Challenging times

Tara McIndoe is on a roll. Here's her third post from the Fighting Hunger Conference:

Jeff Sachs’ message is very depressing: due to climate change and projected population growth it will be impossible (yes, that’s what he said!) to feed all the people who are currently in poverty and facing hunger. Developed world governments are currently “ineffective”. In fact, one billion of the malnourished people on the planet (those who are obese) are poor people in rich economies.

What can be done?

Sachs strongly maintains that our primary responsibility is to make the world a safer place for our children. We are failing in that at the moment.

We need to consolidate the aid business and getting rid of redundant and ineffective mechanisms for development. Ireland has committed that 20% of its new aid will go to agricultural development. This should go to a “global fund” that other countries are encouraged to support (by donating their pledges to it!). He would like Ireland to be the first contributor to such a fund – not planting a flag but contributing to a genuine multilateral fund. That is one way to be a world leader.

In the last month, three trillion US dollars was found in the developed world to bail out banks...surely if we apply ourselves we could assist those people so poor that they cannot help themselves.