At the recent Millennium Development Goals Conference held for the United Nations assembly, leaders from all over the world gathered together and discussed their efforts in ending world poverty. However, most countries had their own opinions and goals regarding the current situation. Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said, "Our ability to end poverty and hunger and improve child and maternal health depends upon the long-term availability of fresh water, food, medicine, and raw materials that nature provides." While the president of the Central African Republic, Francois Bozize, said his country is taking steps at dealing with impoverishment and other issues, such as infrastructure and life expectancy. "Poverty rates in our country continue to be alarming," he shared.Our very own President Obama was present at the conference, and addressed what he calls the 'new' U.S. Global Development Policy. "Our focus on assistance has saved lives in the short term, but it hasn't always improved those societies over the long term," he said, "Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That's not development, that's dependence, and it's a cycle we need to break. Instead of just managing poverty, we have to offer nations and peoples a path out of poverty." Calling America "the global leader in providing assistance," Obama hopes the U.S. will reach out to countries that are moving to democracy from authoritarianism. "No one nation can do everything everywhere and still do it well. To meet our goals, we must be more selective and focus our efforts where we have the best partners and where we can have the greatest impact," he stated boldly.
As Olivia reported in the previous post, Obama may be on the verge of 'losing his mojo.' So what do you think? Are his plans to tackle worldwide poverty on spot? Or should he focus on fixing up his own nation first?
6 comments:
I find the battle with poverty is a big issue that needs lots and lots of help. However, i feel that Obama should try his hardest to solve problems at home first and then go out and try to be that world leader that we took from Britain. I understand that presidents always want to not only help out our country but go out and try to make the whole world better so that they seem magnificent, but if America is not in that state to be the world leader, it won't look magnificent to other countries. Obama just needs to get USA back on top and back to that country tat people find hope for a new life if they come here. Once we deal with that we can try and make other countries better so that they can always look back on us for help.
While the United States is not in the best shape right now, we're still at the top of the world, and thus have the responsibility to reach out and help the countries in need that cannot help themselves. The global issue of poverty could have been solved long ago, if only people had the will to sacrifice a little for those who really needed it. While we ought not neglect the needs of our citizens at home, we must look at the big picture. The world is much bigger than just the United States, and if it is at all reasonable, we must do our part to share our blessings with the rest of the world, even if it means giving up a bit of our own prosperity. Poverty is the biggest obstacle to liberty and equality in most parts of the world, and the United States has a moral duty to fight the problem.
I agree with Jack that it is our responsibility to help countries that cannot help themselves. However, we must make sure that our own country is alright before we help others. It's kind of like the oxygen mask procedure for airplanes: you need to help yourself before you help others. The same idea applies for what we need to do to battle poverty. We need to help our economy and battle poverty in our own country first before we tackle other countries problems.
The problem with helping out other countries is that the U.S. itself is in financial trouble. If we cannot even afford to help ourselves, how can we afford to help others? And how do we help others? In order to provide a path out of poverty, we need to create jobs. Unfortunately, we also need jobs, and our economic strength has not yet recovered. Get us out of the recession, then help others get out of their recession or poverty.
The most entertaining part of the entire UN session was when the US Delegates walked out because the Iranian president was insulting them. And its not Americas responsibility to be the world "Mother", although its a nice thing to do to help people out, its not our first priority. We must protect the interests of Americans first.
Poverty has always been in issue in the world. There is and will always be people that are wealthy and prosperous. On the other hand, there are always people that are poverty-stricken in some place in the world. As a result, if we, the United States, were to battle poverty, we would need a lot of man power, money, and supplies to help other nations. But that's the problem. We don't have enough money, nor supplies to help poor, third-world countries because we aren't in the greatest shape either. There are many economic problems in America right now, as 27 states in America are well over the national benchmark of a 9.6% unemployment rate. Moreover, based on last year's statistics, 45 million people, or 1 in 7 Americans in 2009 were below the poverty line. Based on the unemployment rates in the states (as stated earlier), it doesn't seem as though the unemployment number has changed for the better this year. Obama definitely has noble goals. But before he play Superman and solve these problems, he needs fix the local issues in the United States before he can save whole Earth from the clutches of poverty.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/11/poverty-rate-in-us-saw-re_n_713387.html
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