Help me understand please! Third world countries...

[debilorrah]

Quote:

I know, it just looked like you were speaking to government dollars, to which I totally agree with you. Personally, I would love to see the world educated and functioning above poverty level. We can't even do that here!!! I should be a Miss USA contestant. I want World Peace. Bats lashes.

LOL..i'd loose with the swim suit competion part..

Maybe not in Jamaica..... (Me too)

 

[PetersonD]

Well, I think we should help others all we can, but I think maybe our first obligation is to our own citizens...

 

[MiddleMan]

This is an interesting and serious issue. There are about a dozen different opinions on if the money we donate to foriegn aid actually accopmplishes any good. While I do belive that education is a good thing, And the more educated a population is the better off they will be in general. I have no idea how the monies we donate actually get to the people it is intended for. I do know that in some specifc cases though such as food aid, the aid given is sometimes acutally detrimental. For example, Somailia. When the UN started dumping mass amounts of free food into the country to help out, one of the unintended side effects off this sudden influx of very cheap or free food was that quite a few local farmers and local food markets went out of business. You just can't compete in a marketplace when the competition is giving the product away. Now more than a few of these displaced folks were the entreprenurial bussiness class. Deprived of their original lively hood they looked for something else to feed their families. So, groups of former fishermen, and former businessmen discovered an easy source of cash to support themselves. The got together and became pirates. The point is, that bandaid type solutions don't work in the long run, and working solutions that will fix the problems long term are dependent on local governments being stable and not corrput.

So what started out as a well intentioned attempt to help out, created a new and different problem with no easy solution. A part of this problem I think, is the mindset of Oh, let me give you stuff, instead of oh let me show you how to run a successful sustainable agrobusiness. Part of that is that the US in particular really doen't know how to run a low to no input small scale farm any more. At least not on the level of government or the large agro businesses that control the food industry here in the US. And those that do know how to do such things are busy doing just that to feed their own families here. Often times at odds with the government and those same large companies.

I can see where the problems are, I just have no idea how to repair the problems with the system. Personally I only donate to causes that work in my local community. For local people, with local problems so that I know my money is going to try to help the comunity I live in. The world is a huge place, with many many people and problems that I just can't fix. I can however work to improve things in my little corner of the world. We have a lot of undereducated, poor, hungry foks right here for me to try to help out.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

These are good questions for which there are no easy answers. A good way to start would be to contact the agencies soliciting your donations and ask them what they intend to do with them, and why. There are a lot of people groups around the world whose honest efforts to simply live from day to day are being thwarted by circumstances out of their control. It's not fair to say they don't really want their lives to improve. There are corrupt governments, guerrilla armies, genocidal oppression, natural disasters, diseases and more to spoil their days. We really have no idea of the challenges some folks encounter every day of their lives.

The opportunity to go to school is a wonderful way to provide practical help for many children. That doesn't mean they all will enter medical professions, but it will enable them to become literate, to learn to read, write and do basic math computations, to learn about the rest of the world and its history. And thus, to be less easy to opress, to mislead or enslave.

Certainly there are needs in the United States, and many worthwhile causes to support in every neighborhood. But in comparison with most of the rest of the world, even the poorest US citizen is better off than a majority of the world's population.

Nobody can do everything to help everybody, but everybody can do something to help someone somewhere.

 

[bumpershoot]

I have been to and lived in Third world countries. Heifer is one of the very few organizations that I give money to precisely because they are not giving charity, they are enabling a family to sustain itself and return the investment back into the community in the form of money/trading that can be done and the requirement that they gift to another family.

I also think that giving kids an education is of value. It's not just the knowledge but the training of a mind to think. Please don't take this as snotty, it's not ment to be, but I think it is disingenuous to say that someone ought not receive an education just because they might leave the community in which they started. Every person should have choices. Perhaps being able to read will allow the farmer to read the seed bag labeled "GMO Corn" and know what GMO means and be able to make an informed decision about whether or not they would choose to plant such a thing. Perhaps being able to read will allow folks to make informed decisions about things that impact their lives like AIDS, crop management, who's in the Gov, what the value of the coffee or oil or eggs are that they are producing. Not everyone who learns to read leaves the community for that higher education but everyone who learns to read does benefit from it. The world as a whole benefits from it. Are there folks here in the US who need the same hand extended to them? Absolutely. I don't see that helping one group means that another can't be helped also.

On the trade economy vs the cash economy I submit that folks can and do work within both systems but a country needs cash or it doesn't play with the rest of the world. I know that I work in both the trade economy and the cash economy and both significantly impact my family.

Lastly, where do extremists have their strongest foothold? In communities that are poor and ignorant. Perhaps the education/skills we give today to someone will save the life of someone we love tomorrow. Just sayin'....

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Take a look here: http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Then decide if you might have a bit to spare for helping others in the world.

 

[debilorrah]

WOW!!!! I am in the top 3.17% of richest people in the world and I do not make even close to 45K a year.

 

[Bettacreek]

But, that's just checking cash. People here may make more than a world, yet not have a roof over their heads or food to fill their bellies every day. Just because third world countries are not making cash does not mean that they are automatically starving. They probably do most things in trade or raise everything that their families need on their own land. They're also probably not paying 30% of their income for taxes. I think the cash comparisons are "wrong".

 

[rufus]

Education is what a nation makes of it. When Britain left India and Pakistan, they left behind some excellent school systems. Pakistan converted theirs to madrassas. India kept their secular. While India was educating people and raising their standard of living, Pakistan was teaching kids to memorize the Koran and to hate. India is now an economic power house and Pakistan is a basket case.

Pakistan would starve if it were not for the Food for Peace program. The USA gives nations free grain and food stuffs which those nations sell on their markets. This provides revenue to support the governments of those nations. The people of those nations do not realize they are not paying the full cost of their government. Nor do they realize how much they depend upon the USA for their food stuffs.

Pakistan and Afghanistan need to raise more wheat and less opium poppies.

My two cent.

Rufus

 

[twentynine]

Everyone open their eyes. We got allot of "third word country" going on right here in the good Ole USA.