Poverty Audio: Recent Episodes
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
What are our moral obligations to the world's poor? In this information age, those of us in rich countries can no longer plead ignorance; we see the faces of poverty on our TV and computer screens every day. But how do we go about ending poverty? How can we address the root causes rather than just the symptoms?
Aid has failed to create economic growth, says Moyo, and allows governments to evade their responsibilities. So when people say that aid provides essential services, they're missing the point. Except when disaster strikes, governments should be responsible for their citizens, not the international community.
Jeffrey Sachs discusses America's economic and moral crisis; development aid; the Occupy Wall Street movement; and the mobilization of youth around the world, fighting for the basic principles of freedom, justice, and equality.
Utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer lives up to his beliefs, giving away 25-30 percent of his income to alleviate absolute poverty, and defending animal rights--or as he puts it, "extending equality beyond the species boundary." Here are his thoughts on these topics and more.
The best system for discovering new approaches is not to have one planner at the top trying to decide what are going to be the successful innovations, says Bill Easterly. It's to have lots and lots of people at the bottom experimenting and finding their own innovations.
Women and girls are a powerful accelerator for change, says Nike Foundation's Swan Paik. By allowing girls to fall through irreversible trap doors in adolescence, the world is missing out on the tremendous potential that they have to offer.
"Although there is no magic bullet, social entrepreneurship unlocks everybody's ability to be a change maker and to participate in the solutions to their own problems," says Susan Davis of BRAC, the world's largest development agency and a microfinance pioneer.
After wars end, what steps should countries take to consolidate peace? Graciana del Castillo identifies five premises that are necessary for war economies to transition into sustainable and productive markets.
This short video on ethics asks: Are we responsible for the well-being of children around the globe, millions of whom die every year from preventable causes? Or does charity begin at home?
Inequality in America has been accelerating rapidly since the 1980s. But capping income levels could put liberty and competitiveness at risk. This short video on ethics asks: What is the right balance between liberty and equality?
"Where we are fiercely critical of grants-based approaches is the design of services that ignore the end recipient," says Acumen Fund chief investment officer Brian Trelstad. In this interview he shares ideas on how to use entrepreneurs in the developing world to combat poverty.
In the past 50 years, Africa has received more than $1 trillion in development-related aid. Has it improved Africans' lives? No, says Dambisa Moyo. In fact, aid has made the situation much worse.
It wouldn't take much to rescue those living in extreme poverty, says philosopher Peter Singer. If the top 90 percent of Americans gave at least 1 percent of their income we could reach the Millennium Development Goals.
Does labor abuse and outright slavery still exist in the United States? Yes, says author and journalist John Bowe, who travels from Florida to U.S.-owned Saipan to investigate modern global slave labor.
In this 2005 talk, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the New Millennium Project, proposes ways to end extreme poverty all over the world within the next 20 years.