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Previous: Update on Our Campaign to End Extreme Poverty | All blog entries Coming Attractions: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 How Other Anti-Poverty Groups are Reacting to Our Much More Ambitious Goals for Ending Extreme Poverty in Just Five Years There are hundreds of groups working to end global poverty. We're not aware of any that are ask for even half of what we strongly support to help the poor.I expected we'd get varying reactions from the other groups. Some might say we're being totally unrealistic... Others would say it's fine to promote a different viewpoint - anything that helps increase interest in this issue could be helpful to everyone's efforts... What I didn't expect was that any organization would immediately endorse our goals. If we're serious about doing what's right, I think it's obvious: Anything less than at least matching the Marshall Plan is totally unacceptable... But how soon would I find any other established organizations open to seeing it this way? Latest additions: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 Ending Extreme Poverty in Five Years: Why Didn't Anyone Start This Campaign Sooner? In the last few months, it's become obvious to me that we really can end extreme poverty in five years - if we can only build the political will.Why didn't I think of it before? Why didn't any anti-poverty organization think of it before? There are several reasons: 1) Connecting the dots is a lot easier after someone else does it. Agriculture, the wheel... these inventions are obvious now, but many generations of more or less genetically identical humans failed to think of it. Similarly, people have been talking for many years about the need for a Marshall Plan for the poor nations. It seems most never connected that the Marshall Plan was a specific 1.5 percent of the USA's GDP (national income) over a specific five-year time frame, that it should be relatively easy to sell this idea based on an earlier, proven success - even though it's more than double what most other experts have been asking for. Hearts & Minds just connected the dots. 2) Hesitation to rock the boat. Most experts and organizations already agree with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These ask for 0.7% of GDP - much more than most wealthy nations ever gave before. People can fear that asking to too much will only hurt their credibility. To this I answer: Asking for something short of the truly visionary may never work. As I've mentioned in earlier blogs, the MDGs are only a continuation of a 0.7% of national income that the nations have pledged - and most have never kept - since 1970. More thoughts on what's wrong with the MDGs. 3) People fear that the public will never support more ambitious goals. But many surveys show that the public regularly, greatly overestimates the amount of money we spend on foreign aid - so why not urge them to support a lower amount than they expected? That's all we're asking :) 4) Surveys regularly show at least 70 percent of the American public supports global anti-poverty programs - if they're effective. All we need is to show that many programs are really effective. The programs Hearts & Minds supports have already helped hundreds of millions of people. And you can join us to help hundreds of millions more people: We Can End Global Hunger and Poverty by 2012 - how you can help make it happen Every person makes a big difference. It's easy to Join Us. Previous blog: Update on Our Campaign to End Extreme Poverty | All blog entries Comments and Questions: greatchange@gmail.com.
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