Differences?
Today (it's Easter, so I had time) I did some reading. I had over two months of magazines in my bag that I finally had time to read. One article in Intermediair caught my eye. It's an interview with William Easterly, who says we shouldn't put so much money into helping the poor anymore.
He states that we've thrown away 2.300.000.000.000 dollar the past 50 years. That's a lot of money. However, like he admits in the interview, it's less then 6 cents a day per poor person over these 50 years. No wonder it didn't do anything. If you are struggling to survive, you put every cent you get (and you get 6 in this case on average) into food for living. However, you need more to actually escape the extreme poverty trap.
The funny thing is that this is exactly what Jerry Sachs says. But Sachs and Easterly are each others opposites and mr. Easterly says in his interview he thinks people like mr Sachs are in part the reason for the problem. However if you read the book from Jeffery Sachs, end of poverty, you see they have almost everything in common.
Easterly says Sachs thinks up his ideas in Washington, however Sachs biggest complaint is that the world bank and IMF think up everything in Washington and don't get down to the local places. Sachs' diagnosis is specific to every country and location, he wants to involve the locals and build it up together with them. The same as Easterly says they should do.
For me this is one clear case of hearing what you want to hear, not what is being said. The journalist (a good one for a change) says this in the end. Easterly gives the exact answer Sachs does in his book. It's amazing that they obviously hate each other so much they are not willing to listen. Not to read each others books and complain the other one doesn't know what he's talking about.
There are of course differences. Easterly says all the money has been thrown out the window, Sachs says it's simply not enough. Sachs says: give more, and spend it differently, Easterly says we need to stop giving and put it into training, medicine, etc. However, this has failed every time in the past.
But still, if two great minds would be willing to listen to each other, I think their differences are so insignificant compared to their shared views. And even though some differences will remain, working together would be much wiser.
He states that we've thrown away 2.300.000.000.000 dollar the past 50 years. That's a lot of money. However, like he admits in the interview, it's less then 6 cents a day per poor person over these 50 years. No wonder it didn't do anything. If you are struggling to survive, you put every cent you get (and you get 6 in this case on average) into food for living. However, you need more to actually escape the extreme poverty trap.
The funny thing is that this is exactly what Jerry Sachs says. But Sachs and Easterly are each others opposites and mr. Easterly says in his interview he thinks people like mr Sachs are in part the reason for the problem. However if you read the book from Jeffery Sachs, end of poverty, you see they have almost everything in common.
Easterly says Sachs thinks up his ideas in Washington, however Sachs biggest complaint is that the world bank and IMF think up everything in Washington and don't get down to the local places. Sachs' diagnosis is specific to every country and location, he wants to involve the locals and build it up together with them. The same as Easterly says they should do.
For me this is one clear case of hearing what you want to hear, not what is being said. The journalist (a good one for a change) says this in the end. Easterly gives the exact answer Sachs does in his book. It's amazing that they obviously hate each other so much they are not willing to listen. Not to read each others books and complain the other one doesn't know what he's talking about.
There are of course differences. Easterly says all the money has been thrown out the window, Sachs says it's simply not enough. Sachs says: give more, and spend it differently, Easterly says we need to stop giving and put it into training, medicine, etc. However, this has failed every time in the past.
But still, if two great minds would be willing to listen to each other, I think their differences are so insignificant compared to their shared views. And even though some differences will remain, working together would be much wiser.
posted by Bas van de Haterd at 2:04 PM
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