I’m sitting in a lecture theatre at the London School of Economics, having just finished live-tweeting from the launch of the Global Poverty Ambassador initiative with Bill Gates and Hans Rosling.
You can check out the conversation stream from the event on our Twitter account at www.twitter.com/thegpp
Both are men I deeply respect, and they’ve just been having a fascinating discussion here with the audience about Bill’s Annual Letter – you can read the letter and see the discussion at www.globalpovertyproject.com/pages/launch
Released earlier today, the Annual Letter is an open letter that Bill Gates writes once a year about what he and his Foundation will do to fight extreme poverty in the year ahead. Focusing on innovation this year, he sets out a bold and challenging vision of how even in tough economic times, we can make huge progress in the fight against extreme poverty.
Agriculture is a central theme of the letter, and Gates urges governments to focus on agricultural innovation to ensure food security. He picks up on some of the themes we’ve been writing about in our series on the Never Again famine charter, and includes the challenging graph you see below around disparity in how much the extreme poor spend on food.
His proposed solution, and the area into which his Foundation are putting billions of dollars is scientific research to increase productivity, through things like improved seeds.
On global health, Gates focuses on vaccines and polio. He reminds us that polio eradication is the Foundation’s top priority – a commitment we’re proud to hear given our campaigning on The End of Polio. And, he congratulates donors and vaccine manufacturers for their efforts, calling the success of the GAVI pledging conference in June 2011 an “historic day for global health equity.”
On the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, Bill Gates is positive about progress that has been made.
At the same time, he expresses strong concern about donors falling short of their commitments. In his words, “Every $300 that’s not forthcoming will represent a person taken off treatment. That’s a very clear choice. I believe that if people understood the choice, they would ask their government to save more lives.” It’s a sentiment that we share at the Global Poverty Project, and is one of the reasons our UK team are working with Malaria No More to call on the government to Fund the Fund.
In closing, Gates recounts why it is that he remains so optimistic about our ability to fight extreme poverty:
“Whether it’s fighting plant disease, treating people with AIDS, or getting a measles vaccine to a child in a remote area—modest investments in the poorest make a huge difference.
Unfortunately, many people believe the opposite—that money spent on development is wasted, or that it doesn’t get lasting results. Melinda and I will spend a lot of time in the coming year explaining why they’re mistaken. The relatively small amount of money invested in development has changed the future prospects of billions of people—and it can do the same for billions more—if we make the choice to continue investing in innovation.“
Tell us what you think about Bill Gates’ Annual Letter by joining the conversation on Twitter with the #billsletter hashtag.
We’ve written recently about the global population ticking over 7 billion this year. Forecast to reach 9 billion by mid-century, our team at the Global Poverty Project are often asked, “How is the world going to cope with having so many people? Won’t having fewer poor people damage the environment?”
Mark Lynas picks up these questions in his challenging new book, The God Species. Starting with the idea that humans have altered our planet so fundamentally so as to create a new geological era – the Anthropocene – Lynas outlines nine planetary boundaries which we must respect if we’re to ensure that humanity can continue to flourish.
At first glance, this is an environmental book, not one about extreme poverty. But at its core, it’s about how humanity, and in particular the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us, will survive and thrive over the next century.
Taking a couple of the boundaries as an example, it’s clear to see how these issues connect back to extreme poverty:
• Climate Change Boundary. We’ve written before about how climate change is already hitting the world’s poorest first and hardest, even though they did the least to cause it. They live in the most vulnerable locations – arid areas increasingly prone to droughts, low-lying areas prone to floods, and the world’s poor often lack the capital and infrastructure to respond as the climate changes.
• Nitrogen Boundary. Nitrogen has fueled the green revolution and the world’s ability to feed itself, and as the world adds 2 billion people (many of whom will be eating more meat) in the next 40 years, managing its use will become increasing important. Lynas takes a swipe at the organic farming movement, and those opposed to GM-foods, citing increased efficiency in industrial farming methods as perhaps the best way to safely feed the world’s population.
• Freshwater Boundary. Balancing the needs of human populations – for drinking, agriculture, industry - and the environment for fresh water is pondered at length. Lynas argues that technological innovation and effectively managed markets hold the answers to overcoming the challenge that is 850 million people currently lacking access to clean drinking water, and the increasing need for food production in coming years.
• Aerosols Boundary. Lynas outlines how emissions from dirty fuels not only contribute to climate change, but damage the health of millions. And, many of these emissions are caused by the cooking habits of the world’s poorest – “Indoor smoke pollution from old-style stoves or open fires burning wood, dung or coal kills 1.6 million people a year due to respiratory infections worsened by smoke inhalation; India alone suffers as many as half a million premature deaths.”
For a book about complex scientific issues, The God Species is highly readable, and unlike many books of its genre, it eschews the temptation to scream that we’re all going to die. Instead, it offers some sober and optimist ideas on what can be done to ensure that all humans, both present and future, can live safely and happily on our planet.
It's a welcome sight to see such a positively framed story on the cover of one of the world's magazines, and the accompanying article is well worth a read.
The answer, it turns out, is no - we won't be able to eradicate the disease until we have a vaccine, and even then, as a chronic syndrome, it will take a generation to stop.
But, that doesn't detract from the amazing story of how the world has responded to the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Inside the magazine, and online, it contains a truly impressive graph, reproduced below.
It shows how AIDS deaths peaked in 2005, and how thanks to the miracle of anti-retro viral drugs, lives are being saved. It's estimated that 5 million lives have been saved so far, and as the Global Fund and others scale up their work, there's even more scope for progress.
