global health LAUREN E.

SILVER


This weeks readings, to a large extent, set the stage for a debate about whether aid
relieves or perpetuates extreme poverty in recipient countries. Jeffrey Sachs
describes the extreme poor or the poorest of the poor as those trapped by
disease, physical isolation, climate stress, environmental degradation, and by
extreme poverty itself[these] families and their governments simply lack the
financial means to make crucial investments. Sachsfalling more to the end of the
spectrum that believes aid will be a crucial tool for ending extreme poverty
emphasizes that the Millennium Development Goals should be met by 2015 with
modest financial help from the rich countries

In contrast, Dambisa Moyo asserts that aid is the problema band aid solution and
that governments need to be accountable to the citizens who elect them. She further
claims that aid has become a self-perpetuating industry that is overcrowded with
vested interests. She suggests implementing a 5-year plan to slowly withdraw aid
from the countries that have come to depend on it, arguing that only about 20 cents
of every aid dollar actually makes it to the average citizen.

In this video (4 Ways to Improve the Lives of the Bottom Billion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhAD0dMslB8), Paul Collier strikes a
reasonable balance between the two perspectives. Collier suggests that while aid is
part of the solution, wealthy nations must also reverse trade policy to open
markets, reverse security policy from isolationist to sending troops, andmost
importantabandon the notion of complete national sovereignty. He suggests that
aid is a part of the compassion that will help wealthy nations to get started
reversing the plight of the bottom billion, but that compassion must eventually lead
to enlightened self-interest to ensure long-term success.