I just got done reading the article from last week titled "Inequality and human development." I thought it was interesting, however some of the suggestions the article made had no logistical solutions as to how these ideas could actually be put into practice. It emphasized that one way to decrease inequalities is to close the gaps in educational opportunities, but how is this to be achieved until social change has been made to alleviate reasons the gaps exist in the first place? Furthermore, it also suggested that the poor need to be empowered in order to reduce poverty, but the article did not elaborate on any suggestions for how this might be achieved. Also, the discussion of the three "As" for reducing inequality left me a little puzzled. All three (access, affordability, and accountability) make sense, but who is going to pay for these to be acheived? Where is all this money going to come from? It just seemed to emphasize to me that so many of the reasons of why extreme poverty exists is because of all these reasons that feed into each other, and there doesn't seem to be a clear place to start in order to begin the process of breaking down this problem. The ideas it gave were great, and fairly intuitive if one thought about the reasons why one would be impoverished, but I didn't really get any sense of how any of these objectives might be achieved or where the money would come from to make these necessary changes.
I found the section of inequality and health in the United States quite startling. One quote that really caught my eye and helped put things in perspective was that 18,000 Americans die prematurely each year solely because they lack health insurance. I guess that is what happens when you live in the only wealthy country in the world that does not have a universal health insurance system, as the article points out.
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Good Questions. One initiative that has worked in the past to empower poor people to uplift themselves out of poverty in developing countries is through Micro loans, as revolutionized by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate from Bangladesh. Through the Grameen Bank, they extend small credit to poor women, usually considered too risky by regular banking institutions, who in turn start small businesses, therefore, rising out of the trap that is poverty.
"Charity is not the answer to poverty," Yunus wrote earlier this year. "It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away the individual's initiative to break through the wall of poverty."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0610140237oct14,1,3952805.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Hello Sheila, I saw a 20/20 program recently about inequality in the U.S., and a thought occurred to me that perhaps there could be ways to foster personal relationships between people with means to people that are struggling. What I’m saying is that many people want to help others, but don't know how to do it. And bureaucracies, system issues, and as you mention in your blog, distribution of money, get in the way. The other thing I noticed from the show was when they integrated people from affluent communities with those from more poverty stricken areas in social settings, many of them really enjoyed the interaction, and built mutually beneficial relationships that created opportunities and learning opportunities for both parties. I don't know if this can solve the big problems of inequality you mention, but it could be a way of helping more people in an effective way.
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