed in the form of food and health supplies, to continue to throw money at third world countries is to throw money into a bottomless pit.

Predictably, Partimeparent blames all the world's poverty problems on single mums (all their kids having been conceived by immaculate conception of course), but it is much more to do with over-population and lack of education.

Third world countries have needed help more or less all the time over the past centuries, and many people have taken advantage of this needy situation.
Religious charity organisations have gone in to provide much needed aid. However, they have also passed on their own 'ideas' on how these poor people should live their lives.

These poor third world countries could have done without the 'ban' on contraceptives that some of these religious charity workers thrust upon them.

They need more education (including sex education) and freely available contraceptives if they are ever going to have a chance at surviving on the already limited resources.

I also believe we have to stop being politically correct, and place some more effective controls on the money our governments do give to third world countries.

If we give the money for starting local businesses, building local infrastructure, or ensuring good education opportunities, then we should be ensuring it is used for this purpose, and is not lining the pockets of some dodgy 'officials' instead.

Oops...SUZ is on one of her regular 'whack a Christian' rampages :)

Suz..you say:

//to continue to throw money at third world countries is to throw money into a bottomless pit.//

close...but not spot on.. more exact is "to send money to corrupt politicians' swiss bank accounts"

claim: "What's keeping poor people poor isn't that they can't get food or water, it's that they don't have access to the most important thing needed to create wealth - and that's access to capital. "

Need only look at many of our A* communities, where ongoing poverty is linked to actions by the corporate landowning bodies, with some community management support, which prevents community members from entering into agreements to access capital for themselves - this relates to ongoing refusal to issue valid leases for property.

Without valid leases no-one can obtain loans to improve things....

Debate on related lease rates issue in NT Parliament - improved or unimproved capital value %rental rates.

Sadly still far to many in communities think money flows to communities without strings attached !

http://notes.nt.gov.au/lant/hansard/hansardd.nsf/WebbyDate/42B094CF3DCD231D692577CA000198E5

Debates - Eleventh Assembly, First Session - 10/19/2010 -
Parliamentary Record No: 15
This is an uncorrected proof of the daily report. It is made available
under the condition that it is recognised as such.

Topic: MOTION
Subject: Motion - Peppercorn Rental Agreement for Government
Facilities on Aboriginal Land
Date: 10/27/2010
Member: Mr WOOD
Other Speakers:
Status: Nelson

Third worlds are manipulated through the need for aid. Humanitarian organisations are playing cards with people’s lives in these countries via politics and political intervention for the purpose of gaining alliance.

Thousands of testimonies from citizens of these countries have outlined the fact that there is a presents of interference in their way of living including ideals in life.

Fact is that third world countries survive of food donations of flour and wheat but also really on there of food sources to make up for the short fall such as fruit and rice.

GM seeds are here and have not been elected by these countries because it loses favour with the organisations currently supporting.

Over the last 15 years genetic foods have been produced around the world, these foods come in a range of variations from wheat to foods, vegetables, fruits even meat for lasting freshness.

These foods have been vigorously tested over and over more than any standardise current market foods with the thumbs-up on all cross checks including a 10 year study of consumption.

With our reluctance to taking up on foods that have as much protein, more potential and allot more variations’ that could be introduce into restaurants and logistical outlets costing us less with more interest, not to mention always perfect in quality and taste has brought about the rejection and continual struggle of farmers producing regular produce, GM an income earner they could rely on annually more than seasonal hope.

GM seeds are the way of the future to guarantee good produce under any condition, that’s designed for the farmer’s needs, consumer’s choice not to mention look, taste and longer lasting freshness without the need to add preservative chemicals currently done on your regular foods including meats daily before sale.

These countries need food, their land is dying; their produce is getting more and more uneatable. The foods they rely on such are on a time limit with less and less areas being able to grow healthy foods because the soil is contaminated and diseased not to mention spreading with each harvest annually.

Definitely money as charity has not produced the results we all had thought.

