NEWS
EVENTS
Stop War. Start Aiding. Change the world.
Other | Monday 27th January 2014 | Ewan
For many years, Bill Gates was viewed by many of us as a rich and powerful IT boffin who lucked out when his software Windows became a global operating system. I'm sure many of us had images in our heads of Bill taking his wife and kids to a privately owned island while his company made him more millions and the rest of us could only dream of his life of luxury.
He's now advocating that we stop funding our war budgets and start boosting the ongoing foreign aid projects that has lifted third world countries out of poverty. His latest newsletter from his Gatesfoundation.org website is a massive debunking of the myth that foreign does not help poor countries become more developed. Gates strikes out a clear argument that literally demolishes the idea that foreign aid does not work and is a waste of taxpayers money. What's more, the amount that we spend funding our egotistical wars could go towards saving the lives of millions.
The great thing about aiding countries that are still stuck in poverty, is that not only does it provide it’s people with things like vaccines, education, health care - all these things actually lay the foundation for the country to develop itself to the point where it becomes self-sustaining and no longer needs to survive from outside aid, thereby eliminating poverty altogether. It is a myth and a lie that we cannot live in a world without poverty and that rich countries only get richer and poor countries only get poorer.
A poll was asked Americans what they thought the share of the countries budget goes to aid, the average response being 25% When asked what people thought the government should spend on aid, most people said %10
The actual numbers are much less, with Norway (The world’s most generous country) donating just 3% of it’s budget. The United States spends less than 1% of it’s budget on aid. That sums up to about $30 Billion a year, which is spent on health, vaccines, bed nets, family planning, drugs to keep people with HIV alive and so on. The rest goes towards things like new roads, schools, irrigations systems.
What Bill is trying to say is that even though we spend much less than we should be on foreign aid, the amount we ARE spending is doing incredible things around the world.
“The global picture of poverty has been completely redrawn in my lifetime.”
- Since 2000 440 Million children have been immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases.
- Since 1988 2.5 Billion Children have been immunized against Polio.
- By the end of 2013, programs supported by the Global Fund were responsible for: 6.1 Million people receiving antiretroviral therapy.
- GAVI has provided funding to strengthen health systems and immunization services in more than 70 countries.
“The U.S. government spends more than twice as much on farm subsidies as on health aid. It spends more than 60 times as much on the military. “
So why are the United States (And probably us too!) spending Billions on blowing up other, less developed countries when we could be channeling that money into a better standard of living for the entire world? It’s a change that is actually utterly feasible in the 21st century. We have the technological means and advancements in science to ensure that third world countries could easily be developed into self-sustained economies, but our politicians, bureaucrats and leaders don’t want their hard earned paycheck falling into the hands of billions who are in more need of it.
What Bill (And Melinda) claim in their newsletter, is that not only does foreign aiding help poorer countries develop, help educate it's people and make them self-sustaining is that it actually solves some of the worlds “Mythical” problems, such as overpopulation.
Another myth that Bill debunks is the idea that the world would not be able to sustain a world where diseases and poverty don't exist. The fact is that the reverse is actually true and that research has shown and proven that better healthcare, better living environments and better standards of living actually decrease global birth rates because parents can actually control the kind of family they want to raise.
“When children survive in greater numbers, parents decide to have smaller families.”
So the evidence is clear enough. More money spent on foreign aid across the globe does not breed more problems for humanity. We have more than enough resources to go around, we have the technology to deal with diseases and even food problems. We spend way, way too much blowing stuff up with tanks, helicopters and stealth bombers, when really we should be ensuring a better quality of life for men, women and children across the world. We have the capacity to ensure a better quality of life for everyone. Everyone has a right to live.
“We all have the chance to create a world where extreme poverty is the exception rather than the rule, and where all children have the same chance to thrive, no matter where they’re born. For those of us who believe in the value of every human life, there isn’t any more inspiring work under way in the world today.”