Contracting HIV/AIDS as a person in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s was akin to a death sentence, as far too many of my South African friends have witnessed first hand. Today, it's still a life-changing disease, but millions have access to drugs that can transform lives, as the below clip shows.
As the public and politicians ask increasingly blunt questions about the effectiveness of aid, it's to results like these that we need to point.
Aid, invested wisely, works.
Some of the world's poorest countries have no other way of funding the drugs needed to fight HIV/AIDS - or as world leaders ready to gather in London for the GAVI pledging conference, basic vaccines for disease that could save 4 million lives in the next 5 years.
That's why we're committed at the Global Poverty Project to working with others to ensure that our aid budget is spent on things that really work, and which really make a difference in the lives of the world's poor.
This fantastic TED talk from polio expert Bruce Aylward explains how we can be a part of seeing an end to polio - an issue that we'll be campaigning on extensively later this year.
If you don't have time to watch the whole 18 minutes, the transcript of our favourite bit is below:
Ladies and gentlemen, with a combination of smart people, smart technology and smart investments, polio can now be eradicated anywhere. We have major challenges, you can imagine, to finish this job, but as you've also seen, it's doable, it has great secondary benefits, and polio eradication is a great buy. And as long as any child anywhere is paralyzed by this virus, it's a stark reminder that we are failing, as a society, to reach children with the most basic of services. And for that reason, polio eradication: it's the ultimate in equity; and it's the ultimate in social justice. The huge social movement that's been involved in polio eradication is ready to do way more for these children. It's ready to reach them with bed nets, with other things. But capitalizing on their enthusiasm, capitalizing on their energy means finishing the job that they started 20 years ago.
Finishing polio is a smart thing to do, and it's the right thing to do. Now we're in tough times economically. But as David Cameron of the United Kingdom said about a month ago when he was talking about polio, "There's never a wrong time to do the right thing." Finishing polio eradication is the right thing to do. And we are at a crossroads right now in this great effort over the last 20 years. We have a new vaccine, we have new resolve, and we have new tactics. We have the chance to write an entirely new polio-free chapter in human history. But if we blink now, we will lose forever the chance to eradicate an ancient disease. Here's a great idea to spread: End polio now. Help us tell the story. Help us build the momentum. So that very soon every child, every parent everywhere can also take for granted a polio-free life forever.
I was sent to the Genocide Memorial Museum by a guy I’d met the night before at dinner, a man by the name of Laurent. He told me that if I was to understand anything about Rwanda, I’d have to visit the museum.
So I did.
And there, in the entry foyer, was a life-sized photo of Patrick, and the caption you just read. The name looked familiar. The man who’d sent me here, Laurent – his surname was Gashugi.
This boy was his son.
Hacked to death by a machete at the age of 5.
One of 800,000 victims of Rwanda’s genocide in 1994 – a conflict that I remember seeing on the news growing up.
I was given purpose to share this story, having recently spoken at the OxFID conference on development in crisis and conflict. I knew it was the story that I wanted to open with, something that would grab people at 10am on a Sunday. I wanted to make the point that conflict is about people, and its effects are intensely personal. It’s a lot more than statistics and numbers and dry journal articles about ‘building effective institutions in fragile and post-conflict states.’
But I wasn’t so sure where I’d go after that. I wanted to link back to talking about how poverty and conflict were linked, and how if we were to prevent conflict, then part of our response would need to include ensuring that all people, wherever they live, had the chance to pursue their dreams.
Pondering this on the train, I opened up a book that one of our presenters had given to me to read the week before. Called Three Cups of Tea, it recounts the journey of Greg Mortenson, an American who got lost on the way down from an attempted summit of K2 in Pakistan, was taken in by a remote mountain village to recover, and in return promised to return to build a school as a gesture of thanks.
I was keen to read it because it came recommended by an unlikely source. The week before I had been chatting to a Conservative MP who had just returned from a week in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had just finished reading the book, and was brimming with enthusiasm with the realisation that well-targeted aid could work, especially in conflict zones like the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.
And, reading it on the train, I could see why. Greg’s journey – with all its ups and downs – was one of unsuspecting humility, one that placed the hopes and dreams of the people he met at the centre of his mission. It’s a journey that didn’t always come naturally or easily to Greg, his mis-steps, close calls and frustrated reflections demonstrating just how hard it can be to turn good intentions into good outcomes. And, it’s a journey that makes human the daily struggles and triumphs of people who love, learn, argue and aspire just like us – but who we usually only ever hear about as fleeting references to civilian casualties following drone strikes or terrorist attacks.
Three Cups of Tea offers us the chance to learn some of Greg’s lessons without having to spend a decade in Pakistan. Through it, we have the chance to see the importance of really listening to the people we’re looking to support, recognizing that they understand the barriers and opportunities in their community better than we could ever hope. It gives us an opportunity to see the power of investing in girls’ education first-hand, seeing the transformation that it sparks not just in individuals, but in whole communities.
And, coming back to the original thread of the post, Three Cups of Tea gives us the chance to see that ultimately, the best thing we can do to prevent conflict and fight extremism is to support people, and especially girls, to pursue their dreams.
You can buy Three Cups of Tea online, or hire it from your local library.
You can support Greg’s work at www.ikat.org... and if you want to learn more about aid or other topics, check out the info bank here.
We’ve written recently about the global population ticking over 7 billion this year. Forecast to reach 9 billion by mid-century, our team at the Global Poverty Project are often asked, “How is the world going to cope with having so many people? Won’t having fewer poor people damage the environment?”
