Should Rich Nations Help the Poor?
Global Futures
1. Edition June 2016
136 Pages, Softcover
Practical Approach Book
Short Description
In the past decade, the developed world has spent almost US$ 2 trillion on foreign aid for poorer countries. Yet 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty and around 2.9 billion cannot meet their basic human needs.
But should rich nations continue to help the poor? In this short book, leading global poverty analyst David Hulme explains why helping the world's neediest communities is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do ? if rich nations want to take care of their own citizens' future welfare.
The real question is how best to provide this help. The way forward, Hulme argues, is not conventional foreign aid but trade, finance and environmental policy reform. But this must happen alongside a change in international social norms so that we all recognise the collective benefits of a poverty-free world.
In the past decade, the developed world has spent almost US$ 2 trillion on foreign aid for poorer countries. Yet 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty and around 2.9 billion cannot meet their basic human needs.
But should rich nations continue to help the poor? In this short book, leading global poverty analyst David Hulme explains why helping the world's neediest communities is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do ? if rich nations want to take care of their own citizens' future welfare.
The real question is how best to provide this help. The way forward, Hulme argues, is not conventional foreign aid but trade, finance and environmental policy reform. But this must happen alongside a change in international social norms so that we all recognise the collective benefits of a poverty-free world.
1 Why Worry About the Distant Poor?
2 The Limits of Foreign Aid
3 What Can Be Done?
4 Climate Change and Inequality
5 From Broken Promises to Global Partnership
Further Reading
Thomas G. Weiss, The Graduate Center, CUNY
