Microcredit: The Solution to Global Poverty Essay

In response to the recent failure of the international community to prevent the famine crisis in the Horn of Africa since July 2011, Suzanne Dvorak the chief executive of Save the Children wrote that, “We need to provide help now. But we cannot forget that these children are wasting away in a disaster that we could - and should - have prevented” she added, “The UN estimates that every $1 spent in prevention saves $7 in emergency spending.” (Dvorak, 2011).

In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” by Peter Singer, Singer uses analogies and propaganda to defend his solution for world poverty. In the article, Singer parallels a story of a man choosing to save a car over saving a child with modern Americans choosing luxuries over donating money to save underprivileged children. He provides resources of organizations to help these children, and he continuously describes the problems with both materialism in American society and children who are dying preventable deaths. Singer’s solution is that individuals should simply give away any money that is not absolutely essential for basic necessities.

Ever had that one friend? The one who tries to help, but no matter how hard he tries, he just aggravates the situation. This friend, Steve, insists he is helping, and those around, too, would support that he is indeed helping. But Steve is actually worsening the circumstances. He is like countries who provide foreign aid to less developed countries. Foreign aid, defined as “the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population,” can be military, economic, or humanitarian (“Foreign”). It is often granted to less developed countries in order to evoke government reforms or to stimulate economic growth. However, foreign aid neither elicits government reform, nor does it consistently and reliably stimulate economic growth; therefore, the United States should discontinue providing foreign economic aid.

Poverty is prevalent throughout the world around us. We watch television and see famous people begging us to sponsor a child for only fifty cents a day. We see images of starving children in faraway countries, and our hearts go out to them. But we really do not know the implications of poverty, why it prevails, or even what we can do to help fight this massive problem in our world. In Peter Singer’s article “Famine, Affluence, and Mortality,” he argues that it is a moral duty for affluent nations to help starving people in distant countries.

Hardin informs us that the well- intentioned of helping is actually counterproductive. When the United States gives international aid to third world countries, we cause more suffering in the end. The poor country that receives aid is not growing wealthy or

In Peter Singer’s Argument “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, Singer positions himself as an advocate for the refugees who are suffering in other countries across seas. He does not believe in big government prioritizing images of power over helping those who are in grave danger of starving themselves. Singer believes that hunger is preventable and

Throughout the world, from Africa to the Middle East, some people, when it is in their power to help the citizens of their country, sadly choose not to help, but to harm. Throughout the history of the Middle East, there have been warlords, dictators, and terrorist cells. “Quaddi had taken the city and gave a stark choice to America, aid him or witness a slaughter of innocents” (Humanitarian intervention para. 8). Some argued against sending the military aid and to give in to Quaddi and appease him. However, America could not stand by as innocents were killed, so organized strikes were arranged to save the innocents. Recently, America has given $4208 million to Somali in donations for humanitarian aid. Throughout history, America has been a crucial ally to countries and people in

What are some issues that threaten the immediate stability and balance of the world? War? Nukes? Global Warming? Economic fluctuations? The answer is none of the above. All of these are admissible issues, but they don’t come near to the immediate impact and effects that accompany world poverty. An estimated three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day, yet there hasn’t been any drastic actions taken to counteract this predicament in a sustaining manner (Shah). However, writers such as Peter Singer and Garrett Hardin are doing a stupendous job bringing this topic into the spotlight. Both “Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor,” and “The Singer Solution To World Poverty,” offer insight to this serious issue. Both authors

People are suffering all around the world and are desperate for the help of those who can provide it. We as Americans can't even begin to comprehend the problems that people of Uganda experience in their daily lives. The struggles that they face derive from the fact that “51% of the Ugandan population lives on less than $1 a day” (Katie Davis Speaks). Many of the people in Uganda are uneducated and therefore unable to obtain jobs, resulting in a massive unemployment rate in Uganda. Without a job, it's nearly impossible for them to get the money they need to support themselves, much less an entire family. Most do not have easy access to some of the most basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter. With poor living conditions and health

You bought those new Jordans yet? How about the new iPad? What if I told you that you could possibly save a child’s life with that money? In his September 5, 1999 New York Times Magazine article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” Peter Singer goes in on American consumerism and its connection to world poverty. He also explains how donating $200 to overseas aid organizations like UNICEF and Oxfam America is enough to “help a sickly 2-year-old transform into a healthy 6-year old.” He goes on to point out that an American household only really needs to spend $30,000 a year on basic necessities. This number remains the same regardless of income so any income above this should be donated to these

Peter Singer, a prominent moral philosopher and public intellectual, has written at length about many ethical issues. He subscribes to utilitarianism, which is the position that the best moral action is that which maximizes the well-being of conscious entities; this view is made apparent through his writings. In his essay What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You? Singer presents the idea that although the rich are capable of mitigating extreme poverty, there has been little improvement for the poorest 10 percent of the world’s population. He maintains that all life is equal and, therefore, saving the lives of the poor is a moral imperative for those who can afford to. “We are far from acting in accordance to that belief,”

For instance, in the Central African Republic, one US dollar is equal to 533.25 Central African Francs, or CFAs. If America was on a budget of 30,000 US dollars per household, then the Central African society would eventually be considered wealthy in comparison to other impoverished communities. Therefore, Central Africa would inevitably be required to give away their “non-essential” money to poorer nations. When this scenario progresses throughout the whole world, eventually every household would reach an annual income of $30,000. This means under Singer’s so-called solution, the end result would be a continued delineation between the households who make above $30,000, and those who still only make $30,000 annually. There will always be individuals who are considered rich, and that thought of as poor. This exposes a gaping hole in Singer’s theory to end world poverty by showing that poverty is not the result of one's own money, but rather it is controlled by basic necessities like food, water, and shelter, and by many other factors that have nothing to do with money. Poverty, as with beauty, is in the eye of the

Whereas the United States? budget deficit forces many government agencies, including the Agency for International Development(AID), to lose funding. Furthermore there is no reason to send billions of dollars over seas when northern countries like the United States and Great Britain currently face the highest levels of child poverty that either country has seen in over 25 years. In addition to poverty, other domestic problems such as rape, robberies, and murders in this country still exist. Until domestic issues are solved, any future increase in foreign aid should also be kept to a minimum.

Since 1991, the southern half of Somalia, a poverty stricken African nation, has seen various tribal militias battle for dominance and power over individual regions of the country. Violence has plagued Mogadishu, the capital, since warlords ousted the former president. Mere months after the collapse of the government, men, women and children in torn clothes ran helplessly towards packages dropped from military planes towards the hot sand of their tiny village. This action was one of many attempts to help underdeveloped nations receive food by the United Nations' World Food Programme. Within his article titled "Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor", Garret Hardin, a well-known philosopher of ecology, analyzes the difficulty

Unfortunately, it was estimated that roughly 1.2 billion people in 1993 lived in extreme or absolute poverty, that which Robert McNamara regards “‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable standard of human dignity’” (Singer 219, 220). These estimates can be projected at nearly 2 billion today. A large majority of the people living in absolute poverty resides in underdeveloped countries. Among the nearly 4.4 billion people in these countries, “3/5 lives in societies lacking basic sanitation; 1/3 go without safe drinking water; 1/4 lack adequate housing; 1/5 are undernourished, and 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day” (Speth 1).