But how many of the poorest countries are also run by corrupt governments? It is a tremendous dilemma: helping people that have no way to help themselves, but at the same time propping up a corrupt government through aid handouts or payments. Regardless of the left/right, big/small lean of the government, a corrupt government is no help to its citizens.

As for the people who equate a large number of children=poor country...have you thought why people in developing countries tend to have more children? It's usually because of non-existent health care, lack of vaccinations etc that contribute to high infant mortality. If you want 2 kids in Australia, Europe, Japan, North America...then you have 2 kids. If you want 2 kids in a country that has yearly epidemics, famine etc then you would probably have more than 2 kids in the hope that at least 2 of them survive. It sounds like a vicious cycle and it doesn't really take an expert to realise that in most cases it is.

Micro-loans have been widely reported to be great at helping people in developing countries bring themselves out of poverty. Plus, it looks like they have taken off in developed countries too: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735804575535900346930486.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Priorities are difficult to set: help with the healthcare of the most needy or provide capital for business development. Bill Gates at least has the means to help out and it seems like he knows about microfinancing: http://www.microfinancefocus.com/news/2010/01/13/gates-foundation-grants-38m-to-top-microfinance-organisations/ (and no, I am not trying to be a sycophant here)

Now, to lighten the mood....I wonder if someone has done a recent study on the pros and cons of Bill Gates' software empire.

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

Jorge says:
“have you thought why people in developing countries tend to have more children? It's usually because of non-existent health care, lack of vaccinations etc that contribute to high infant mortality. If you want 2 kids in Australia, Europe, Japan, North America...then you have 2 kids. If you want 2 kids in a country that has yearly epidemics, famine etc then you would probably have more than 2 kids in the hope that at least 2 of them survive. It sounds like a vicious cycle and it doesn't really take an expert to realise that in most cases it is.”

Sorry Jorge, that's an old MYTH that's been peddled by groups like Oxfam.

Let's test it –and we’ll use Yemen as a test case.

In 1975, Yemen's population was only 7 million… by 2004 it was 21 million ..and it's excepted to reach 43 million by 2035.

Here’s what Yemen’s population growth over that period looks like
(it even looks like a pregnant woman side on!)

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_grow&idim=country:YEM&dl=en&hl=en&q=population+growth+graph+yemeni

Now lets look at its infant mortality rate over the same period

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_imrt_in&idim=country:YEM&dl=en&hl=en&q=infant+mortality+yemeni

Hmmm…they don’t seem too closely related !

But here’s a clue as to the real reason for Yemen’s population explosion :
“A recent study revealed that 75 percent of Yemeni women marry at an early age (between 15-20 years old).
”http://www.yemenpost.net/39/LocalNews/20084.htm

And-bingo!

“Over 80 percent of the population know about family planning methods, but the problem lies in practice he said
He said some thought family planning would lead to health problems and that it was not allowed in Islam.

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,IRIN,,YEM,487f10c3c,0.html

So there you have it, another Myth busted!

Ok Horus, so maybe Yemen is an exception. Maybe some developing countries do not fall into the category that I mentioned. I did say "usually" - there are exceptions to all assumptions based on regional/national factors etc.

But back to Yemen, looking at the CIA Factbook, it is the 39th highest in infant mortality. Pretty much all developed countries/territories are down the bottom of the list.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

And, while Yemen's infant mortality has declined, it is still quite high.

According to this data, Yemen still has 41.8% of people below the national poverty line.

http://data.worldbank.org/country/yemen-republic

Also, infant mortality rate is usually taken as the death of an infant under one year of age. I haven't been able to look up any data on mortality rates of children etc so if anyone can look data up then that would be great. (Though then this would become a discussion on Yemen...)

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

I think that powerful people in the third world would feel greatly threatened were poverty reduced. Throngs of destitute people are a great source of cheap labour, willing to work all day for a couple of dollars, and if a few should fail there are many to fill a vacancy. Why would the powerful in these parts of the world want to see the lot of the poor improved? Is it any wonder that there is little support for the provision of free contraception amongst them? The only ones who stand to gain are the poor themselves, not their masters.