Sunday, October 23, 2005

The influence of activism

We may find out soon just how influential Jeffrey Sachs actually is, as the prominent economist has joined the chorus calling for PMPM to meet the 0.7% benchmark for foreign aid:
The world can and must do more to end poverty and cannot continue to ignore the billions of people dying needlessly, said Sachs, who has been named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people.

At a speech Saturday before executives, researchers and politicians at the annual conference of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Sachs said Canada needs to reconsider and agree to the terms of the United Nations Millennium Project, which is based on a Canadian idea...

He said many people have come to blame the poor for their misfortune, or find excuses with their local governments to avoid helping.

"A day doesn't go by in my work for the United Nations or as a specialist in development where the claim is not made that there's nothing that can be done because (of) the level of corruption and mismanagement," he said.

"That's such a poor diagnosis and such a weak misunderstanding of the realities of the planet. It is shockingly negligent of the lives we're losing."

Of course, Martin has ignored many public pleas in the past, and likely won't pay any more attention to this one. But Sachs is right in pointing out that it's the general public which has the capacity to force a change...and that few people would choose not to help given a full picture both of the actual problems, and the degree to which they can be solved through reasonable investments. We'll see how many more calls to action it takes before the message begins to seep into the public consciousness.

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