Poverty alleviation: are we doing enough?

The period 6?9 September saw a major event taking place in New York with the Millennium Summit hosted by the UN Secretary General. Around 160 world leaders met to discuss challenges faced by the human race in the new millennium. The focus of the summit was on poverty and development, but through the multitude of powerful voices heard on the occasion there was hardly any consensus that emerged on any of the major issues that were covered. Goals that were discussed included halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, advancing basic education to all children, and bridging the digital divide. The solutions put forward by various leaders included an appeal for greater charity by the rich and debt forgiveness. But other than appeals that we increase the level of income of the poorest at a rate of 140 000 people per day for the next 15 years and for sharing the benefits of globalization between rich and poor, there was no effort to define a concrete programme of action. Ironically, on the same day the US Department of Agriculture released its report on hunger which stated that in the US itself 31 million grappled with hunger last year, either actually suffering hunger or living on the edge of it. If this is the situation in the richest nation on earth, have we really learnt anything about meeting the needs of the poor? And can summits and grand spectacles produce any action at all?