Wow. A lot of the posters here seem to be echoing communist propaganda.
To set the record straight...Sending aid to africa has made things worse, not better. All the aid has really done is further decimate the african economy, causing rampant inflation that has destroyed local agricultural and textile markets. (And that is when the aid actually gets there as opposed to be intercepted by corrupt officials.

See this article in the LA Times for more info
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-boot7jul07,1,1010818.column?ctrack=1&cset=true

I am also amazed that Nicholas ignores the large private donations that come out of the US every year (Totally 60 Billion dollars) which actually push the US aid contributions .68%, very close to the gold star figure of .71% that Sachs plucks out of the air.

Given the history of the last 100 years, it is quite clear that a democratic/republic society with a capitalistic economy is the best way to fight poverty. Throwing money at it has quite clearly failed and only made the third world's plight so much worse.

Grey,

No one here has suggested that 'just throwing money at it" works. We need a pro active approach - hands on so to speak. And the current application of capitalism tends to exclude aspiring countries - we need to rethink the global market. I don't believe that communism applies to any of this.

Read the posts again - and then think before you post.

The interesting thing about this discussion is that whilst its posters are obviously approaching the topic from a wide variety of outlooks, nobody seems to be advocating more aid as the main answer to the problem. It will be interesting to see how next month's feature articles on global poverty portray the situation.