My
Honey made a
discussion posty about poverty. I wanted to reply but it got a bit long. Many arguments came up while writing it. In the end i decided to make it fit for a post on my blog.
reply to Atomic:
Hmm it’s a complicated matter. I personally never knew what real poverty is. We only had to “be careful”, we ate lousy bread and i wore all my brothers’ old clothes (10 years outdated!). These days I see it as a lesson... I learn to save. (Eh...)
Personally i only give money to charity. But many don’t believe it helps.
The Dutch as a country give 0.8% of the “total gross national income" to “development co-operations” (charity; hope I translated that correct). That’s a huge amount. Actually I’m bit proud of it; there are foreign countries who give more in whole but less as per citizen. Also must be said that the Dutch government mostly really pay! There are countries who Offer to help promise certain amount to donate but never really give. The mouth is faster then the wallet.
But lately, since we have a growing right winged population, people call (shout) to lower that 0.8% or even to stop that- period. They give multiple arguments:
The most important one is that the money is often misused. For instance when given to corrupt country you often have to pay certain persons first before getting it to the right-people. And second why donate a country which is at war? The money has no “save ground” for to be invested in the long run. Many see Africa as a hopelessly-by war-divided-bottomless well. We give and give and give…
Then there is the bold racism argument. Money donate on Islamic countries is less & less (not) popular.
The argument that the money is not properly invested locally I can understand. Maby it was given to easy? The money is used short termed and not invested for the future. Of course that has many reasons. (Well if I’m hungry now I don’t think of buying/saving grain to sow next year? And next year there will probably be again). One is lack of knowledge; how to properly invest. Next is maybe motivation.
A real good argument is that the invested money is destroying local economics. Notorious is the help for Ethiopia. The hunger was severe. Then the West gave so much free grain… from The West! that the grain which Africa grows itself couldn’t compete. Local farmers went bankrupt and well consequences are obvious.
So what can we do? The West can be blamed for poverty and wars in Africa. The cold war wasn’t fought directly but there. So we morally have to do something and wars may not stop us. As big providers of guns we first have to stop to deliver them. Obvious it wont help much there are so many who eagerly willing to take it over (and the West prob use that as an argument to deliver So we still have bit control!). Countries must not get the change to borrow too much money to get in debt. The corrupt systems don’t care about the future. The West must not give their superfluous food. Or make conditions (buy our grain from the money we give you). The UN must organize a worldwide ban on collaboration with corrupt systems. Like Mugabe’s. It doesn’t help if the West bans him while other countries jump in. Then liberation and stimulation of equal rights for woman which comes with education (birth controle is important). The West has to open their markets for products from third world countries. But one legal argument is that the food has to have same *health inspections/ warranties. That’s expensive for them and so they can’t compete. It’s one of the reasons the West ban them or hmm maybe the one they use to save their own markets!
But do I say something new here aren't they well know?
One of the nicest ideas I only read about last years but it existed from way back (btw our future queen is active in this) is Microcredit. I couldn’t say it better then here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcredit please read it. A great way to stimulate local development with responsibility. Also read the part about woman! There is also criticism on this.
It’s a bit of a mix of what I think and what generally is thought here. Maybe it’s a start for a further debate?
Greetings,
Ambres
(ps.What people generally think won't say they are my ideas. I could make many more remarks but i hope its sufficiënt for now).
