Ending global poverty individually

Swan Red · May 29, 2014

Currently there are 1.2 billion people living on less than the equivalent of $1.25 a day, I say equivalent as it’s the spending power of $1.25 in the US not what that sum buys you in the domestic market.

The good news is that this is down from 1.9 billion in 1990 when the figure was $1.

I’ve followed discussions around giving to charity for a while and efficacy of charity along with administrative overheads are often cited as reasons against donating more. It seems to me that if what we are looking at is ensuring our donations get to those that most need them in the form that they most need there are now options to do this. One of them is a charity I’ve been supporting for a while.

http://www.givedirectly.org/

I’m excited by the approach because I think cash the best way to empower people while also creating economic activity. We empower people by enabling them to make decisions, we facilitate those decisions by providing them with the cash to do so. It’s really simple and studies by GiveWell are really positive, they've named it their top charity.

http://www.givewell.org/about

“a non profit dedicated to finding outstanding giving opportunities”

There’s a blog I follow, I don’t always agree with the author but his arguments in favour of transferring cash to the poorest to bring them above this line I find compelling. I’m also aware that I’m pretty committed to the idea anyway so take this fwiw. It’s an interesting read regardless.

http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2014/02/how-to-end-destitution.html

The economist article he cites up top is also a pretty interesting read.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578643-world-has-astonishing-chance-take-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-not

There are interesting and important questions about the responsibility of governments, how aid is provided, what role have individuals in ending poverty globally but it seems we have a chance at making a positive difference if only for those recipients of cash.

I think sometimes we focus too much on what we can’t do, we can’t bring everyone out of poverty but we can someone. There was a study on sentencing that resulted in a bias being identified called the scope severity paradox, our reaction to crimes and famines often result in our being less responsive and taking action to resolve as the numbers affected increase. It’s one of the reasons that famine campaigns often run with a picture of a single person it leverages another bias the identifiable victim bias where we can empathise with a single victim in ways that we can’t with a group. But behind the big numbers are individuals and given we can get cash directly to them I think we should.

I’m not soliciting here fwiw I’m genuinely interested in other peoples perspective.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Swan Red

Tosh · May 29, 2014

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